One-Man Crowd

When radio needs a new voice--from a barnyard cackle to a French maestro--it is apt to call on Mel Blanc, the "one-man-crowd." Until this week, when radio's unsung bit players and stooges were finally honored by Hall of Fame (ABC, Sun., 6-6:30 p.m., E.S.T.), few listeners knew Mel by name. But millions probably knew him as Jack Benny's English butler, train announcer, parrot, French violin teacher and news reporter; as Burns & Allen's melancholy postman; as Judy Canova's Pedro, Salesman Roscoe Wortle and a chronic hiccougher; as Bob Hope's "Private Snafu"; as Abbott & Costello's Scotsman.

Since radio's tonsils are frequently more highly prized than its brains, Mel's flexible voice is often called in to save an otherwise disastrous show. He can portray 57 different characters, often does eight or ten on a single program. Once the record turntable for sound effects failed. Blanc stepped up to the mike and, using only his voice, squealed like a skidding auto and did a corking good imitation of a bottle being opened and poured. For Warner Bros.'s cartoons, he is the voice of Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny.

At 37, mild-mannered, snood-eyed Melvin Jerome Blanc (pronounced blank) has more job offers than he can fill. He has ducked proposals for a show of his own, prefers to pocket the $2,000 a week he gets from making the big stars a little bigger. That way, he says, he can spend his free time fishing, eating eclairs and running a hardware store in Los Angeles County. Reading his fan mail over Jack Benny's shoulder doesn't bother him one bit.

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