 He dropped out of high school in about the ninth grade. He used to say, I got lousy grades, but I developed some great voices because of the echo in his school in the hallways. He started leading orchestras. He was an orchestra conductor, and the orchestras moved all around the Oregon area and the Washington area and Northern California area. In between, when he was conducting the music, he would do shtick. He'd do different voices and different comedy routines. Mel was the youngest orchestra leader in the country at that time, at 17.