
Mel Blanc Joins Warner Bros. in 1937
On May 30, 1908, Melvin Jerome Blank was born in San Francisco, California. At the age of six, his family relocated to Portland, Oregon. Young Blank developed a passion for music and picked up the bass, violin, and sousaphone, among other instruments. He had a fondness for making up voices, which amused his classmates and annoyed his teachers. Blank was told by a teacher when he was 16 years old, “You’ll never amount to anything. You’re just like your last name: blank.”
Following his graduation, Blanc was hired by KGW, an Oregon radio station, for The Hoot Owls, a late-night variety show that he wrote for and performed on. The incident forced Blank to change the spelling of his last name to “Blanc.”
The youngest musical director in the nation, Blanc was appointed by the RKO Orpheum Theater in Portland on March 26, 1931 (as stated in the previously cited Encyclopedia). Blanc developed his ability to create a range of voices through his work on radio, in part to compensate for the lack of any supporting cast members. Blanc was hired by San Francisco-based NBC affiliate KGO in May 1931 to emcee The Road Show. However, after the show’s failure, he moved to Los Angeles, where he eventually met and wed Estelle Rosenbaum in 1933.
After moving back to Portland, Blanc and his spouse started a new late-night program for KEX called Cobwebs and Nuts. Following the conclusion of the show in 1935, the Blanc family relocated to Los Angeles. In 1936, Blanc secured employment performing impressions on NBC Blue Networks’ The Jell-O Program Starring Jack Benny, in addition to other radio assignments in the vicinity. Blanc had been unsuccessful in her attempts to get a voice acting audition with Warner Bros. at that time. Then destiny intervened, and after the manager who had repeatedly turned Blanc down died in 1936, his successor gave him another chance and ultimately hired him.
After Blanc voiced a drunken bull in his first Warner Bros. project, Picador Porky, he was approached to take over as Porky Pig’s voice actor, according to Encyclopedia. 1937 saw the release of Picador Porky, which was not only Blanc’s first Warner cartoon but also the place where he improvised and came up with the famous “Th-uh-th-uh-th-that’s all, folks!” The same year also saw the appearance of Daffy Duck, and in 1940 Blanc contributed to the creation of Bugs Bunny, the character he would be most closely associated with throughout his career.
Bugs Bunny Saves Mel Blanc After a Serious Car Accident
As they say, the rest is history. According to Britannica, Blanc voiced 90 percent of the Looney Tunes characters, which catapulted her to international stardom. Subsequently, in January 1961, Blanc was hospitalized following a tragic accident. After a recording session in San Francisco, Blanc was driving home in his sports car, heading east on Sunset Boulevard, when he was struck by a college student right at the famous “Dead Man’s Curve.” When he was finally pulled from the wreckage, Blanc was unconscious, and the situation did not look good. Blanc had sustained multiple fractures, including two broken legs, a fractured pelvis, and numerous other broken bones. Blanc spent fourteen days unconscious. Dr. Louis Conway, the neurosurgeon attending to Blanc, and Blanc’s family, would try calling out his name, but to no avail. They feared the worst, as did Blanc’s fans around the world.
Curiously, this is where the story is connected to the Bugs Bunny cartoons. When Dr. Conway arrived in Blanc’s hospital room, the television was on and running a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The doctor had an idea because of the timing, whether it was a coincidence or a sign from God. A crazy notion, some might say. “So finally, he [the doctor] said, ‘Bugs, can you hear me?’ Believe it or not – and I was there with my mom – he responds in character, ‘Yeah, what’s up doc?’ I was stunned.” Blanc’s son, Noel Blanc, narrates what transpired next in an interview with Fox News. “He recuperated and even took on jobs while wearing a full-body cast.”
Among other things, Blanc continued to voice a wide variety of cartoon characters in the years after his accident. At the age of 22, Blanc’s son started working at Mel Blanc Associates, an advertising agency that Blanc had founded shortly before his accident with John Burton, a former executive producer of Warner Bros. (as per the previously cited Encyclopedia). Mel Blanc established the Mel Blanc School of Commercials in 1972, offering classes on voiceovers for radio and television, commercial acting fundamentals, and other subjects. However, financial issues forced the school to close after just two years. In 1988, Blanc provided the voice of the Looney Tunes characters that starred in the hugely popular live-action/animation hybrid movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That would be the last film Blanc worked on that was released while he was still alive, with Blanc passing away at 81 years old on July 10, 1989.
The breadth of Blanc’s legacy is astounding. He worked on several Looney Tunes character development projects. Additionally, Blanc’s 1937 opening line and “last words he ever said on-camera or off-camera,” “That’s All, Folks,” are inscribed on his tombstone.

Aitzaz Hasan, Pakistani school boy who sacrificed his life from suicide bomber
Aitzaz Hasan, a 15 year old Pakistani school boy, sacrificed his life while preventing a suicide bomber from entering his school of 2000 students. His father said "My son made his mother cry but saved hundreds of mothers from crying for their children."

Abraham Crijnssen – The Ship That Disguised Itself As An Island
During World War II a Dutch minesweeper evaded the Japanese for eight days disguised as an island. The crew covered the decks in cut trees and painted exposed surfaces to look like rocks. They moved only at night and anchored closed to shore by day, eventually escaping to Australia.

Croatian teenager wakes up from coma speaking fluent in German In 2010
In 2010, a Croatian teenager awoke from a coma to discover she could no longer speak Croatian but was fluent in German, a language she had just recently begun studying at school in the United Kingdom. reports in the press

Billy Ray Harris: A Story of Kindness and Honesty
In 2013, a homeless man named Billy Ray Harris discovered a $4,000 engagement ring in this cup. A woman had dropped while giving him some change. He returned the ring to her two days later. To thank him for his honesty, she set up a fund with the goal of raising $4,000 for him. It earned more than $185,000.

JBJ Soul Kitchen: Bon Jovi's community restaurant
JBJ Soul Kitchen is a community restaurant by Jon Bon Jovi with no prices on the menu; customers donate to pay for their meals. If you are unable to donate you may do volunteer work in exchange for your family’s meal.

Smart guy brings life-sized cutout of his late mother to his graduation
Even though that his mother passed away in 2016, a young man had a clever idea to make a life-size cutout of her and bring it to the event so that she could attend his graduation ceremony.

Unique Dining table with a hole for your cat to peek and join you dinner.
Dinos, a Japanese internet shop, has launched a new range of cat furniture, which includes this oak table with a hole in the middle and a perch underneath. It places your cat companion in the center of the table, making your cat the main focus of your meal, as it should be, because cats are the true proprietors of “your” home.

New York installs first offshore wind turbine to power 70,000 homes
New York State has achieved a historic milestone in its clean energy transition by installing the first wind turbine at its first offshore wind farm, South Fork Win.

Paramedic Rescues Doctor Who Saved Him 30 Years Earlier
In 1981, a doctor helped save the life of a 3.2 pounds premature baby boy. Thirty years later, the boy, who had grown up to be a firefighter-paramedic, helped in saving the same doctor from a car accident.

Before "The Rock," There Was "Rocky Maivia"
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s first WWF persona was Rocky Maivia, a face (good guy). The audience rejected him due to his cheesy character, with chants of “Die, Rocky, die!”. After this, he became a heel (villain), referring to himself in the third person as “The Rock” and insulting the audience.

Apple Watch saves a 78 year old man from life threatening fall
An Apple watch saved the life of a 78-year-old man from North Carolina. When the man was unconscious and collapsed on his driveway, his Apple watch quickly sent an alert to emergency services.

The Crystal Maiden of the Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave
Located in Belize, there is a cave where the remnants of ancient Maya human sacrifices can be witnessed. However, reaching the back of the cave system requires swimming, wading through a cave river, and crawling through narrow, uneven rocky passages in darkness. Once there, visitors can walk among the numerous corpses of sacrifice victims, including The Crystal Maiden, an 18-year-old whose skeleton has become calcified to the point of sparkling.

Frank Lentini, The Three-Legged Sideshow Performer
Francesco Lentini was a man with three legs, four feet, sixteen toes, and two sets of functional male genitals. He worked for the circus and lived to be 78 years old.

Before Hollywood, Christopher Walken Was a Teenage Lion Tamer with a Lioness Named Sheba
Before acting, Christopher Walken worked as a lion tamer in a circus at age 16. He performed with a lioness named Sheba and described the job as surprisingly calm—just another day before Hollywood stardom.

Elvita Adams jumps from the Empire State Building and amazingly survived
Elvita Adams once tried to commit suicide by jumping off the empire state building. She Jumped from the 86th floor but was blown back to 85th floor by a strong gust of wind.

World's largest iceberg breaks off Antarctica
In 1986, the iceberg known as A23a broke away from the Antarctic coast. However, it quickly grounded in the Weddell Sea, effectively turning into an ice island.

Australian man dies, comes back to life, and wins the lottery twice
Bill Morgan, an Australian, is a man who has beat the odds. He escaped death by surviving a horrific automobile accident and heart attack before collapsing into a coma and going on to win the lotto twice. He went from losing virtually everything to winning far more than he could have imagined.

This whale tail sculpture saved a train that went off the rails
A train in the Netherlands failed to stop in time and broke through the emergency barrier. It's being held up by the statue of a whale's tail.

Self-taught William Kamkwamba built a windmill for his town
A Malawian teenager who taught himself how to build a windmill out of junk and bring power to his village. He then went on to build a second, larger windmill to power irrigation pumps. He did this all from books he read in the library.

The accidentally discovery of Riace bronzes
Stefano Mariottini was snorkeling off the coast of Monasterace near Riace in 1972 when he noticed a human hand sticking out of the sand and called the police, thinking it was a corpse. It was actually two statues of "Warriors from Riace" - 5th century BC Greek bronze statues.

A Pilot Survived 20 Minutes Outside A Flying Jet
In 1990, the captain of flight 5390 Timothy Lancaster got sucked out of his own plane when the window of the plane fell off. The crew held the captain’s leg for 30 minutes while the plane performed emergency landing. Everyone survived.

chand baori stepwell in Rajasthan India, Ancient cooling technique
This Chand Baori stepwell in Rajasthan, India is over 1200 years old. It’s called Chand Baori. The air at the bottom of the well is 5-6 degrees cooler than at the surface, so in addition to being a water source, it was used as a community gathering place where locals could escape the heat.

A subway in Chongqing passes through a building (images)
A train has been constructed through an apartment complex in Chongqing, China. The 19-story residential structure is not only passed by the light rail passenger train, but it also serves as a transit stop. Apartment residents can simply get a ride from the sixth to eighth levels.

Kipekee, the world's only spotless giraffe, was born at Brights Zoo
The world's only spotless giraffe was born at a zoo in the United States. The giraffe born without spots on July 31 is the only one of her kind on Earth.

Toddler Calls 911 Accidentally and Saves Dad's Life
A father from Florida collapsed on the floor during a medical episode. Fortunately, his toddler son dialed 911 by accident and saved his life. An officer from the Hernando County Sheriff's Office arrived quickly and administered first aid before transporting him to a nearby hospital.