About ten of you sent me a link to this in the last eighteen hours. In 1951 when he was among their top recording artists, Mel Blanc starred in this promotional film for Capitol Records. The whole film was around 35 minutes and this video only has the first 30…but it's too good to wait for someone to post the remainder, as I assume someone will.
It's great because of Mel and also because of a few other folks who are in it. There's Yogi Yorgesson, who was really a radio comic named Harry Stewart and who developed this silly Swedish character who had a number of hit novelty records. There's cowboy singer Jimmy Wakely. And the big dumb guy who hangs with Mel is played by Billy May, who was one of the greatest arrangers and bandleaders of all time. Billy is the guy who did most of the music for Stan Freberg's records. That is when he wasn't making guys like Sinatra and Crosby sound good.
The video will also give you a nice look at 1951 Hollywood and at Wallichs Music City, the record store I wrote about in this posting. When I went there in the sixties, it looked exactly like it does in this film…
