Danny Webb

Biography

The son of a Hungarian-born furrier was born David Weberman and started out in showbiz as 'Dave Weber'. By the time he arrived in Hollywood in 1935, he was already a seasoned radio comedian. A series of clever celebrity impersonations on the 'Burns & Allen' show promoted his act and led to gigs as a voice dubber for Charles Mintz's Screen Gems cartoons, where he was put to work mimicking stars like Bing Crosby and Eddie Cantor. The short, bespectacled comic simultaneously worked at Columbia, Metro and, most importantly, for Warner Brothers. He was signed by sound editor Treg Brown to provide the vocals for Looney Tunes characters, working in tandem with the legendary Mel Blanc. Webb voiced the Elmer Fudd prototype "Egghead" in his first pairing with the zany fowl in Daffy Duck & Egghead (1938). In later cartoons, he gave expression to a whole bunch of other critters, in fact, everyone not already covered by Blanc. He also worked for Walter Lantz on various Woody Woodpecker shorts. Webb eventually enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, worked his way up to staff sergeant and ended up entertaining troops in North Africa. Dwight D. Eisenhower was sufficiently impressed by his technique to bestow upon him the sobriquet of 'Comedy Commando', a tag which stuck around for several years after the war had ended. Webb later returned to radio, became the voice of 'Sad Sack', briefly hosted the quiz show "Guess Who" and then had a minor career on local television which fizzled sometime after 1951.