1908: Toon Talker

Mel Blanc is born in San Francisco, California

Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner, Foghorn Leghorn, the Tasmanian Devil—all famous cartoon characters, right? Well, they have another thing in common. The same fellow, Mel Blanc, supplied their voices in thousands of cartoons from the 1930s through the 1980s.

Working for Warner Brothers and the animation house Hanna-Barbera, Blanc delighted generations of children with his boundless range of cute, silly, or booming voices that gave life to dozens of animated animals and people. He kicked off his career in 1927, working on a radio show called The Hoot Owls. As his career soared, he pushed for recognition of his work in closing credits of the cartoons (voice actors typically were not mentioned). He also practiced techniques for keeping his voice healthy, such as minimizing the amount of work of voices that were hard on his vocal cords.