On January 24, 1961, Mel Blanc was driving alone when his sports car was involved in a head-on collision on Sunset Boulevard; his legs and his pelvis were fractured as a result. About two weeks later, one of Blanc's neurologists at the UCLA Medical Center tried a different approach than just trying to address the unconscious Blanc himself: by adressing his characters. Blanc was asked, "How are you feeling today, Bugs Bunny?" After a slight pause, Blanc answered, in a weak voice, "Eh ... just fine, Doc. How are you?" The doctor then asked Tweety if he was there, too, which was answered with "I tawt I taw a puddy tat." Blanc returned home on March 17. Four days later, Blanc filed a US $500,000 lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles. His accident, one of 26 in the preceding two years at the intersection known as Dead Man's Curve (you read that right), resulted in the city funding the restructuring of curves at the location. Despite his injuries he continued voicing the characters after he was conscious.
In 1976, Blanc revealed that during his recovery, his son Noel Blanc "ghosted" several Warner Bros. cartoons' voice tracks for him. To which after Mel Blanc's death Noel Blanc took a bunch of his father's characters, however Warner Bros. didn't want him to solely take after Mel and had other voice actors voice other characters. At the time of the accident, Blanc was also serving as the voice of Barney Rubble in The Flintstones. His absence from the show was relatively brief; Daws Butler provided the voice of Barney Rubble for a few episodes, after which the show's producers set up recording equipment in Blanc's hospital room and later at his home to allow him to work from there. Some of the recordings were made while he was in full-body cast as he lay flat on his back with the other Flintstones co-stars gathered around him. He returned to The Jack Benny Program to film the program's 1961 Christmas show, moving around by crutches and a wheelchair.
By the way, I'm surprised Mel's son Noel is actually older than Billy West by 11 years.
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