Search Results for “mel blanc” – Page 2

Saturday Evening

Posted on Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 9:32 PM

Every year around now, Time magazine names its Person of the Year and a whole lot o' people who never read nor care about Time the rest of the year get outraged. No matter how Time explains it's for the person who "for better or for worse…has done the most to influence the events of the year," people want to see their fave win it. Never mind that in the past it went to Hitler, Stalin, The Ayatollah Khomeini, Vladimir Putin and all sorts of folks who probably fell into the "for worse" category. As far as some people are concerned, it recognizes greatness no matter what its awarders say.

This year, it went to Taylor Swift. Fine. None of the folks protesting the selection care what's inside Time. Why should they care who's on its cover? If it was my decision and make the cat Person of the Year.

Among my fondest wishes for 2024 is that some part of politics, however small, will be about what's best for human beings, not about "owning" the opposition and making their heads explode.

I worked on 121 half-hours of the cartoon series, Garfield & Friends. There's a sub-channel on the Pluto streaming network that runs the show 24/7. As far as I can tell, they don't run all 121 in sequence and then repeat them and repeat them. They select something like a six-hour block of episodes and then run them four times a day, then run a different six-hour block the next day and a different one the next day and so on.

If they ran them all in order, they'd be repeating them all every two-and-a-half days. Either way, it means running every episode a little over 144 times a year. The voice actors who worked on the show and I each get enough money from this to buy the occasional can of Spaghetti-O's…but not too often. The animators and artists and others who worked on the show don't even get that.

Rumor had it that someone is trying to set up a streaming channel to run the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show that I also worked on. If they do and they run the show 24/7…well, there were only 27 episodes of that series so they'd be going through the entire run almost twice a day.

One of these days, Warners is going to set up the What's Opera, Doc? streaming channel that just runs What's Opera, Doc? over and over, every hour of every day so you can tune in any time and watch What's Opera, Doc? It's seven minutes long so if they put two minutes of commercials between each showing, they could run it 160 times a day, which would be 58,400 times per year except in Leap Year when it would be 58,560 times.

I don't think the families of Chuck Jones, Michael Maltese, Mel Blanc and the artists who made that film will even get a can of Spaghetti-O's. Well, they may get the O's part but they won't be seeing any of the spaghetti part.

Walter

Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 5:27 PM

Here's a rerun from June 4, 2011…

Recently at his site, Michael Barrier has been discussing Walter Lantz, the prolific animation producer who gave us Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, Chilly Willy and others. A reader of this site, Alan Willson, wrote to ask me, "Did you ever cross paths with Lantz? Any personal anecdotes?" Not many, I'm afraid. I met Mr. Lantz but once and I'll tell you about it in a second. But first let me tell you the way in which he was important to me.

As a kid, I was a fan of his cartoons. Of course, as a kid, I was a fan of most cartoons. As one gets older, one's interests and tastes evolve. At the same time I was avidly watching The Woody Woodpecker Show on Channel 11, I was also watching (and loving even more) the early Hanna-Barbera cartoons on Channel 11 and the early Jay Ward cartoons on Channel 7 and later 4. I still like and enjoy Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and other H-B programs of that era. I still love and admire Rocky and His Friends and other Wardian concoctions. Whatever positive feelings I have for Woody and Company are not unlike my emotions re: Bosco chocolate syrup and Circus Animal cookies. I can't and don't eat them today but I do remember how much joy they gave me at age 10. Somewhere downstairs here, I have a VHS tape of Woody Woodpecker cartoons that I picked up for a couple of bucks once in a KMart. It literally contains every Walter Lantz cartoon that I can recall ever really liking as an adult.

Some of the cartoons he produced have expertly-done musical numbers and I suppose most were as well-animated as the budgets of the time allowed…but I feel scant connection to the characters or the jokes or the storylines. And to the extent that I even like the characters, that's mainly because of their appearances in the Dell comic books that were created and printed by Western Publishing Company. I liked a lot of those comics…which Mr. Lantz and his immediate staff didn't write or draw. In fact — and this is a visceral feeling, not a logical one — as a kid, I felt the cartoons were wrong and the comics were right. The Road Runner in the Dell comic books didn't match the Road Runner of the cartoons and there, it was clear to me that the comic book version was the aberration. With Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda and other Lantz properties, it felt like the cartoons were wrong…and also wildly inconsistent, whereas the comics had one generally clear vision.

But what I really did like about Walter Lantz was that he taught me the basics of cartooning. He taught them in little film segments on the Woody Woodpecker TV show like this one…

I would sit there with my pad and pencil and follow along. Even though I never carried it to the point of real professional cartooning, doing that had a lot to do with the fact that I now work at all in the creative arts. I can interface with the best cartoonists in the business and understand what they do when we collaborate…but I also think that whatever flair I have for writing is connected to having filled many a pad with cartoons at an early age.

Where I really learned something ostensibly from Walter Lantz was when I acquired a book called Easy Way to Draw. I wrote about it back here and I still consider that volume to be as important to my life as any book I ever owned. An idea I've toyed with for some time is to grab friends like Sergio Aragonés and Scott Shaw! and to try and do a new book that will work the same magic on kids in that age bracket. I would start by resolving that the book was for ages 6-12 and that I really didn't care if one person older than that would buy or could even understand it.

So when I finally met Walter Lantz, it was a very special moment for me — one of those encounters when you feel the need to say to someone, "You have no idea what you did for me…but thank you for what you did for me." And that's pretty much what I said to him.

It was at the opening of an animation art gallery in West Hollywood around 1984 or '85. (Mr. Lantz passed in '94 at the age of 95.) I saw him there and got June Foray to introduce us, and the first two things I noticed were that he was very short — not a whole lot taller than I was when I was watching his drawing lessons — and that he talked exactly the same way in person that he'd talked in them. He really did sound like he was reading off-camera cue cards and that was somehow comforting.

He'd been standing for some time shaking hands at the gallery and was looking for a place to sit down for a spell. Recalling a bench a bit away from the mingling area, I suggested that and led him to it. So I got to sit with Walter Lantz for maybe a half-hour of Q-and-A. Unfortunately, it was mostly Q's from him and A's from me. June had introduced me glowingly as a great friend and important person in the cartoon business (half-right — the first half) and once I told Mr. Lantz that I'd gotten into cartoons because of him, he really just wanted to hear more about that. It was clearly a big deal to him that he'd been responsible for the "next generation" — or maybe I was a generation or two past his — but it felt odd to sit there and be peppered with questions about where I went to college and how he'd inspired me.

Most of what I did get him to talk about was the relationship between his operation and Western Publishing. He dearly loved Chase Craig, who'd been my editor when I wrote Woody Woodpecker comics and others, and he'd been delighted with Western's comics and activity books of his characters. He admitted to me that at some point, they were the creative force behind much of what he was doing in his own studio. The evolution of Woody's official design, for instance, was influenced as much by what the Western artists were doing as by anything done by folks on the Lantz payroll…and many talents went back and forth between the two employers. (In this article, I explain how a character created by folks at Western for the comic books became a semi-valuable Lantz property, much as Disney got Uncle Scrooge out of their relationship with Western.)

Mike Barrier says that when he interviewed Lantz in a more formal context, he also got little out of him. People in animation often develop what I call "talk show versions" of their history…little abbreviated anecdotes that are simplified down to be quick and comprehensible to folks outside the business and which come with built-in punchlines. They tell them so often to reporters that they often can't shift back to the real stories. This was often a problem if you spoke with Mel Blanc, as well. Asked about Porky Pig's stuttering, he'd launch into the same tale he told in Johnny Carson's guest chair and so many other places about going out and studying pigs until he decided a grunt was a stammer. Unless you reminded him that he was the second voice of Porky, replacing a guy who really did stutter, that was all you got out of Mel. At one point in our half hour and with zero inquiry from me, Mr. Lantz launched into the oft-heard-but-apocryphal saga of creating Woody Woodpecker when a real woodpecker kept interrupting his honeymoon.

But you know what? I loved it. It was like hearing Tony Bennett sing about leaving his heart in San Francisco…which probably also didn't happen.

So I didn't extract a lot of historical data or wisdom about animation from Walter Lantz but so what? I got to tell him that he was a good teacher and that he'd inspired one more kid to move towards his life's work. I'm sure there were a lot of us and that he only got to hear it from a very small percentage.

me at Comic-Con!

Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 12:00 AM

Thursday, July 20 — 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM in Room 32AB
SPOTLIGHT ON BARBARA FRIEDLANDER
Fresh out of high school in the sixties, Barbara Friedlander got a job at DC Comics and quickly ascended to a job in the editorial division working with or alongside, among many others, Carmine Infantino, Jack Miller, Robert Kanigher, Mort Weisinger, Julius Schwartz, and Joe Orlando. What was it like to work in that office on DC's romance comics and on her creation, Swing With Scooter? Comic-Con Special Guest Mark Evanier will be quizzing her — and on Friday evening at the Eisner Awards, he'll be presenting Barbara with the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing.

Thursday, July 20 — 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM in Room 10
COMICS FOR UKRAINE
Comics for Ukraine is a new and important book that is raising funds to aid people whose lives have been devastated by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Some of the top names in comics have donated their time and artistry to this book, which is debuting at Comic-Con. Come join several of those folks as they talk about their stories and why this project is so important. Mark Evanier, John Layman, Stan Sakai and Billy Tucci will be on hand, as well as Richard Walden, the founder of Operation USA, the charity that is funneling funds to help the struggling people of Ukraine. Moderated by book organizer Scott Dunbier.

Thursday, July 20 — 2:00 PM to 2:45 PM at the Dark Horse Booth
I will be signing stuff, especially copies of Groo in the Wild #1 along with colorist Carrie Strachan at Booth 2416.

Friday, July 21 — 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM in Room 10
WALT KELLY AND POGO
The brilliant newspaper strip Pogo was created, written and drawn by one of the great geniuses of comic art, Walt Kelly. It's currently being reprinted in full in a series of books from Fantagraphics, one of which is up for an Eisner Award tonight. Meanwhile, fans of Mr. Kelly and his zany swamp denizens can gather to discuss him, his work, and what it was that made his cartooning so very special. Come hear from artist Steve Leialoha, scholar Maggie Thompson, Kelly archivist Jane Plunkett, and the co-editors of the current reprint series, Eric Reynolds and your moderator, Mark Evanier.

Friday, July 21 — 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM in Room 10
THE GROO PANEL
For 40+ years, the irrepressible (and ignorant) barbarian Groo the Wanderer has wandered the land and through comic book shops making good things bad, bad things worse, and all things hilarious. What's it like to work on this comic with master cartoonist Sergio Aragonés? Since Sergio isn't attending the con this year, these three people can speak freely about the experience: letterer (and creator of Usagi Yojimbo) Stan Sakai, colorist Carrie Strachan and a guy named Mark Evanier who does something on the comic but we don't know what. Also, they'll try to phone Sergio, which will be great fun if it works and probably funnier if it doesn't.

Saturday, July 22 — 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM in Room 6DE
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: AN ANIMATED ANNIVERSARY
Mark Evanier (show developer), Katie Leigh (voice of Sheila), David M. Booher (writer, IDW's Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures), Frank Todaro (voice actor, Netflix's The Cuphead Show), and Luke Gygax (son of D&D creator Gary Gygax) discuss the legendary tabletop game's 40th anniversary as a Saturday morning cartoon from the perspective of the talent who worked on the show and today's creatives who grew up on it. The session will be moderated by TJ Shevlin (2023 Eisner Awards judge).

Saturday, July 22 — 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
No matter when you're reading this — hopefully before the event — run and get a seat for Quick Draw!, the fastest and funniest presentation at Comic-Con. Your Quick Draw quizmaster Mark Evanier will be putting three of the swiftest cartoonists in the business to the test, inventing well-projected humor on the spot. Competing this year are cartoonist and Comic-Con co-founder Scott Shaw!, MAD magazine's Tom Richmond, and Disney legend Floyd Norman. As usual, there will be no wagering on the outcome.

Saturday, July 22 — 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES I
Once again, Mark Evanier has assembled a roster of some of the most-heard performers in the world of animation, and they're here to tell you what they do, how they do it and then demonstrate it. The dais includes Adam McArthur (Star vs. the Forces of Evil), Elle Newlands (Lego Marvel's Avengers), Keith Scott (Bullwinkle Moose), Bill Farmer (Goofy, Pluto), Dave Fennoy (Batman, Transformers) and Jessica DiCicco (The Emperor's New School, Muppet Babies). And as usual, the actors will mangle a classic fairy tale for your enjoyment.

Saturday, July 22 — 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM in Room 4
MAGGIE THOMPSON SPOTLIGHT: Wrangling History (How to Preserve the Past So We Can Read in the Future)
As we lose creators, memories fade, and collectibles are lost or damaged, what can be done to hang onto the creations and establish the facts? Maggie is joined by writer and producer Mark Evanier, Columbia University comics and cartoons curator Karen Green, and Abrams ComicArts editor-in-chief Charles Kochman.

Saturday, July 22 — 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM in Room 7AB
THE HISTORY OF CARTOON VOICES
Keith Scott is one of the top voice actors and impressionists in Australia, and he's also an expert on cartoon voices for theatrical cartoons in this country. He's making a rare visit to America this year and he'll be talking about Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, June Foray, Walt Disney, and many you've never heard of. Don't miss this rare chance to hear all about how cartoons learned to talk, with not only Keith but also historians Jerry Beck, Leonard Maltin and your moderator, Mark Evanier.

Sunday, July 22 — 10:00 AM to 11:15 AM in Room 5AB
THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
It's a Comic-Con tradition to assemble on Sunday morning to remember the man some still call, and with good reason, The King of the Comics. His life and career will be discussed by folks who knew him or wish they did. They include writer Tom King, Jack's grandson Jeremy Kirby, Kirby experts Bruce Simon, Mark Badger and Jon Cooke, attorney Paul S. Levine and your moderator, former Kirby assistant Mark Evanier.

Sunday, July 23 — 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM in Room 6A
CARTOON VOICES II
Cartoon Voices I on Saturday will be so wonderful that we'll need another such panel on Sunday with other top actors in the animation-voicing profession. This time, moderator Mark Evanier will welcome Maurice LaMarche (Futurama, Pinky and the Brain), Anna Brisbin (Final Fantasy VII Remake), Fred Tatasciore (Team America, The Hulk), Frank Todaro (The Cuphead Show, Transformers), and Courtney Lin (Monster High, Rainbow High).

Sunday, July 23 — 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM in Room 7AB
FRANK MILLER: AMERICAN GENIUS
Comic-Con Special Guest and legend Frank Miller, one of the comics medium's most important creators, returns to San Diego for an all-access and in-depth discussion. Be here for this exclusive panel that will give you insight into one of the genre's most influential people. With his publishing line, Frank Miller Presents, and details on the upcoming Frank Miller: American Genius documentary, there will be much to cover!

Sunday, July 23 — 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM in Room 7AB
COVER STORY
There have been comic book publishers who believed that what they put inside the comic didn't matter much — that readers decide to buy or not to buy because of the cover. It's arguable, but a great cover never hurt a book. On this panel, your host Mark Evanier welcomes four artists who have drawn great covers: Todd McFarlane (Spawn, Spider-Man), Becky Cloonan (Batman, Gotham Academy; this year's Comic-Con Souvenir Book cover), Joe Quesada (Daredevil, Spider-Man), and J. Scott Campbell (Danger Girl, Amazing Spider-Man).

Sunday, July 23 — 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM in Room 7AB
THE BUSINESS OF CARTOON VOICES
Are you interested in a career in the highly competitive world of voiceover? There are plenty of folks who will take your money to advise you, but you can get a ton of information for free with no strings attached at this panel. Two very busy voice actors (Vanessa Marshall and Gregg Berger), a top agent (Cathey Lizzio of C.E.S.D.), and a voice director (your moderator, Mark Evanier) will tell you how one goes about learning the craft, breaking into the business, staying in the business, and maybe even making a living in the business. This panel is not for entertainment. It's for enlightenment.

Each and every item above is subject to change for reasons that even I may not be able to explain. The entire programming schedule can be found and studied on this page.

me at Comic-Con!

Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2023 at 1:19 PM

The 2023 Comic-Con International in San Diego commences with Preview Night from 6 PM to 9 PM on Wednesday evening, July 19. This is basically your chance to walk around the main Exhibit Hall with slightly fewer folks clogging the aisles. The real action starts the next day and here's what I'll be up to…

Thursday, July 20 — 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM in Room 32AB
SPOTLIGHT ON BARBARA FRIEDLANDER
Fresh out of high school in the sixties, Barbara Friedlander got a job at DC Comics and quickly ascended to a job in the editorial division working with or alongside, among many others, Carmine Infantino, Jack Miller, Robert Kanigher, Mort Weisinger, Julius Schwartz, and Joe Orlando. What was it like to work in that office on DC's romance comics and on her creation, Swing With Scooter? Comic-Con Special Guest Mark Evanier will be quizzing her — and on Friday evening at the Eisner Awards, he'll be presenting Barbara with the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing.

Thursday, July 20 — 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM in Room 10
COMICS FOR UKRAINE
Comics for Ukraine is a new and important book that is raising funds to aid people whose lives have been devastated by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Some of the top names in comics have donated their time and artistry to this book, which is debuting at Comic-Con. Come join several of those folks as they talk about their stories and why this project is so important. Mark Evanier, John Layman, Stan Sakai and Billy Tucci will be on hand, as well as Richard Walden, the founder of Operation USA, the charity that is funneling funds to help the struggling people of Ukraine. Moderated by book organizer Scott Dunbier.

Thursday, July 20 — 2:00 PM to 2:45 PM at the Dark Horse Booth
I will be signing stuff, especially copies of Groo in the Wild #1 along with colorist Carrie Strachan at Booth 2416.

Friday, July 21 — 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM in Room 10
WALT KELLY AND POGO
The brilliant newspaper strip Pogo was created, written and drawn by one of the great geniuses of comic art, Walt Kelly. It's currently being reprinted in full in a series of books from Fantagraphics, one of which is up for an Eisner Award tonight. Meanwhile, fans of Mr. Kelly and his zany swamp denizens can gather to discuss him, his work, and what it was that made his cartooning so very special. Come hear from artist Steve Leialoha, scholar Maggie Thompson, Kelly archivist Jane Plunkett, and the co-editors of the current reprint series, Eric Reynolds and your moderator, Mark Evanier.

Friday, July 21 — 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM in Room 10
THE GROO PANEL
For 40+ years, the irrepressible (and ignorant) barbarian Groo the Wanderer has wandered the land and through comic book shops making good things bad, bad things worse, and all things hilarious. What's it like to work on this comic with master cartoonist Sergio Aragonés? Since Sergio isn't attending the con this year, these three people can speak freely about the experience: letterer (and creator of Usagi Yojimbo) Stan Sakai, colorist Carrie Strachan and a guy named Mark Evanier who does something on the comic but we don't know what. Also, they'll try to phone Sergio, which will be great fun if it works and probably funnier if it doesn't.

Saturday, July 22 — 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM in Room 6DE
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: AN ANIMATED ANNIVERSARY
Mark Evanier (show developer), Katie Leigh (voice of Sheila), David M. Booher (writer, IDW's Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures), Frank Todaro (voice actor, Netflix's The Cuphead Show), and Luke Gygax (son of D&D creator Gary Gygax) discuss the legendary tabletop game's 40th anniversary as a Saturday morning cartoon from the perspective of the talent who worked on the show and today's creatives who grew up on it. The session will be moderated by TJ Shevlin (2023 Eisner Awards judge).

Saturday, July 22 — 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
No matter when you're reading this — hopefully before the event — run and get a seat for Quick Draw!, the fastest and funniest presentation at Comic-Con. Your Quick Draw quizmaster Mark Evanier will be putting three of the swiftest cartoonists in the business to the test, inventing well-projected humor on the spot. Competing this year are cartoonist and Comic-Con co-founder Scott Shaw!, MAD magazine's Tom Richmond, and Disney legend Floyd Norman. As usual, there will be no wagering on the outcome.

Saturday, July 22 — 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES I
Once again, Mark Evanier has assembled a roster of some of the most-heard performers in the world of animation, and they're here to tell you what they do, how they do it and then demonstrate it. The dais includes Adam McArthur (Star vs. the Forces of Evil), Elle Newlands (Lego Marvel's Avengers), Keith Scott (Bullwinkle Moose), Bill Farmer (Goofy, Pluto), Dave Fennoy (Batman, Transformers) and Jessica DiCicco (The Emperor's New School, Muppet Babies). And as usual, the actors will mangle a classic fairy tale for your enjoyment.

Saturday, July 22 — 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM in Room 4
MAGGIE THOMPSON SPOTLIGHT: Wrangling History (How to Preserve the Past So We Can Read in the Future)
As we lose creators, memories fade, and collectibles are lost or damaged, what can be done to hang onto the creations and establish the facts? Maggie is joined by writer and producer Mark Evanier, Columbia University comics and cartoons curator Karen Green, and Abrams ComicArts editor-in-chief Charles Kochman.

Saturday, July 22 — 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM in Room 7AB
THE HISTORY OF CARTOON VOICES
Keith Scott is one of the top voice actors and impressionists in Australia, and he's also an expert on cartoon voices for theatrical cartoons in this country. He's making a rare visit to America this year and he'll be talking about Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, June Foray, Walt Disney, and many you've never heard of. Don't miss this rare chance to hear all about how cartoons learned to talk, with not only Keith but also historians Jerry Beck, Leonard Maltin and your moderator, Mark Evanier.

Sunday, July 23 — 10:00 AM to 11:15 AM in Room 5AB
THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
It's a Comic-Con tradition to assemble on Sunday morning to remember the man some still call, and with good reason, The King of the Comics. His life and career will be discussed by folks who knew him or wish they did. They include writer Tom King, Jack's grandson Jeremy Kirby, Kirby experts Bruce Simon, Mark Badger and Jon Cooke, attorney Paul S. Levine and your moderator, former Kirby assistant Mark Evanier.

Sunday, July 23 — 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM in Room 6A
CARTOON VOICES II
Cartoon Voices I on Saturday will be so wonderful that we'll need another such panel on Sunday with other top actors in the animation-voicing profession. This time, moderator Mark Evanier will welcome Maurice LaMarche (Futurama, Pinky and the Brain), Anna Brisbin (Final Fantasy VII Remake), Fred Tatasciore (Team America, The Hulk), Frank Todaro (The Cuphead Show, Transformers), and Courtney Lin (Monster High, Rainbow High).

Sunday, July 23 — 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM in Room 7AB
COVER STORY
There have been comic book publishers who believed that what they put inside the comic didn't matter much — that readers decide to buy or not to buy because of the cover. It's arguable, but a great cover never hurt a book. On this panel, your host Mark Evanier welcomes four artists who have drawn great covers: Todd McFarlane (Spawn, Spider-Man), Becky Cloonan (Batman, Gotham Academy; this year's Comic-Con Souvenir Book cover), Joe Quesada (Daredevil, Spider-Man), and J. Scott Campbell (Danger Girl, Amazing Spider-Man).

Sunday, July 23 — 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM in Room 7AB
THE BUSINESS OF CARTOON VOICES
Are you interested in a career in the highly competitive world of voiceover? There are plenty of folks who will take your money to advise you, but you can get a ton of information for free with no strings attached at this panel. Two very busy voice actors (Vanessa Marshall and Gregg Berger), a top agent (Cathey Lizzio of C.E.S.D.), and a voice director (your moderator, Mark Evanier) will tell you how one goes about learning the craft, breaking into the business, staying in the business, and maybe even making a living in the business. This panel is not for entertainment. It's for enlightenment.

Each and every item above is subject to change for reasons that even I may not be able to explain. The entire programming schedule can be found and studied on this page.

Last year in this space, I wrote — and this is a quote, you can go check it — that "as usual, I will be exercising my constitutional right (until the current Supreme Court strips me of it) to not sit behind a table in the exhibit hall very much." Clearly, they're well on their way to doing that but they haven't yet…so this year I will only be writing my name on things at the Dark Horse booth from 2 PM until 2:45 on Thursday. Other than that, you may be able to catch me before or after panels. Please don't try it before or after Quick Draw!

Today's Video Link

Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2023 at 9:39 AM

Here's Mel Blanc guesting on Johnny Carson's show for May 26, 1983. I used to see Mel a lot when I worked at Hanna-Barbera and occasionally talk to him a bit. A year after this appearance with Johnny, I actually directed him for a brief voiceover for a CBS special and got to have a long conversation with the man. I told that story here — and I just realized I had the year in it wrong so I have corrected it. It was September of 1984.

Every time I saw Mel at H-B or that day in a recording studio, he was walking shakily with a cane. Given the severity of the 1961 traffic accident, it was amazing that he could walk at all…and I notice that when he made his entrance on Johnny's show, he managed to not use or seem to need that cane. I can't say I ever knew him well except in the sense that we all knew him well from growing-up with his voice so often in our ears. He really was as good as his reputation said he was.

At Comic-Con next month, there will be a panel on 4:30 on Saturday afternoon, July 22. I think I'm not supposed to announce program items before the con does but they'll forgive me for this one. The brilliant cartoon voice actor from Australia, Keith Scott, will be in town for the con. He'll be on the Cartoon Voices panel I'm hosting earlier that day at 1 PM and then later, in the 4:30 panel, Keith will be discussing the history of cartoon voice actors with myself, Jerry Beck and Leonard Maltin. The panel will cover just a smidgen of what's in two must-have books that Keith recently released.

We will, of course, be talking a lot about Mel Blanc, the man who pretty much defined what it means to be a cartoon voice actor. Here's Mel in 1983…

Mark's Comic-Con Schedule 2009

This year, 2009, was the first of a few times I persuaded one of my heroes, Stan Freberg, to journey to San Diego and appear at the convention. It was also the year of one of the best "historical" panels we ever did: Three guys who'd ghosted for Bob Kane on Batman, all getting together to talk about what it was like to work for Bob.

On the Sunday Cartoon Voices panel, three of my five announced panelists were unable to make it for one reason or another so the dais wound up consisting of Earl Kress, Jess Harnell, Gregg Berger, Tom Kane and Greg Cipes.

And you'll see a panel down there called "How to be a Cartoon Voice Actor" which we now do annually, though it's now called "The Business of Cartoon Voices." A lot of folks who come to the Cartoon Voices panels want to get into that profession but imparting information to them tended to slow up the C.V. panels and we could not address the topic adequately. So my friend Earl Kress and I started the educational panel and it's on the schedule every year. I bring in some working actors and an agent or two and we tell the aspiring Mel Blancs who show up for the panel how to go about it…and more importantly, how not to go about it. I'm so pleased that several people have now gone from attending these panels to being on the Cartoon Voices panel…and I wish Earl was still around to see that.

We didn't know it at the time but this year would have our last Golden/Silver Age Panel. It started out to be the Golden Age Panel but after a while, it was getting harder to find panelists who'd worked in comics in the 1940s so we quietly changed it into the Golden/Silver Age Panel…but even that was a problem to fill the following year so it went away — sadly…

Sergio Aragonés, Stan Sakai, Tom Luth, Leonard Starr, Ramona Fradon, Jerry Robinson, Gene Colan, Murphy Anderson, Jack Katz, Russ Heath, Marv Wolfman, Doug Moench, Nick Cuti, Steve Leialoha, Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Stan Freberg, Hunter Freberg, Scott Shaw!, Floyd Norman, Bill Famer, Laraine Newman, Fred Tatasciore, Vanessa Marshall, James Arnold Taylor, Chuck McCann, June Foray, Bill Stout, Mike Royer, Mike Friedrich, George Clayton Johnson, Lee Marrs, David Scroggy, Harvey Kurtzman, Dennis Kitchen, Paul Levitz, Charles Kochman, Nellie Kurtzman, Jack Kirby, Bill Mumy, Steve Saffel, Paul S. Levine, The San Diego Five String Mob, Hank Garrett, Charlie Adler, Greg Cipes, Susan Silo, Tom Kane.

Looney Programming

Posted on Sunday, January 15, 2023 at 10:04 AM

Many animation fans are incensed — more than I suspect they need to be — over the news that HBO Max has removed over 250 Warner Brothers cartoons from that streaming service. Gone are pretty much every cartoon WB made from 1950 onward. Some of the responses I've seen on the 'net make it sound like Warner Bros. Discovery — that's what the parent corporation is called this week — has decided to burn all existing prints and never let those wonderful cartoons be seen anywhere ever again.

That's not what's happening here. It's a programming decision and whether it turns out to be a good one remains to be seen. It probably depends solely on where and when they make those cartoons available again. They will. Those films are among the company's most valuable assets. They attract an audience every time they're shown anywhere and they don't really cost the corporation anything to run. Oh, sometimes one division of WBD has to pay something to another division of WBD but the money doesn't go outside the firm. No residuals are paid to Mel Blanc's estate or Chuck Jones's estate or anyone.

They're also the bedrock of an extremely lucrative merchandising program that rakes in zillions. Taking away the Tweety and Yosemite Sam cartoons jeopardizes the sales of Tweety t-shirts and Yosemite Sam whatever-they-can-sell-with-his-image-on-it-this-month.

All the news items about this move say that no decision about the future of those cartoons has been made. That may be so or it may be more correct to say that no plans have been announced. Either way, they'll turn up somewhere. It would be Corporate Malpractice for the current management to not monetize them in some way.

And the current management is just that: The current management. It's been quite a while since I talked to anyone who works for any arm or tentacle of WBD who didn't seem unsure whether they'll have a position there next month…or if so, to whom they'll be reporting.

If anything, this episode may teach us a lesson about not relying on streaming services to stream what we want to see when and where we want to see it. My friend George shares with me a love for the 1951 movie Ace in the Hole starring Kirk Douglas. Almost every time I talk to George, he complains that nobody ever runs it these days.

Well, I do…or can. I bought the Criterion DVD — great print and extras aplenty — and it's still available on Amazon for $22. What George (who has a lot more money than I do) is complaining about is that no one's running it for free, like on TCM. But it's available. If you don't want to spend the $22, it's watchable 24/7 with a premium subscription on Amazon Prime, for $3.99 on Vudu or Apple TV, for $2.99 on Google Play or YouTube…

…and even if all those services drop it next week, George can come over to my house and watch it if he'll stop at Vito's Pizza on La Cienega and pick up a pie with mushrooms and meatballs. In a world of infinite streaming services and channels, nothing good is ever going to be unavailable for very long. You just have to look a little and, in some cases, spend three damned dollars.

Getting back to Bugs Bunny and his pals: Someone on a comment thread I read wrote, "It's criminal that children today will never be able to watch classics like What's Opera, Doc? and Duck Amuck." I think "never" is too strong a word here, especially since a lot of the cartoons in question are quite viewable on Boomerang if someone is willing to spring for $5.99 a month.

And for less than a hundred bucks, it is still possible to purchase the Looney Tunes Golden Collection — a 24 DVD set of 40 hours of Warner Brothers cartoons that no one can ever take away from you or charge you more to view. That's not all of them but by the time you get tired of watching those over and over, it's likely the ones you can't see on HBO Max right now will be available somewhere else. That somewhere else might even be a better showcase for them.

Don't despair. Bugs, Daffy, Porky and all the rest will outlive all of us, including the current management at Warner Bros. Discovery and the next management at Warner Bros. Discovery and the one after that and the one after that and the one after that…

ASK me: Voice Actors Outside L.A.

Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2023 at 12:27 PM

I'm going to stop answering questions from folks who don't sign something that at least resembles a real name — but "Bobo" writes to ask…

I live in Kentucky and the only dream I have in life is to do cartoon voices. I don't want to do anything else but voices for cartoons. In the past, you said on your blog that to do that, you had to live in Los Angeles but since COVID, a lot of the business has converted to people recording in their home studios and working on ZOOM. I have a great studio here in my basement in Kentucky. Can I now have a real career in cartoon voice work from here? I know there are a number of very successful voice actors now who live in other cities and work on shows that were formerly recorded with local talent in L.A.

First off, "Bobo," I don't think there's anyone who makes a decent living doing cartoon voices. The folks you think do are folks who do cartoon voices and narration and dubbing and looping and audiobooks and commercials and announcing and a dozen other jobs where one's voice is heard. Mel Blanc…Daws Butler…Paul Frees…June Foray…none of those folks were ever only cartoon voice actors. Some of them, at times, didn't even make most of their income that way.

Also: There are probably a couple I don't know about but every currently-working-a-lot cartoon voice actor I know who doesn't live in or around Los Angeles did when they got established in the field. Then they moved back to Wherever and worked remotely.

To your real question: Yes, it is much easier now than it used to be for voice actors to "phone it in" but you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. It's not as big a disadvantage as it used to be but it's still a disadvantage. With time, it will probably become less of one but I can't say for sure how much. There will still be shows that want you present in their studio on their microphones. There will still be video game producers that want you to come in and put on motion-capture devices so they can record your lip and body movements.

That said, I need to add this: I have never and will never encourage anyone to uproot their life and move to Los Angeles (or anywhere) to pursue any career in any corner of show business. The vast majority of those stories end in failure…and I don't mean 60% or 70%. It's more like 90% and up. I also don't encourage anyone to invest in the time and expense of building a great home recording studio. It may pay off and it may not. It's like a lot of things in life: Only you can decide whether or not to take the gamble. Because it's always a gamble.

ASK me: Cartoon Credits

Posted on Friday, December 23, 2022 at 6:08 PM

J. Plus (please leave me real names, people) wrote to ask…

You mentioned once in an interview that when you were a kid, you loved to read the credits on the TV shows you liked. How do you feel about the credits on shows you've worked on? Was it a thrill to see your name on the screen?

It was more of a thrill for my parents…especially my father. He was never happier than when he could turn on the TV and see his son's name. If he'd had his way, any thirty-minute show I wrote would have consisted of five seconds of program and 29 minutes and 55 seconds of my name on screen.

And you know how people can know something but still not quite accept it? My father understood that when I got paid for a show was not when my name was on the screen…but somehow, when he saw my name on the screen, he thought, "Mark got paid this week." Even though I'd sometimes been paid months earlier.

Since it's the Christmas season, I'll tell you the screen credits I liked most on a show I wrote…and they didn't even involve my name. In 1982, I wrote a prime-time Yogi Bear holiday special for Hanna-Barbera. It was a last-minute assignment, there were huge fights and some yelling but it got on the air and every so often, I like to look at the voice credits. They were spread out over two cards and here's one of them…

Daws Butler deservedly received special billing, though they misspelled the name of Mr. Jinks and they omitted other iconic roles Daws played in the show such as Dixie the Mouse, Augie Doggie, Snooper, Blabber and Wally Gator. Daws was one of the key voices of my childhood. I loved any cartoon he was in, whether it was a Warner Brothers cartoon, a Jay Ward cartoon, a Walter Lantz cartoon or a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. I loved him. He was a dear, sweet man who taught a wonderful class full of up-and-coming voice actors who also loved him dearly.

Daws had suffered a stroke and this show was his return to voice acting after many months of not doing what he did better than just about anybody. There are moments in some lives where you feel that you're connecting with an important part of your upbringing and this was a big one for me.

I was also connecting with names on this other card…

Georgi Irene was a child actor and a very good one. All the other names on this list were people who voiced cartoons of my childhood…and some of them, like Hal Smith and Allan Melvin, were also on live-action TV shows I watched when I was growing up. In 1982, this was kind of an All-Star Lineup of Voice Actors for me and in most cases here, they were playing the same characters. Mel Blanc, for example, was playing Barney Rubble.

I worked with most of them on other shows but, Ms. Irene aside, this could have been the voice cast on a cartoon I watched when I was ten. It was kind of the same way I felt when I wrote comic books that were drawn by the artists who drew comic books I read when I was seven or wrote lines for live-action shows that were spoken by actors who appeared in shows I watched when my age was in single digits.

If you don't get why this felt special to me, there may be no way I can explain it. It just did.

Today's Video Link

Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2022 at 7:09 PM

From the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 1/23/1974: Jack Benny was the first guest and then they brought out Mel Blanc. Johnny was under the impression that the cartoons were animated first and then the actors did the voices to the picture. A few studios like Max Fleischer's did it that way but Mel never worked for those studios…

From the E-Mailbag…

Posted on Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 9:31 PM

B. Monte read what I wrote about how Jonathan Winters didn't appear that often with Johnny Carson even though those appearances always went well…

I can think of one reason that might explain why Johnny didn't have Jonathan on more often.

You have written about how Johnny tightly controlled the show and that almost every impromptu story and surprise stunt was pre-approved. While the Winters segments were very entertaining, I can imagine that Carson had a love/hate relationship with having Winters on the show — they were great segments, but Johnny had no control over what would happen (and had no chance of regaining control).

I dunno. Johnny had Rodney Dangerfield on as often as he could get him and Rodney was pretty much on auto-pilot. If you watched Rodney on talk shows, he came out with a list in his head of the jokes he wanted to tell and the order he was going to tell them. A host could knock him off his script by trying to get him to not go straight on to the next one. All Johnny would do was to interject a quick question like, "Have you seen your doctor lately?" and Rodney would say, since the doctor jokes came later, "I'm going to the doctor later" and plunge right into the next joke on the list.

Other hosts tried to actually participate in Rodney's "act" and to actually interview him. It killed his rhythm. And Johnny did the same thing in that clip with Jonathan: just laid back and let the guest soar. He also did it when Robin Williams was on and he let guests like Charles Grodin control the conversation if the audience was laughing.

One of the things Carson learned from Jack Benny — one of the things that kept Johnny on the air for so long — was the principle that if the audience is laughing and it's your show, it doesn't matter who's getting the laughs. Benny let Don Wilson get the laughs. He let Dennis Day get the laughs. He let Mary Livingstone, Mel Blanc, Frank Nelson and all the others — and especially Rochester — get the laughs. Johnny loved it when a Don Rickles or a Mel Brooks got on a roll.

And you can see how delighted he was with Jonathan in that clip. I'm wondering if Jonathan didn't resent what The Tonight Show paid and turned down requests to come on the program…and only accepted them every so often when he felt the need to remind the industry that he was still around and still funny.

Then again, the guy loved to perform. I once saw him do 20 minutes for customers in a Honeybaked Ham shop on Riverside Drive. So like I said…I dunno.

The Voice of Authority

Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 10:01 PM

That's my pal Keith Scott and that's the front cover of Volume 1 of a two-volume set of books you must have if you're interested in animation history…especially the history of cartoon voices.

Keith knows a lot about cartoon voices because he has one. Actually, he has many. He's one of the busiest voiceover actors in Australia, heard on plenty of cartoons. He does many original voices and also is called on to replicate the voices originally performed by guys like Mel Blanc, Daws Butler and Bill Scott (no relation) who have left us. He's also an impressionist and entertainer and as if that weren't enough, he's also an accomplished historian.

He wrote The Moose That Roared: The Story of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, a Flying Squirrel, and a Talking Moose, which is the definitive book on Jay Ward's animation empire. And the reason it's the definitive book is because Keith did such a thorough job that there hasn't been much room for many other books about the studio that brought us Rocky & Bullwinkle. In the unlikely event you're interested in that topic and don't have that book, you can order a copy here.

And now Keith has two new books out — Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, 1930-70. The Golden Age of which he writes spans the years when cartoons were made to be shown in theaters…made by Disney Studios, Warner Brothers, Max Fleischer, MGM, Walter Lantz and many others. Keith has researched this topic so well that he identifies…

…well not every cartoon that every American studio made for theatrical release in those years. There are a few mysteries and a few educated guesses but I think he nails down about 98% of them. Volume 1 is mostly narrative text and in it, Keith goes through every studio and discusses what they made and who they employed to speak for their characters. Volume 2 is mostly lists, going studio by studio, cartoon by cartoon.

I get lots of e-mails asking me if I know who did such-and-such a voice in such-and-such a cartoon. Well, those correspondents can stop asking me and look it up in Keith's indispensable reference books. I am so happy to have these, I can't tell you.

Today's Video Link

Posted on Saturday, August 6, 2022 at 12:33 PM

Nineteen seconds of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck singing about Post cereals. I always liked Mel Blanc singing with himself…

Sunday Scenes

Posted on Monday, July 25, 2022 at 9:05 AM

It's rough typing on my busted laptop but I can upload these photos that Ace Photographer Bruce Guthrie took yesterday at two of the four panels I moderated. This first one is Frank Miller and me at what might have been the best of a few dozen Jack Kirby Tribute Panels I've done…

Also on that panel were Bruce Simon, Steve Saffel, Rand Hoppe and Jack's grandkid Jeremy Kirby. Bruce and I discussed our great friend, the late Steve Sherman. Steve and I discussed the relationship Jack had with his one-time partner (and our great friend) Joe Simon, Rand talked about the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center, and Jeremy discussed carrying on the memory of his grandpappy. I may have typed the name of the museum wrong but given the shape this computer is in, it's amazing I can type on it at all.

I described how Frank stood up for Jack during Jack's famous battle with Marvel Comics for some of his original artwork, and we talked about how comic book creators became empowered — to not wind up as the creators of Superman had — in the seventies and eighties. The conversation will probably be published in a forthcoming issue of The Jack Kirby Collector and maybe I'll write more about it when I'm not typing on a broken-down jalopy.

And here's the Sunday Cartoon Voices Panel. In the back row, left to right, you have me (obviously thinking, "Two more to go after this one"), Zeno Robinson and Kaitlyn Robrock, First row is Rosemary Watson, Jim Meskimen and Fred Tatasciore. It's very easy to host a great panel when you get people like this to be on it.

I shall write more when I have a real, working computer to do it on. This one is already sounding like Mel Blanc making the sounds of Jack Benny's car — or for you slightly younger readers, the sounds of Speed Buggy.

ASK me: Tress MacNeille

Posted on Friday, July 1, 2022 at 2:45 PM

Rob Rose read this post here and then sent the following my way…

I had to watch a few minutes of the video you linked just because that was one hell of a cast.

When you mentioned that June Foray was unavailable, my first thought was "Well, if you can't get her, Tress MacNeille is the obvious next choice." But I hadn't taken the dates into account until I saw someone asking in the YouTube comments if it was her first voice acting role, and someone else answered "Yes." I quickly checked IMDB, and if it is to be believed, while it was not her very first voice acting job, it is the first for which she is credited as something besides "Additional voices." Since she has gone on to become such a giant in the field, I wouldn't mind hearing anything about how you came to pick her and whether it was clear from the start that her name would one day seem perfectly at home next to those of folks like Daws Butler and Frank Welker.

(I also had no idea she was the lady who played Lucy in Weird Al Yankovic's "Hey Ricky!" video…)

When you add in the rest of the cast, you have a list that really spans several generations of voice-acting greats.

If I had a specific question, it would probably be to wonder how intimidating that would be, to have such talent in front of you on your first voice directing job. On the one hand, as you say, it surely makes your job easier; you wouldn't have to push anyone to get great performances. On the other hand, if you *did* find yourself in a place where you needed to give some direction, I can imagine you might feel like you really had no place telling some of these people how to do their jobs. (I am reminded of your story of having to ask Mel Blanc to read the line "What's up, Doc?" again more slowly…) I don't know if that kind of thing would get easier over time. At least I suspect that, whatever the actors you worked with may have thought of your directing (or writing) talent, they couldn't really get the "This kid doesn't even know who I am!" feeling for very long.

Anyway, fun story, and it gave me an excuse to send this email instead of doing some other things I probably ought to be doing.

I first met Tress via The Groundlings, the great L.A. based improv company from which came Phil Hartman, Laraine Newman, Paul Reubens, Jon Lovitz and a whole lot of other folks you know and have enjoyed. You would often see someone on the Groundlings stage and instantly think, "Hey, that person's going to have a great career!" So it was with Tress…and it didn't take any experience at talent-scouting to think that. Pretty damned obvious if you ask me.

Before I made my voice-directing debut with that Wall Walkers special, I asked Gordon Hunt at Hanna-Barbera if I could sit in on some recording sessions and observe. There was briefly a policy at the studio that writers and story editors could not attend recording sessions because they had a tendency to slow things down by asking to change lines or to usurp the director's authority. Also, I think Bill Hanna wanted us in our offices writing and editing as much as possible.

This was not Gordon's decree but he had to follow it…but he said I could sit in on recordings of shows I didn't write. That was fine with me and I think the first one I attended was a Scooby Doo in which Tress did guest star voices. My recollection is that by the time I cast her in the Wall Walkers show, she'd done a fair amount of animation even if she hadn't done lead characters…and I'm not sure she hadn't.

I didn't give a moment's thought to whether "her name would one day seem perfectly at home next to those of folks like Daws Butler and Frank Welker." I just knew she'd do a good job in the show…and she did.

I was not intimidated by having such a stellar cast on my first directing job. On the contrary, I thought they were so good that I couldn't possibly botch things up…and that is not false modesty or any other kind. I actually thought that. As I quickly learned, the secret to voice-directing was to hire actors who were so good, they didn't need much directing…if any.