William “Billy” Bletcher, born on September 24, 1894 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, provided the voices of various characters for Disney (Black Pete and The Big Bad Wolf), MGM (Spike the Bulldog), and Warner Bros. (many characters, most notably the Papa Bear in Chuck Jones’ The Three Bears after Mel Blanc had performed the role in the initial entry). He appeared opposite Blanc in Little Red Riding Rabbit, where he played another famous wolf. He also voiced Owl Jolson’s disciplinarian violinist father in the 1936 short subject based on the song I Love to Singa. […]
