Here's how Bill Melendez became the voice of Snoopy

Melendez never intended to voice the dog.

Sometimes the best things in life happen almost by accident. 

Take, for example, your favorite beagle, Snoopy. While he rarely ever makes any verbal noise, he certainly is able to communicate enough that he's easily one of our favorite Peanuts characters. Typically, when we hear Snoopy make a noise, he's laughing it up at someone else's expense. But do you know who the man is behind the dog?

An article in the Chicago Tribune stated that Bill Melendez, who provided the voice for Snoopy, only began doing so after Charles M. Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, insisted that Snoopy would not be able to talk. The article stated, "Mr. Melendez experimented with making sounds that suggested a voice and speeding them up on tape." Apparently, Melendez did so under the assumption that his sounds were only a placeholder and that a real voice actor would step in and use Melendez's vocals as a sort of framework for Snoopy's actual voice. 

However, the article stated that "Time ran short, and Mr. Melendez served as Snoopy's voice in sixty-three half-hour specials, five one-hour specials, the Saturday morning TV show, and four feature films."

In an interview with The Pittsburgh Press, Melendez spoke about the experience. He explained, "I just made some sounds to show the actors who were auditioning for the part I had in mind. The sounds are then altered — either speeded up or slowed down, depending on what we want."

While Melendez admitted he never intended to voice Snoopy himself, his coworkers changed his mind. He said, "All my associates said, 'Bill, these are just really sound effects and so we really don't need a high-priced actor.' They convinced me that I should continue to supply the Snoopy sounds. I've been doing it ever since."

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4 Comments

Bricat2001 10 months ago
snoopy was given a speaking voice for a series of storytelling tape/book sets that were released by worlds of wonder ( the same people that made teddy ruxpin) and he sounds.... well weird XD there was also a woodstock finger puppet that made "bird noises" and there was originally going to be a storytelling charlie brown as well but that got scraped sadly :(


Jeffrey Bricat2001 9 months ago
"but that got "Scraped sadly?" you mean scrapped, NOT Scraped. Scrapped has 2 p's in it, and scraped has 1.
Runeshaper 10 months ago
That's interesting. I love Snoopy!
justjeff 10 months ago
Melendez was the animator of those shows as well...
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