In 1961 the victim of a head-on car crash lay speechless in a Los Angeles hospital. On the 21st day of silence, the neurosurgeon tried a desperate measure: "How are you feeling today, Bugs Bunny?" he asked. The reply was immediate: "Eh, just fine, Doc. How're you?" A question to Porky Pig ) elicited a similar response: "Just f-fine, th-th-thanks!" In his otherwise light-headed autobiography, Mel Blanc recalls, "It was as though Bugs and Porky, into whom I had breathed life three decades earlier, were returning the favor."
When he recovered, the voice of more than 400 animated characters resumed a...