Early Career and Looney Tunes
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Bryan grew up with a deep desire to go into show business, stumbling through the industry for several years before finding steady if unsatisfying work as a bit player and occasional film narrator in Hollywood.
Bryan came to prominence in his late 1930s as the voice of Egghead and Elmer Fudd at Warner Brothers animation unit, headed by Leon Schlesinger.
Along with several characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, or Porky Pig, all voiced by Mel Blanc, one of Warner's early big stars was Bryan's Elmer Fudd. The slow-talking, slower-witted, enunciation-challenged Mr. Fudd is a game hunter whose Brooklynesque speech (courtesy of Bryan's own childhood upbringing in the borough) was exaggerated for memorable effect by his habitual substitution of W for the letters L and R, an effect further immortalized by the tongue-in-cheek screen credits of the 1941 Bugs Bunny short Wabbit Twouble.
When watching him perform, director Bob Clampett (or "Wobert Cwampett" in the screen credit) thought Bryan's girth added to the hilarity of his dialogue, and redesigned Fudd as a fat man patterned after Bryan's real-life appearance. After a few shorts, Clampett decided it was a mistake, and Fudd returned to his classical form. But fat or slimmed, Bryan's Fudd was so popular that the character's shorts were used to create and develop the character of Bugs Bunny, with the first official Bugs Bunny appearance coming in the Fudd cartoon, A Wild Hare.
Bryan's name does not appear in Looney Tunes credits because of Mel Blanc's contract with Warner Brothers, which stipulated that only Blanc would receive on-screen credit for voice work.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Q. Bryan
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