Monday, November 21, 2022

Mel Blanc and Jack Benny on Johnny Carson



The YouTube account for Johnny Carson has just made available a clip of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from 1974, in which the guests were Jack Benny and Mel Blanc. Blanc, "the man of a thousand voices," tells how he got his first job in voice work in 1927. That puts this recording halfway between Blanc's breakthrough and today. Listen to Blanc do his cartoon characters, plus a car, a horse, and more. He and Benny go over some of their old routines and laugh at themselves so much that we can't help but laugh along with them.

3 comments:

  1. Great stuff.

    I grew up on Looney Tunes cartoons.

    Pop art I can take or leave--mostly leave, but this one chokes me up: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/u2UAAOSwmXJfArtY/s-l640.jpg

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  2. In the 1962 Chuck Jones WB cartoon "A Sheep in the Deeo" (featuring Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf), the cartoon itself shows the two of them, on temporary truce for their lunch break, enjoying a cigarette (Ralph) and a pipe (Sam).

    Nowadays, they're doing all they can to make smoking cigarettes uncool, socially unacceptable, or not allowed (look at all the places where you CAN'T smoke — even in open-air public parks while outside but still on the property of municipal buildings, schools, hospital, and what-have-you) ... but it's OK for people to smoke recreational marijuana so long as they do it at home or in their car, and get it from state-licensed dispensaries.  Go figure.

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  3. Well they can smoke tobacco at home and in their car too, but not pot any place you can't smoke tobacco. It's an individual decision although people should be made aware of the health risks. throw alcohol in the warnings too.

    Anyway, that clip of Carson was great, I use to watch him almost every night from '65 until he quit, and I still love the reruns.

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