Arthur Q. Bryan: The Man Who Would Be Fudd

We’ve tipped our hand in the title to this post. Most who know the name Arthur Q. Bryan (1899-1959) know him as the man who inconveniently breaks Mel Blanc’s reputation for “doing all the characters” in the classic Warner Brothers cartoons. For while Mel did Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, and so forth, while Bryan owned Elmer Fudd.

Who can say why the Fudd voice is so funny? To me it’s not just the speech impediment thing, the baby-like substituting of “W” for “R” that we also associate with Kay Francis and Barbara Walters. (Joe Penner was said to have been partial inspiration for his take on the character.) I find the quality, the timbre of his voice to be mirth-inducing. There’s also that distinctive, tentative laugh (“heh-heh-heh-heh-heh”). And for some reason, I find it especially hilarious when he cries. I don’t know why this is. I’ve never found it funny when Stan Laurel cries, for example.

Anyway, this post doesn’t exist on account of Bryan playing Elmer Fudd. It exists because he did a ton else. He was also a character comedian in films and on radio shows as well. He had begun singing on local radio as early as 1926. By 1938 he was a regular on The Grouch Club, a national show on CBS, along with Jack Albertson, Ned Sparks, and others, and these led to a half dozen Vitaphone comedy shorts. Bryan began doing the voice of Elmer Fudd in 1940, and this led to more radio work. He was a regular on Fibber McGee and Molly and its spinoffs The Great Gildersleeve and Beulah, as well as Al Pearce and His Gang,The Charlotte Greenwood Show, and several others.

As for live action film work: he has bit parts in the features films Broadway Serenade (1939), I Stole a Million (1939), These Glamor Girls (1939), Little Accident (1939) with Hugh Herbert, Road to Singapore (1940), Millionaire Playboy (1940) with Joe Penner,The Devil Bat (1940), Manpower (1940), Look Who’s Laughing (1940) with Fibber McGee and Molly and Edgar Bergen, Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime (1941), Larceny Inc (1941), A Desperate Chancefor Ellery Queen (1942), Johnny Doughboy (1942), National Barn Dance (1944), I’m from Arkansas (1944) with Slim Summerville, She Wouldn’t Say Yes (1945), Idea Girl (1946), The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1947), Road to Rio (1947), Samson and Delilah (1949), Here Come the Nelsons (1952), The Lieutenant Wore Skirts (1956), The Go-Getter (1956), and other films.

Bryan played bigger parts in comedy shorts . He was Spanky’s dad in the Our Gang short Dad for a Day (1939). He’s also in South of the Boudoir (1940) with Charley Chase, Groom and Bored (1942) with Johnny Downs , Mopey Dope (1944) with Harry Langdon, Mr Wright Goes Wrong (1946) with Sterling Holloway, and several shorts with with George O’Hanlon as Joe McDoakes.

On television he appeared on The Colgate Comedy Hour, Ozzie and Harriet, I Love Lucy, The Hank McCune Show, Our Miss Brooks, It’s a Great Life, The Red Skelton Hour, The Life of Riley, et al. He was a regular on both the readio and TV versions of The Halls of Ivy, created by the same folks who wrote Fibber McGee and Molly.

Is is it any wonder that Bryan was felled by a heart attack at age 60? This comedian worked HARD.

To learn more about show biz history please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. And stay tuned for my next book Vaudeville in Your Living Room: A Century of Radio and TV Variety, coming November 2023.