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Even casual cartoon watchers know the name Mel Blanc. Beginning in 1936, the actor known as “The Man of 1,000 Voices” gave vocal life to Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Tweety and Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, and many more beloved Warner Bros. animated characters. So many, in fact, that one might assume he was the man behind the entire Looney Tunes lineup. He wasn’t, of course. Billy Bletcher, Stan Freberg, Larry Storch, and other voice artists each played various roles. And several female performers–Bea Benaderet, Sara Berner, and June Foray, among others–were responsible for Sniffles the mouse, Tweety’s owner Granny, Witch Hazel, and most of Warners’ distaff roster.
Certainly the the best-known character who Blanc only did on rare occasions was Bugs and Daffy’s gun-toting nemesis, Elmer Fudd. From 1940 to 1960 the hapless hunter who had trouble “pwonouncing” certain letters was primarily voiced by (and sometimes drawn to look like) veteran film and radio actor Arthur Q. Bryan.
A Brooklyn native born in 1899, Bryan as a lad had aspirations of becoming a singer, performing in various New York City church choirs. After finishing school he took a clerical job with an insurance firm, but by the late 1920s he was singing tenor on local radio stations. Arthur later became a radio announcer (No, he didn’t say “wadio”!) for stations in New York and Philadelphia. In 1936 he headed out west to work as a writer for Paramount.
It was in California that Bryan gained attention as a panelist on a pouplar CBS radio show, The Grouch Club, in 1938. That same year he made his screen debut in a Grouch Club-themed comedy short, The Great Library Mystery (reports that he had an uncredited role in 1931’s William Powell/Carole Lombard comedy Man of the World are unconfirmed). An unbilled part in M-G-M’s 1939 Jeanette MacDonald musical Broadway Serenade followed.
Given his vocal abilities, it’s no surprise that Arthur found find work in the cartoon field. His first such work came in Tex Avery’s Dangerous Dan McFoo (1939). As the titular canine hero, Byran used the rhotacistic voice he would eventually employ as Elmer. Around this same time, the “Termite Terrace” animators were making shorts featuring a bald-pated protagonist named Egghead. Between 1937-1940 Egghead either moprhed into or inspired a similar-looking character dubbed Elmer Fudd. After Mel Blanc played Elmer in his first few shorts, Bryan brought his Dan McFoo speech pattern over and took on the role in Chuck Jones’ Elmer’s Candid Camera (1940), which also offered an early version of Bugs Bunny. Later that year Avery defined the duo even more in A Wild Hare, where Bryan’s Fudd first first picks up his “twusty shotgun” and says “Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits.”
A Wild Hare set the tone for the Bugs vs. Elmer rivalry that would continue for the next 80-plus years, with the “wascawwy wabbit” generally getting the better of his adversary. Sometimes Bugs would deliberately annoy him (Wabbit Twouble, The Unruly Hare), and once in a while Fudd would come out on top (Hare Brush, Rabbit Rampage). But whether he was a gold prospector, a mad scientist, or a waiter trying to please “Humphrey Bogart,” Elmer never gave up trying. One thing that did change–briefly–occurred in 1941-42, when the animators altered Elmer’s appearance to a more rotund shape which just happened to resemble Bryan’s physique. The “Fat Fudd” only turned up in five cartoons (counting the WWII promo short Any Bonds Today?), even though some folks think the look lasted longer.
Even while he was voicing Elmer for Warners, Bryan kept busy with his radio work. He could be heard coast to coast in the ’40s as barber Floyd Munson on the comedy series The Great Gildersleeve and then as Doc Gamble on Fibber McGee and Molly. Arthur played the title character on the 1942-43 radio show Major Hoople, based on a popular comic strip (Mel Blanc was a regular cast member).
On the big screen he was Spanky’s father in the 1939 Our Gang short Dad for a Day. He also had mostly uncredited roles in everything from the Hope-Crosby romps Road to Singapore (1940) and Road to Rio (1947) to the Bela Lugosi shocker The Devil Bat (’40), and from Manpower (1941) and Larceny, Inc. (1942) with Edward G. Robinson to the noir thriller The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1947). Bryan even popped up in two Cecil B. DeMille epics, 1949’s Samson and Delilah and 1952’s The Greatest Show on Earth.
By the 1950s Bryan’s Fudd was a cartoon mainstay, taking on Bugs, Daffy Duck, and–beginning with 1951’s Rabbit Fire–both. He also crossed paths with Sylvester in Back Alley Uproar (1948), the Goofy Gophers in Pests for Guests (1955), and others. Arthur got the chance to use his natural speaking voice as a sleep-deprived hotel guest in 1947’s A Pest in the House and, playing a Germanic warrior with a “spear and magic helmet,” showed off his singing chops in the 1957 Merrie Melodies gem What’s Opera, Doc?
Along with his Gildersleeve and Fibber McGree radio gigs, Arthur branched into television, starting in 1948 on the quiz show Quizzing the News. His TV roles included guest spots on I Love Lucy, The Life of Riley, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and Our Miss Brooks, plus a recurring role on Ronald Colman’s 1954-55 sitcom The Halls of Ivy. Moviegoers saw him in Broken Lance (1954), The Lieutenant Wore Skirts (1956), and his final film, The Go-Getter (’56).
In November of 1959– after hundreds of radio and TV episodes, dozens of movie roles, and more than 50 cartoons as Elmer Fudd–Arthur Q. Bryan succumbed to a fatal heart attack at the age of 60. His last performance as Elmer in Person to Bunny was released posthumously in 1960. Hal Smith (The Andy Griffith Show) and Blanc would attempt to mimic Bryan’s distinctive voice in later shorts and TV specials, but neither came “cwose.”