I was thrilled to be asked by Brian Levant to do the sound design for two Flintstones live-action feature films. I had an advantage over the competition because I was a sound editor at Hanna-Barbera studios for three years, working on the Saturday morning cartoons including the Flintstones and that early work experience served me well in being considered for the film and ultimately being hired.
One of the many perks of working there was not only working on goofy cartoons but meeting one of my boyhood heroes, Mel Blanc, the gifted voice over artist who gave voice to Dino for those cartoons.
By 1994, as we began work on the first live-action film, Mel was sadly no longer with us. Brian and I wanted Dino to be as authentic as possible for the film version. Unfortunately for us there was no sound library or collection of his Dino vocalizations; Mel always performed Dino live for the microphone for each episode. Through the licensing of the original characters for the movie, I was given access to the mono stems from every episode in the Hanna Barbera archives. I set about culling any utterance Dino made that was clear of dialog. This process yielded no more than two minutes of usable Dino voice. As Dino was only a small part of the first film, I created the performances out of tiny bits I stole and re-assembled them to fit the action.
By 2000, when we embarked on the second film, “The Flintstones, Viva Rock Vegas”, Dino was to have a much expanded role and our quaint collection of Mel Blanc utterances was not going to be broad enough. We set about a national casting call to find the best Dino voice we could find and hoped to stay as true to the original Mel Blanc voicing as possible.
Months would pass and close to 75 auditions before we threw our hands up, while sitting in a recording studio, after what felt like the final audition. We had exhausted everyone who was anyone and didn’t know what to do. Brian, frustrated, turned to me in the studio and asked, somewhat rhetorically “What is it, what is it that these actors are missing?” Thinking he had landed on the answer, Brian bellied up to the mic and gave it shot. We played it back and even he admitted, that’s not it.
Now you need to know that I am very shy. And I have never deigned myself an actor or anything resembling a performer. But on that day, in that studio, something weird and new bubbled up inside me. Having spent my formative years listening to Dino on every episode I worked on at Hanna Barbera, and having watched every Flintstones cartoon every made, and having listened to every sound Mel ever made for Dino, I suddenly felt a responsibility to show Brian what I knew. Not that I intended to do anything but demonstrate “essential Dino-ness” so that we could put our finger on what to ask for of the next and hopefully final candidate in our search.
I bellied up to the microphone and simply said “Brian, this is what I think Dino sounds like”. I yipped and yapped, channeling my inner Mel Blanc, appropriating every nuance he brought to the voice (his secret was inhaling on the yips, not exhaling). I brought nothing new to it, only verisimilitude.
Brian said “Mangini, you’re Dino”.
I would do the VO work for the second film only where original Mel Blank material couldn’t be found to fit but that would be substantial. In the ensuing years, I would be hired one more time, by Cartoon Network, as the voice of Dino for a TV special on the Flintstones. That was my one and only solo gig, and a terrifying one at that, being told by directors and writers what to do while in character as a Family Dog/Dinosaur. A surreal moment but a formative one.
Bless you Mel Blanc. You were one of a kind.