Editing Mel Blanc (section)

===Animation voice work during the golden age of Hollywood===
[[File:Private Snafu - Spies.ogv|thumb|[[Private Snafu]]: ''[[Spies (1943 film)|Spies]]'', voiced by Blanc in 1943]]
In December 1936, Mel Blanc joined [[Warner Bros. Cartoons#1933–1944: Leon Schlesinger Productions|Leon Schlesinger Productions]], which was producing theatrical cartoon shorts for [[Warner Bros.]] After sound man [[Treg Brown]] was put in charge of cartoon voices, and [[Carl Stalling]] became music director, Brown introduced Blanc to animation directors [[Tex Avery]], [[Bob Clampett]], [[Friz Freleng]], and [[Frank Tashlin]], who loved his voices. The first cartoon Blanc worked on was ''Picador Porky'' (1937) as the voice of Porky's drunken friends who dress up as a bull.<ref name="Blanc"/> He soon after received his first starring role when he replaced [[Joe Dougherty]] as Porky Pig's voice in ''[[Porky's Duck Hunt]]'', which marked the debut of Daffy Duck, also voiced by Blanc.

Following this, Blanc became a very prominent vocal artist for Warner Bros., voicing a wide variety of the ''Looney Tunes'' characters. Bugs Bunny, as whom Blanc made his debut in ''[[A Wild Hare]]'' (1940),<ref>[[Michael Barrier (historian)|Barrier, Michael]] (2003), [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195167295 ''Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age''], Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-516729-0}}</ref><ref name="Bugs Bunny 1990">Adamson, Joe (1990). ''Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Grey Hare''. New York: Henry Holt. {{ISBN|978-0-8050-1190-6}}</ref> was known for eating carrots frequently (especially while saying his catchphrase "Eh, what's up, doc?"). To follow this sound with the animated voice, Blanc would bite into a carrot and then quickly spit into a [[spittoon]]. One often-repeated story is that Blanc was allergic to carrots, which Blanc denied.<ref>{{cite book|author1-link=Tim Lawson (writer)|first1=Tim|last1=Lawson|author2=Alisa Persons|title=The Magic Behind The Voices: A Who's Who of Cartoon Voice Actors|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6ffdBDDBUYsC&q=wild+hare|page=72|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2004|isbn=978-1-5780-6696-4}}</ref><ref>[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2820/did-mel-blanc-hate-carrots "Did Mel Blanc hate carrots?"] A Straight Dope column by Science Advisory Board Member Rico November 4, 2008 (accessed November 20, 2008)</ref>

In [[Walt Disney Animation Studios|Disney]]'s ''[[Pinocchio (1940 film)|Pinocchio]]'', Blanc was hired to perform the voice of Gideon the Cat. However, it was eventually decided to have Gideon be a mute character (similar to Dopey from ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs]]''), so all of Blanc's recorded dialogue was deleted except for a solitary hiccup, which was heard three times in the finished film.<ref>''No Strings Attached: The Making of Pinocchio'', Pinocchio DVD, 2009</ref>

Blanc also originated the voice and laugh of [[Woody Woodpecker]] for the theatrical cartoons produced by [[Walter Lantz]] for [[Universal Pictures]], but stopped voicing Woody after the character's first three shorts when he was signed to an exclusive contract with Warner Bros. Despite this, his laugh was still used in the ''Woody Woodpecker'' cartoons until 1951, when [[Grace Stafford]] recorded a softer version, while his "Guess who!?" signature line was used in the opening titles until the end of the series and closure of [[Walter Lantz Productions]] in 1972.<ref name="Blanc"/>

During World War II, Blanc served as the voice of the hapless [[Private Snafu]] in a series of shorts produced by Warner Bros. as a way of training recruited soldiers through the medium of animation.<ref name="looney.goldenagecartoons.com">{{cite web|url=http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/miscelooneyous/snafu/|title=Situation Normal All Fouled Up: A History of Private Snafu|website=Misce-Looney-Ous|access-date=June 20, 2020|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512092007/http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/miscelooneyous/snafu/|archive-date=May 12, 2008|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Throughout his career, Blanc, aware of his talents, protected the rights to his voice characterizations contractually and legally. He, and later his estate, never hesitated to take civil action when those rights were violated. Voice actors at the time rarely received screen credits, but Blanc was an exception; by 1944, his contract with Warner Bros. stipulated a credit reading "Voice characterization(s) by Mel Blanc". According to his autobiography, Blanc asked for and received this screen credit from studio boss [[Leon Schlesinger]] after he was denied a salary raise.<ref>{{cite web|title=Mel Blanc: From Anonymity To Offscreen Superstar (The advent of on-screen voice credits)|url=http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/mel-blanc-from-anonymity-to-offscreen-superstar-the-advent-of-on-screen-voice-credits/|first=Keith|last=Scott|author-link=Keith Scott (voice actor)|work=Cartoon Research|date=September 13, 2016|access-date=July 18, 2017}}</ref> Initially, Blanc's screen credit was limited only to cartoons in which he voiced Bugs Bunny. This changed in March 1945 when the contract was amended to also include a screen credit for cartoons featuring Porky Pig and/or Daffy Duck. This however, excluded any shorts with the two characters made before that amendment occurred, even if they released after the fact (''Book Revue'' and ''[[Baby Bottleneck]]'' are both examples of this). By the end of 1946, Blanc began receiving a screen credit in any subsequent Warner Bros. cartoon for which he provided voices.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=6641|title=Mel Blanc: filmography|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=November 25, 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013070120/http://movies.nytimes.com/person/6641/Mel-Blanc/filmography|archive-date=October 13, 2007}}</ref>