Monday, Aug. 29, 1988

Toontownie That's Not All Folks!

By Stefan Kanfer

In 1961 the victim of a head-on car crash lay speechless in a Los Angeles hospital. On the 21st day of silence, the neurosurgeon tried a desperate measure: "How are you feeling today, Bugs Bunny?" he asked. The reply was immediate: "Eh, just fine, Doc. How're you?" A question to Porky Pig ) elicited a similar response: "Just f-fine, th-th-thanks!" In his otherwise light-headed autobiography, Mel Blanc recalls, "It was as though Bugs and Porky, into whom I had breathed life three decades earlier, were returning the favor."

When he recovered, the voice of more than 400 animated characters resumed a career that had made him celebrated as the comic foil of Groucho Marx, George Burns and, most memorably, Jack Benny. It was for the Benny show that he regularly played a polar bear, an antique car, a "Union Depot train caller" ("Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc . . . amonga!"), a parrot, a Mexican ("What's your name?" "Sy." "Sy?" "Si"), and the choleric Professor LeBlanc, Jack's violin teacher: "Meester Be-nee, could I have some water, please?" "Water? Yes. There's some in the cooler down the hall." "That ees not enough. I would like to drown myself."

But as Blanc's memoir makes clear, his heart and vocal cords belong to the real Toontown, Warner Bros., in the days when Yosemite Sam and Pepe Le Pew were as popular as Bogart and Boyer. For those who care, Blanc reveals the secrets of the stars: why Bugs Bunny speaks with a Brooklyn accent, why Porky stutters, and why Daffy Duck lisps. Those who do not care, as Blanc concludes, are desthpicable.