Then in 1936, Warner Brothers gave a shot to a beginning radio actor named Mel Blanc. Smart move.
Blanc billed himself as the Man of a Thousand Voices -- good p.r. but probably not an accurate count and certainly a misassessment of his talent. It wasn't quantity that made Mel great, it was quality. His "voice characterizations," as the credits called them, were rounded, fully-developed personalities -- with comic timing and delivery as skilled as the best radio comics of the day. The cartoon acting field had found its Olivier.
Soon, a few other masters happened along, including Daws Butler, Stan Freberg, Paul Frees and, in a class by herself, the incredible June Foray. Butler -- the man Blanc himself called "my only rival" -- would later voice Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and most of the early Hanna-Barbera characters.
Between 1950 and 1970 (all dates approximate), a relatively small talent pool supplied most of the cartoon voices in Hollywood. Butler, Blanc, Foray, Frees, Hans Conreid, Don Messick, Allan Melvin, Howie Morris, Janet Waldo, Joanie Gerber, Hal Smith, Dick Beals, Walker Edmiston, Julie Bennett, Lennie Weinrib, Shep Menken, John Stephenson and a few others probably handled about 75% of the work. In 1969, a young impressionist named Frank Welker began doing voices and quickly became ubiquitous; if anyone were to ever tally who since then has logged the most hours making silly sounds before microphones, Frank would be the easy victor.
Since about '70, there seems to have been a rush of new voice performers. Some hail from the comedy circuit and from various improv troupes. Others come out of disc-jockeying or on-camera acting. Most grew up on cartoons, dreaming of someday being Mel Blanc or Daws Butler.
(The gent I think is the most talented of the "new" voice actors not only dreamed of being Blanc and Butler…he's actually achieved it, in a manner. Daws used to teach and his prize student was Greg Burson, whose ability to mimic his mentor is uncanny. After Daws passed away, Greg fulfilled his wishes by taking over as Yogi, Huck and most Butler-created roles. Burson is also the best and most-often-heard of the several actors who have done Bugs Bunny and other Blanc roles since Mel left us. And he even does, for commercials, the part of Mr. Magoo, expertly duplicating the style of the late Jim Backus. The man is amazing.)
Between 1970 and 1990, the field became flooded with new performers and, since then, it's only gotten more crowded. As a result of Disney features, The Simpsons and a general depression in Screen Actors Guild employment, it is no longer unfashionable for on-camera actors to do cartoon voice work. Many animated shows have rushed to cast actors who are best known for their work on live-action TV series on the questionable (I think) premise that employing these folks elevates the cartoon to some higher level.
Some of these TV stars are as good as the full-time voice actors, many are not, and at least one producer has openly admitted that he doesn't care. For reasons of promotion and prestige, he'd rather have a "name actor" delivering a mediocre performance than a good job by a professional voice artist whose name most folks wouldn't recognize. (Most of them are working for S.A.G, scale, so the celebrities don't cost any more.)
The end result of all this, of course, is that the field keeps getting more and more overrun with talent. Like all forms of professional acting that have ever existed on this planet, the number of folks who want to perform will always greatly exceed the number of roles that could possibly exist.
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