Mel Blanc - Later Career

Later Career

In the 1970s, Blanc did a series of college lectures across the United States on the side, which broke attendance records of any college lectures in the country. He would also collaborate on a special with the Boston-based Shriners Burns Institute called Ounce of Prevention, which became a 30-minute TV special that aired worldwide.

Contrary to popular belief, Blanc was not one of hundreds of individuals that George Lucas auditioned to provide the voice for the character of C-3PO in the original Star Wars film. That distinction instead fell to fellow voice actor Stan Freberg, and it was Freberg who ultimately suggested that the producers use mime actor Anthony Daniels' own voice in the role.

After spending most of two seasons voicing the robot Twiki in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Blanc's last original character, in the early 1980s, was Heathcliff, who spoke a little like Bugs Bunny. Blanc continued to voice his famous characters in commercials and TV specials for most of the decade, although he increasingly left the "yelling" characters like Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn and The Tasmanian Devil to other voice actors, as performing these were too hard on his throat. One of his last recording sessions was for a new animated theatrical version of The Jetsons.

In the early 1980s, he would appear on commercials for American Express, as well as 9 Lives cat food spots featuring Sylvester, which combined live action and animation. He also re-teamed with the Shriners Burn Institute in the mid-1980s for a series of public service announcements in which his Warner Bros. characters were used to advise children about burn prevention in the home.

In 1983, he was asked by comedian Rick Moranis to voice the father of Bob and Doug MacKenzie in the film Strange Brew, which he did.

Blanc voiced all his well known Looney Tunes characters (save for Yosemite Sam and Foghorn Leghorn, both of whom were voiced by Joe Alaskey) in the 1988 live-action/animated comedy-mystery film Who Framed Roger Rabbit making this project one of the final times he voiced these characters as he died only a year after the film's release. A license to use the Looney Tunes characters (along with many other characters) for the movie was acquired from their respective owners to appear in this film by Disney making Who Framed Roger Rabbit one of only a few times Blanc worked for Disney.