MEL BLANC SHOW REVIEW

[Yhtapmys]

Radio Review
A VOICE GETS A PROGRAM
By JOHN CROSBY
Mel Blanc could only have happened in the last two decades of the 20th century. In the 19th century, he would perhaps have been a ghost writer. Today, with the decline in popularity of the printed word and the simultaneous rise of the radio and the movies, he is a ghost voice. The requirements for a ghost voice are about the same as those for a ghost writer. You must have great assimilative powers, enormous versatility but no fixed personality.
Though you may never have heard of Mel Blanc you have unquestionably heard his voice. Out of his skilled larynx have come the voices of the train announcer on the Jack Benny program, Pedro on the Judy Canova show, Hubert Peabody on the Jack Carson program and Bugs Bunny and Porky the pig in the animation cartoons. He was also Private Snafu in those Army training films and did more performances for the Armed Forces Radio Service than anyone else.
After supporting virtually everyone else of prominence in radio, Mr. Blanc now has his own program (CBS. 7:30 p.m., Tuesdays) in which he operates a fix-it shop (“You bend it—We mend it.") I'm pleased to see Mr. Blanc break into the big time but I advise him to hang on to his other contracts.
PERSONALITY LACKING
Mr. Blanc has thrown himself so wholeheartedly into the portrayal of Porky the pig and other characterizations that he doesn't seem to have any personality of his own. He reminded me of a certain great actress who was seated at dinner one night next to a producer I know. The next day the producer complained that the lady seemed to have no personality and employed instead bits and pieces from her various stage roles.
"During the soup course, she was the Duchess of Malfi." he said "When we got to the filet mignon, she’d become Candida. For dessert, she played one of those cockney guttersnipes.”
It was a magnificent performance, but he suffered from acute indigestion for three days.
In addition to schizophrenia, the Mel Blanc program is afflicted by most of the cliches of radio comedy. As a fixileer, Blanc is a sort of helpless pawn of society, whom I wouldn't trust with an electric toaster. He has a girl named Betty who is just everyone's kid sister.
Somewhere along the way the night I listened, he was assaulted by 'burlesque queen named Fifi.
VOCAL CHESS GAME
"Come on. sugar boy," is Fifi's approach to the male sex. In other words, the Mae West gambit.
"Ba hup ba hup ba hup," stutters the male in question, which is known as the Bert Lahr return to the Mae West gambit.
"We're all alone and after all you're a man and I'm a woman," was Fifi's next move. That play is optional. Some of the students of this pastime [unreadable] "Come up and see sometime" or even "Beulah, Peel me a grape." Frankly. I'm not qualified to express a preference one way or the other. I haven't seen a burlesque show since 1931 and I have only the dimmest recollection of what they're like. Maybe burlesque queens act that way.
Later on, Mr. Blanc tangles with an efficiency expert who messes up his fixit shop in what sounded like one of Bert Lahr's old revue sketches. Among the other worn characters on this program is Uncle Rupert who has all the characteristics of Uncle Amos in the comic strips and talks like the Great Gildersleeve.
"Look at the cigar butt on the floor, Uncle Rupert. That's yours," says Blanc sternly.
“No, you saw it first," says Uncle Rupert genially.
I don’t object to a certain amount of kleptomania in radio shows but the Mel Blanc program has much too much of it. The authors have to cram too many old ideas in one half hour instead of being 'content with just one or two. About all I can say for the show is that it's good-natured and that the sound effects were wonderful.
- Oakland Tribune September 21, 1946

Crosby pretty well nailed it. The show was full of clichés and had no sympathetic characters. It was a showcase for Mel's dialects and voices and that was about it.

Yhtapmys
"Drive Your Blues Away"

[Mister Kitzel]

The Mel Blanc Show was one of the first series that I collected aggressively. Its problem may have been in trying too hard to showcase Mel's talents, but that was his schtick in the first place.

A similar show was The Alan Young Show in which the lead character was a bumbling fool with a girlfriend named Betty, the same name as Mel's girlfriend. The humor was about the same between the two shows. When I met Alan Young I asked him if his writers had ever worked on the Mel Blanc show. I had assumed that the Blanc show preceded the Young show, so my question may have come from the wrong point of view. Mr. Young said that he had chosen his own writers, and they did not come from Mel Blanc's show. Learning more over the years I hear members of Fred Allen's ensemble of players, so there is a question of where the show was produced. If it had been in New York there definitely would have been a different set of writers. Listening to the 1947 shows reveals a lot of similarities.

[mrdj]

All I can add is... Ugga Ugga Boo, Ugga Boo Boo Ugga!

[Gerry O.]

I have many episodes of "The Mel Blanc Show", and the series really leaves me cold. There are a few funny bits here and there, like Mel hiding behind a broken radio and acting out the different programs as his girlfriend's father....who doesn't realize that Mel has broken his radio....keeps changing the station trying to find a show that's worth listening to. That bit was hilarious, but there weren't enough of them in this rather flat series.

I think that Mel would have fared much better in a variety show format like Red Skelton had. Mel could have played different characters in different sketches, and the show wouldn't have been saddled with all of those dull and unfunny supporting characters.

During WWII, Mel hosted an absolutely hysterical 15-minute quiz show for the Armed Forces Radio Service called "Are You A Genius?". The show had no contestants, no studio audience....just Mel and a piano player. Mel would read a quiz question to the listener and then the piano would play a short tune while Mel gave you time to think of the answer....but during the piano music Mel would go WILD, doing all kind of crazy voices, sound effects (including his famous "electric organ" impression) and other funny sounds. Plus, Mel did great ad-libbed voices and bits of improv throughout the program.....real "Jonathan Winters" and "Robin Williams" type comedy.

I own only two episodes of "Are You A Genius?" (that's all that I can find), but it's truly Mel Blanc at his best!

[Gerry O.]

I have many episodes of "The Mel Blanc Show", and the series really leaves me cold. There are a few funny bits here and there, like Mel hiding behind a broken radio and acting out the different programs as his girlfriend's father....who doesn't realize that Mel has broken his radio....keeps changing the station trying to find a show that's worth listening to. That bit was hilarious, but there weren't enough of them in this rather flat series.

I think that Mel would have fared much better in a variety show format like Red Skelton had. Mel could have played different characters in different sketches, and the show wouldn't have been saddled with all of those dull and unfunny supporting characters.

During WWII, Mel hosted an absolutely hysterical 15-minute quiz show for the Armed Forces Radio Service called "Are You A Genius?". The show had no contestants, no studio audience....just Mel and a piano player. Mel would read a quiz question to the listener and then the piano would play a short tune while Mel gave you time to think of the answer....but during the piano music Mel would go WILD, doing all kind of crazy voices, sound effects (including his famous "electric organ" impression) and other funny sounds. Plus, Mel did great ad-libbed voices and bits of improv throughout the program.....real "Jonathan Winters" and "Robin Williams" type comedy.

I own only two episodes of "Are You A Genius?" (that's all that I can find), but it's truly Mel Blanc at his best!

I just want to mention this....One of the funniest bits that Mel did on his "Are You A Genius?" program was right after Mel asked a question about animals. While giving you time to think of the answer, the pianist played a rousing version of "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down On The Farm?" while Mel pulled out all the stops and did one farm animal impression after another.....squealing pigs, whinnying horses, mooing cows, crowing roosters, bleating goats, etc.....Great stuff!

[TheSportsmenQuartet]

Comedy-wise, The Mel Blanc show suffered. But about 3 weeks into the show, they started featuring The Sportsmen singing a song in the middle of show and the show improved immeasurably

[LLeff]

Any chance of getting MP3s of "Are You a Genius?"? It sounds like my kind of surreal comedy.

[bboswell]

I just looked it up on the Goldin Index and he knows of 9 different episodes. Sadly, according to the website he has no interest in trading or selling.

[Gerry O.]

Any chance of getting MP3s of "Are You a Genius?"? It sounds like my kind of surreal comedy.

Laura, my two shows are on audio cassette tape. I'll e-mail you about this and see how we can add them to the audio library.