♪
Ezekiel 25:17.
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides
with the inequities of the selfish
and the tyranny of evil men.
In a world of cartoon voices,
animated, really annoying, etcetera.
[Tazmanian Devil]
Blessed is he.
When the name of charity and goodwill.
Shepherd the weak through the valley of darkness.
Praise to his brother's keeper.
And the finder of lost children.
And I will strike down.
Upon those with great vengeance.
And with furious anger.
Those who attempt to poison.
And destroy my brothers!
If you will know my name is the Lord.
You could call me Jesus, you could call me Christ,
you could call me the Lord.
When I lay my vengeance upon thee.
My sweet, sweet, sexy vengeance.
You gotta watch this.
What's the name of it?
You need to [speaking gibberish]
I think I'll have some more martini.
Take two.
I know that voice!
I know that voice.
I know that voice!
I know that voice.
And I know that voice.
I know that voice.
I know that voice!
From beautiful downtown Burbank.
I know that voice!
"I Know That Voice."
♪
Yeah!
Aaaah!
Turn around!
You scaled the heights of adequacy.
[speaking German]
You and your tower can go to hell.
Nice.
Try again.
♪
[mocking fight scene]
That was good.
Rolling scene 12X.
12X, action.
What about that non hovering hover car?
Is that making the music?
Need just a little slower for clarity.
What about that non-hovering hover car?
Is that making the music?
That's good.
Everybody always asks me questions about
what this job is like.
Why not ask all of my peers,
find out what they think, so that--
so that we can show you.
You know, everything you always
wanted to know about voice acting
but were afraid to ask.
You go to a dinner party and say, "What do you do?"
I say, "I'm a voice actor."
"Okay. Hey, they have dip."
Just friends, trying to explain,
"What exactly do you do?"
What do you mean you're a voice actor?
"What does that mean?"
Well, I go into a room and they give me a script
and you know when you hear that,
"In a world, one man..." that's me!
- "You're the one man?" - "No, no, I'm not the one man.
I'm the guy that says 'one man.'"
"Well, wait a second.
Well, that's just that voice."
Yeah, but did you ever stop to think that
there's actually a guy in a room reading that?
We brought people in for-- for tours and to visit
and stuff like that and you really see
that it's just, "Had no idea this is
how you did this."
I don't know what they thought, but, yeah.
You know, I would say that if people had any idea
how much work really went into animation
they would look at it with a lot more,
sort of, a sense of awe.
If you think about it way back thousands of years ago
and the Chinese had silks that they put
these rod puppets in front of and they would project
these big images on the silks, and these people would
come by the hundreds and watch these shows
that would last for days.
I think probably the tradition would have
come out of puppet shows.
♪ God bless America
♪ Land that I love
Small voices for small characters.
Character voices come from British musical
and vaudeville.
Silent movies.
The shorts that they did, that Laurel and Hardy did
and Keaton did and Chaplin did,
those broad, wacky, wonderful things.
Later when sound movies came along, they died out.
What replaced them?
Cartoons.
Animated cartoons did start in the days
of silent motion pictures and they'd have
little bubble captions with the dialogue in them
so when you'd be watching the films you,
you know, that's how they spoke to you
was through the dialogue.
And in the late '20s is really--
after "The Jazz Singer" was released which was
the first talking motion picture
Warner Brothers produced, animation then started
to move towards that trying to get into sound.
Back in the early '20s, 1924 Max Fleischer
actually produced the first cartoon series
with a soundtrack.
This microphone changes the sound waves
into electrical vibrations which are amplified here
and sent along these wires to the mixer room.
The very first talking cartoon was 1928,
was Paul Terry's "Dinner Time"
and he preceded Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willy" by a month.
What happened was Walt heard about,
"The Jazz Singer" came out so there's sound.
Walt said, "We can take this technology",
and make a sound movie," so they did.
Mickey didn't really have a voice in--
in that early movie, he just whistled
and the rest of it was sound effects
and music effects.
But soon he could talk.
And then when he decided to do features
and the first feature, "Snow White" was called
Disney's folly, nobody thought it would succeed.
But when he started doing features,
and even before that when he was casting voices
for the short films, they were using radio talent.
Those are the great voices.
When I was a kid there was no TV, remember,
no cell phones, no nothing except radio.
You know, you'd sit and you'd look at the radio.
Everybody would sit around and look at the radio
even though there was nothing to see there.
The radio not only prepped me,
it prepped everyone else in early cartoons because
they were all from radio.
The first session I went on with "The Jetsons"
I was terrified because, you know, I thought,
"Oh, it's cartoons, I've never done cartoons."
I walked into the room and all of my radio
friends where there.
Radio is-- is very much
like an animation session.
You just borrow from whatever--
whatever experience you've had as the radio actor
or animation person.
It all seems to work out.
Back in the days of old time radio,
as they call it now, that was essentially voice acting.
Strangely enough when you do a cartoon
and they edit it all together
and get it ready for the animators to animate,
they call it "the radio show."
♪
My first real gig was being dropped on my head
in a church which rendered my relationship
to the deity problematic.
The first one I ever did where I went,
"Wow, these people are reacting,
like, as if I was a baby speaking my first words"
was Peter Falk, was "Columbo."
I'd seen "Columbo" the night before
and my teacher, Mr. Fraser, was doing it in the schoolyard
for a bunch of my schoolmates, and I don't know how I did it,
but I just went up to him and said, "Mr. Fraser, Sir",
I'm sorry to bother you.
This is, this is very embarrassing.
"You're murdering a Peter Falk impression."
And the eye went and everything
and I just, I discovered I could do something well.
I remember I was 10 years old
and there was this woman, Phyllis, who was running
the front desk at Lee Strasberg.
And she was so funny with me.
I'd be at the 7/11 across the street
and she'd, you know, run across and say,
"Alanna, I know you across the street"
smoking marijuana with the homeless.
You get your ass over here right now
"and you learn how to act."
And then the phone would ring and she'd say,
"Lee Strasberg Theater Institute,
may I help you, please?"
I never forgot that.
My parents are from Buenos Aires
[speaking Spanish]
I can hear it.
And then my other, my best friend's parents
were from Glasgow, Scotland,
so if I wasn't listening to [speaking Spanish]
I was listening to "Carlos and Kevin,
get outside for Pete's sake."
So right there I had an early influence
of wanting to imitate people.
I always was doing voices from the time
I was really small.
Um, my mom did cartoon voices at me, like,
you know, she would talk like a little baby,
"What are you doing over there?"
And so I would talk back to her.
And people would say, "She's never gonna learn
how to talk normally if you keep doing that."
I knew about voiceovers when I was little.
I did like, you know, Burger King commercials
and stuff like that.
And then it wasn't until later um,
that I discovered that I could marry the two
with, you know, acting and voiceovers, animation.
If you wanna do animation, you have to be in LA.
This is the animation capital of the world.
This is in every single biography you ever hear.
Broke, lonely, and no future in sight,
fame was right around the corner.
And then they go to commercial,
then we come back and they're famous.
Wait a minute!
I wanna know what they did those mornings
when they couldn't get out of bed.
What did you do then?
I keep having this recurring dream,
same thing, that I'm walking down the street
and it says "fame" and as I get closer
the street just keeps getting longer and longer
and further away from me.
Just know that it's a profession.
It needs to be taken seriously.
You gotta, you know, have fun and never grow up,
but at the same time you gotta really be where
the major markets are and you need to have
access to the material.
And there's no right or wrong way to do that,
it's your own journey.
You can't use someone else's journey.
It's your own thing.
I slept my way to the top, you know?
It's rampant in this business, you know?
Before you move to the big market
I think it's wise to build up two things:
You need to build up your well-deserved confidence
by doing professional live performing
of whatever kind you want.
The other thing that you gotta have
is you also have to earn your armor.
You have to have uh, a degree of armor to deal
with all of the rejection that you're going to get
as an actor.
It's a huge commitment to pursue
anything in the arts.
First thing I tell people is,
'cause everyone will say, you know,
"I think I can make some money at this."
Never do anything in this business for money.
Gotta do it because you get a high at the microphone.
I took voiceover classes.
My animation guru, I mean, off and on for 10 years
was Daws Butler.
The revolving door of talent in Daws' class,
Nancy Cartwright, Corey Burton,
Greg Burson, Mona Marshall.
Daws.
I mean, he was brilliant.
When you look at a piece of copy,
he was talking commercial copy, of course,
you have to really, even if it's a line or two
you have to be able to pick it up and see
"What is this character? Who is she?
What's the frame of reference?"
Okay, look at that piece of copy.
Who's that speaking?
So, perhaps, if she's a woman of elegance,
you know, you might have some of that oral
happening there.
And if uh, you know, she's really tight assed
you might have a little bit more
of an oral nasal.
Then, you know combination of that well it'll
then get you into being, you know,
maybe somebody who's kind of shy.
Project bad tidings.
Obviously it's the first step
to a successful career in voiceover is you go
right to the steel mill.
You know, as soon as you're 18
you get a job on a blast furnace, which I did.
And then I went to New Orleans
and uh, took the precaution of becoming a deck hand
on a riverboat which is another, I mean, duh,
cliché, you know, it's how you prepare.
And sell encyclopedias and do Mardi Gras floats
and what else?
Sing in a rock and roll band and uh,
it's all the stuff that used to get
me kicked out of class and it's great.
One of the first things that I did was um,
"Back to the Future: The Animated Series."
I'm pretty sure that I got that part
'cause I was the only kid at nine that could say
"I'm computing the logarithmic equivalents"
of the atomic weights of certain isotopes found
"in the lanthonite series of rare earth elements."
So I kept it around, never letting it
out of my sight.
Where is it, dammit?
Quit goofing off!
You may be asleep, but you're not on break!
One of my friends was listening to WBCN FM
and they did a lot of wacky things
and they were having a contest to who could sound
like Mel Blanc.
So I kind of sheepishly called
and they go, "Hello, BCN, you sound like Mel Blanc."
And I--and I didn't know what to do.
I was put right on the spot.
And I was like, "Um" click.
And I said, "I'm gonna call 'em back."
And uh, so I get 'em on the phone,
I got busy and busy and then I was like,
even getting angrier and I just let 'em have it
once he said, "Hello, you sound like Mel Blanc"
and I was like "What do you think, idiot?"
And, "Of course I do, doc."
You know, and, "You're despicable if
you don't put me on the air."
You know, just all junk like that and he went,
"Hold on."
Next thing you know I was on the radio.
They called me and said, "We would like you to play
SpongeBob SquarePants' grandma."
Well, I thought that was-- that was a good idea.
I had no idea how important that was.
It turns out to be one of my best credits.
You know, you can mention all these things,
nothing happens.
And so I mention that I'm SpongeBob SquarePants' grandma,
all excited, little children will
show me their underwear.
You know, as with many people it was just
so many dominos had to fall, you know,
and you have to find a way in somehow
in some weird niche.
Walla is the voiceover equivalent
of being an extra, essentially.
So they have four people, generally,
they'll have two men and two women,
then they'll come in and they'll do, you know,
this background kind of thing--
[muttering]
So I did that, that was my very first animation gig.
Actually got into animation by being a designer.
And one day I happened to go to the recording session.
And in about two seconds I went,
"Oh, no, no, no, this is the job.
This is the job you want."
Hi, I'm Ed Asner.
I love to act, I don't care what form it takes.
Be it improv, voiceover, narration,
anything that requires my pretending to be
someone else I leap at.
To be a good voice actor
you have to be an actor, that's all.
I think you're born with that talent.
You can't teach anybody to act.
You can, you can teach them techniques of getting closer,
or whispering, but it comes from the heart.
The good voice actors are so good
the cartoons don't even have to be that good.
I gotta tell ya, that's the sad truth.
When you get started, when you really start,
start listening to what people
are actually doing.
A lot of actors get into it and they don't know
how to act for voiceover.
It's a very different style of acting.
It's much bigger, it's much more theatrical.
It is not about I can say, "Eh, what's up, doc"
better than anybody else, you know, no.
It's can you read anything as that character,
can you become that character.
It's about hearing all those little voices
in your head beforehand.
When you look at a script and you have to give an A,
a B, and a C take.
When you look at a script you have to give an A,
a B, and a C take.
When you look at a script you have to give an A,
a B, and a C take.
All of 'em have to be different.
Voiceover's about creating characters who may be funny
or may be dramatic, or may be scary or whatever.
It's the same as acting it's just you don't have
to get up at six o'clock in the morning,
which is why I'm interested.
♪
Even before I knew it was Mel Blanc,
I would have told you it was Bugs Bunny
was my hero and then, and Daffy Duck
and Foghorn Leghorn, I really loved Foghorn Leghorn.
I didn't know who I was listening to back then
except for guys like Mel Blanc.
- Mel Blanc. - Mel Blanc.
Mel Blanc.
Mel Blanc, of course, is the name you have
to kind of throw out first because he lit the way
for just about everybody else.
I remember what really astonished me was
that Mel Blanc did everything.
That's what I thought was pretty magical,
was that Roadrunner, and Tweety, Wile E. Coyote,
and Bugs, and Daffy, and Elmer Fudd.
You break down the voice.
It's New Yorky, it's nasally,
and he's a smart aleck.
That could be such an unappealing voice
and yet endearing, timelessly endearing.
Well, he told me that he was a tough little stinker.
So I thought maybe Brooklyn or the Bronx.
So I uh, put the two of them together, doc,
that's how I got the voice for Bugs.
In the episode uh, "Wabbit Season, Duck Season",
that episode of Bugs Bunny where they're sort of
arguing as to which season it is and who Elmer should shoot.
Bugs come out dressed as Daffy
and Bugs does a Daffy impression
and then Daffy comes out dressed as Bugs
and does a Bugs impression.
And they're, they're different voices.
One sounds like Bugs trying to be Daffy
and the other sounds like Daffy trying to be Bugs,
and that's-- it's unbelievably
impossibly hard to do.
Basically it was Bugs Bunny stepping in to do
an imitation of Daffy Duck.
It wasn't Mel Blanc doing Bugs and then Daffy.
In fact I remember Lou Costello writing on a picture,
it says "To my favorite actor."
So Mel actually was a great actor,
and that's why he was so good
in all the characters.
He was a method actor.
He became the characters.
I was going to a recording session
and we were waiting for Mel and he's usually
right on time.
And I turned on the radio, they said "Mel Blanc",
the famous voice, had a terrible auto accident."
He was in a coma for about 14 days.
And the doctor got an idea and he went over to Mel
and clapped his hands and said, "Mel, can you hear me?
Can you hear me, Mel?"
And Bugs Bunny was on the air.
And he-- it didn't do anything
and so the doctor thought "Bugs."
So he said, "Bugs, can you hear me?"
And Mel goes, "Eh, what's up, doc?"
He said, "Porky, can you hear me?"
"I c-c-can hear."
So he came out of the coma doing the voices.
The characters saved Mel's life.
He was in the hospital and so they wanted me
to take his place at Warner Brothers Cartoons,
and I said, "No, I don't wanna do that."
Wait'll Mel comes back."
He broke practically every bone in his body.
And so he would record at his home,
and I would go to his home in Pacific Palisades
and we'd record there.
June Foray is Rocky the Flying Squirrel,
Rocket J. Squirrel, from "Bullwinkle and Rocky."
Hokey smoke, they remember Rocky the Flying Squirrel.
She's Natasha Fatale.
Of course Natasha, darling.
When you trace her back, she was on, like,
back in the '40s.
She's 90 plus years old now and still working.
And still working.
So I started with Granny, oh, it was like, 1956
that I started with Granny, and I'm still doing it.
♪
Approaching a legacy voice it uh, it can depend.
It'll depend on who's running the show.
Kinda have to have an ear for do they sound the same,
is it the same, is on the same timbre?
Um, but then from there, can they actually
deliver the performance?
There's much more to a character
than just the voice.
Eh, what's up, doc?
Of course, you all know Goofy.
Marvin the Martian from the Loony Tunes show,
isn't that lovely?
Sir, how dare you?
I used to do, like, a Winnie the Pooh for my kids.
Oh, it's a smackeral of honey.
And then Jim Cummings walks in, you're like
"Oh, that's real good."
Job one, you gotta sound like the guy.
You gotta do that right away.
And then you, then you dive in
and you get all the aspects of the personality and--
but the first thing is you have to go,
"Oh, that's Pooh Bear," or "That's Tigger."
He bounces, he bounces, and he kicks!
All of this not kicking the ball
has made me quite tired.
Count out the sounds.
Eh.
Eh buh.
Eh buh beh.
Eh buh beh eh boy, okay?
So it's four sounds in the word.
E chch eh chair.
Eh dede eh desk.
Now you wrinkle your nose, you make it kinda nasal.
Eh buh beh eh boy.
And then for the third sound you push it more.
Eh beh beh eh boy.
Eh ch ch eh chair.
Eh de de eh desk.
Then you have to put together full sentences.
The eh beh beh eh boy sat in the eh ch ch eh chair
next to the eh de de eh desk.
And nobody can do that and that's why
I have job security.
When I got the gig as Fred Flintstone
I was the least likely guy to get it.
Five foot four, 115 pounds soaking wet.
"Hi, I'm here to do Fred Flintstone."
They literally looked over me.
Henry Corden, who was the voice
of Fred Flintstone, he took over
after Alan Reed passed away, was there and he yelled
to the director "Would you stop"
looking at him and just listen?"
And Henry Corden is, you know, Fred Flintstone,
was more nasal.
To the moon, Alice, it was more Jackie Gleason.
Alan Reed was more, Eh, Wilma, Barney,
it was smoother, and oh brother.
So I tried to kinda combine 'em both
and there you get Fred Flintstone.
Every single actor that's worked for me
playing the Joker, and there have been many,
brings their own twist to it.
And that's what you want.
You want someone to just do Mark Hamill,
then you bring Mark Hamill in.
Everybody sort of knows the Joker here
when he's up and exuberant.
You can't do it quietly.
Okay, here's how he laughs.
You have to really let it rip!
I always approached each script like it was like
the first time I'd ever done it.
I mean, there either had to be continuity
that he had to be exactly the same Joker,
and I figured he has multiple personalities anyway.
There'd be the traditional where he's wildly exuberant
and gleeful and maniacal, and there'd be others
where uh, sort of much more sinister and menacing.
I really love all the other Jokers
except for Kevin Michael Richardson.
I was feeling a bit screw loose
so I checked myself in.
[maniacal laugh]
And you know I'm kidding because I love
Kevin Michael Richardson so much,
he's a wonderful actor, but I'm just jealous because
he got an Emmy nomination and I never did.
I gotta give Mark props, I don't want him coming
after me going, "Did you really say that?"
'Cause I don't think it's funny.
"I was the best Joker, not you."
Mark never said that.
Mark's Joker is broad and terrifying at the same time.
Everybody who's ever played the Joker since
really has tried to come up to that benchmark,
and everybody brings their own twist to it
and has their different thing.
The trick is for people not
to do an impression of Mark.
So um, you know, John DiMaggio
did a stunning version in "Under the Red Hood."
That was completely different and terrifying in its own right.
It was just a very dark place, you know?
It's just allowing yourself to go to that really,
really awful place in your mind
and everybody has one.
I tapped into it for that, you know, vocally
and tried to make him as evil as possible,
and it worked.
Does anybody realize how brilliant
these voiceover "actors" are?
Who are, let's just call 'em actors
because they have to get every cryptic expression
that you would do on camera, on mic.
They're storytellers.
That's their gift.
And man, nobody gets it unless you're sitting in my seat.
Actors wanna go, "It's so easy!"
It's like, yeah, it's easy for you
'cause all you gotta do is read out loud
in your own voice.
You know, this-- there is a misconception,
I think, that voice acting is just "reading aloud."
And it's not.
At the end of the day
it's two different job descriptions.
Their job is to be movie stars or TV stars
and sound as much like themselves as possible,
and our job is to be voice actors
and character actors, and sound as little
like ourselves or as little like
the last thing you did an hour ago as possible.
People find out what I do and like,
"I can do Donald Duck.
Do you want me to do it for you?"
I'm like, "Please, don't."
It's my dentist or, you know,
it's the guy at the bank
and he's like, "I can do the greatest Donald Duck"
and I'm like, "I will give you five dollars
if you do not do that."
And I don't wanna be mean, but the soul
of this business is acting.
And the voice, the funny voice that they put on,
if that's what you wanna call it,
is secondary to the heart of the character
that they develop.
You always hear people like,
"Hey, my friends say I do great voices."
But they're not actors and then they think, like,
"Well, you guys just go in there"
and like make a crazy voice
"and then you get lots of money."
Like, no, we have to act and then we get lots of money.
And make a crazy voice.
But it's gotta have stuff behind it.
So it's not about "I can do",
I can do Christopher Walken, I can do Johnny Depp,
"I can do Michael J. Fox, I can do whoever," that's great.
Can you do anything as them
and can you stay in that voice for four hours?
Can you scream in that voice for four hours?
Can you get electrocuted as Michael J. Fox?
Can you get punched in the stomach
as Michael J. Fox?
If you can, great.
And can you do it without going, "Hang on",
wait a second," just right then.
Whenever I get an audition for a new character
I'll look at the drawing of the character.
If they have a show bible I'll read the show bible
so it says, you know, what city they're in,
what time it is, maybe it's a different planet.
And all those factors come into play.
I don't necessarily go into a role thinking
"Cartoon" I think, "How would this being sound?"
It starts from the moment you go in to audition,
when you look at the drawing, when you see the script.
And then you look at the character and you see,
if it's a little girl, how old is she?
You know, is she, is she five years old?
Is she really tiny?
'Cause then their equipment's
gonna be little itty bitty, right?
But if she's eight she, her voice box is bigger,
she knows more, she's a little more
confident in the world.
For me it really starts with the artwork.
I like to see a picture.
I like to see, you know, how tall, how short,
how heavy, how light, you know, could be Skeeter,
you know, mighty skinny, ain't got no teeth so he's
got a little bit of a whistle in it when he talks.
Like with Tommy, like, he's got these funny lips, right?
He's--he's got this big kind of slurry sort of thing,
you know, he's got this thing.
So when I first saw him to me there was some
kind of speech thing.
I'm not really so sure about what's going on around here,
but uh, I guess it's okay.
You know, here's a picture, here's where he lives,
this is, you know...
he's half a child, half a man, you know,
kind of Peewee Herman, a little bit of Stan Laurel,
a little bit of Jerry Lewis, little bit of munchkin,
and uh, you know, it's not really a kid voice
like a Charlie Brown realistic kid voice,
but it's not really an adult either.
So, you know, if the character has
really big buck teeth you may do it differently
or if they have a very, you know, big tongue
and they lisp a lot, you know,
if there's a lot of spit involved in the picture
then you may do something different.
If you sound like you have a large chest,
they will animate you with a very large chest.
Say that there's a character and, you know,
he's a deep voiced character and they want something
like a giant, he's a giant and uh,
this is-- they want him like this,
but, you know, they wanna keep him bright
and they want it, you know, they wanna have him
very intelligent.
So, you know, he's this kinda guy,
and you know, or maybe, maybe he's got some tusks,
you know, so when you put that in there or maybe,
maybe he's not that bright so maybe he
would talk like this a little bit.
That's the kind of thing you're able to do
with a character.
You ready, man?
Yeah, dude.
Put your pants on.
Okay.
On "Futurama" we didn't know
what Bender the robot should sound like.
A robot, what, you know.
'Cause the tendency and what most people did
when they came in, "I am Bender,
I talk like a robot."
You know, there was all that and variations of that.
I auditioned for Bender.
I just played him like a construction worker.
Let me just bend that for ya.
We were really going through a lot of people and then,
then uh, somebody said, "Hey, Dave, you sound"
kinda like a robot.
"Maybe you should do the part."
I chose to take that as a compliment.
So he tried, he tried, tried out.
No, no good.
He agreed, no good.
Uh, and then Don-- John DiMaggio came in
and John did this, you know,
kinda drunk, aggressive, belligerent but not scary.
Just kind of over the top, you know,
guy had one too many, right?
And that was it.
It just made us laugh so much.
Slim Pickens.
What in the hell in the wide, wide world
of sports is going on?
The drunk at the end of every bar.
[slurring speech]
I'm gonna tell you something.
And then there was this guy, a friend of mine,
Ralph Columbino from college
did a Charlie the Sausage Lover.
Sausage, [talking gibberish] you got all kinds of sausages.
You got dry sausage, you got sweet sausage,
you got wet sausage, you got hot sausage.
So I--you put those three in a blender
and you get Bender.
Then I do this.
Okay, sure.
Thanks to you I went on a soul searching journey.
I hate those.
Now give up the free will!
Now hand it over.
You want it?
Come and get it.
Why you lousy--
In my mind that's the voice that Bender should have had
and always w--but we didn't know, we didn't know.
So John nailed the character and actually pushed
the character in that direction.
♪ Da-da-da-da-da-da
♪ Wap
You know, Billy West and Jim Cummings
and Jeff Bennett, I always say they have
this Rolodex in their head and they just flip through it
and it's like, okay, like, by decade, you know,
'40s weird accent or whatever and just,
you know, they have all these references.
Dr. Zoidberg who uh, when they showed me the drawings,
he had all this cool meat hanging off his mouth.
And I thought, "Well, he's gotta be
impaired somehow."
And I thought "What marble mouthed
peripheral actors were there in history?"
And I put two together, one was a vaudevillian
named George Jessel and he had a marble mouth, like this.
But then there was also an actor named Lou Jacobi
who came out of Yiddish theater.
And he was a marble mouth, too.
To have this voice who was just Dr. Zoidberg
like, "Young Lady, bring me a sandwich"
from the dumpster.
"And leave the maggots on it."
♪ Oh, Danny Boy
♪ The pipes, the pipes are calling ♪
Who-y boy?
We come from radio, stand up, improv,
the stage, and music.
You have to have an ear.
You have to hear yourself in your head.
You have to have command of your instrument.
It is kind of like conducting, isn't it?
You know, I've got my score here
and I've got the actors there, and you go boom
and the band starts playing.
A musical ear is invaluable to you in animated work.
The music part of it helps you
'cause every character has a rhythm.
Like if you're thinking of Yogi Bar it was like music.
There's a certain musicality
if I kind of go all over the place.
It's interesting, although I'm speaking right now
and I'm going up on my questions
it's kind of the nature of this guy.
Like, I don't know, should I really do it,
but if I stay on one particular spot
of all of sudden...
singing a note, you know?
And I think that musicality is--is sort of
part and parcel about what voice actors do.
The characters that I do, they each have their own
kind of, they have their own rhythm,
their own kind of beat board,
their own kind of-- I mean, you know,
Nelson Muntz, that's pretty rough.
Kind of maybe akin Nelson Muntz too--
The thing about huckleberries is
once you've had fresh you'll never go back to canned.
It's forceful, right?
And then you get a Ralph Wiggum and his
is sort of lilting, right?
And kind of lifting.
And you could sort of, if you were to sort of
graph it out in the hospital,
you know how you have a heart rate?
Ralph's would be all kind of wavy and light
and Nelson's would be--
There's a cadence and there's an intonation
and a rhythm to characters.
And I think that's the music in them.
The bad guy walks in-- into the saloon or whatever,
you'll notice that the theme from the movie shifts
into a minor key.
And bad guys have minor keys.
A lot of us are musicians.
Some of us are singers.
Some of us can play beautiful piano like this.
I, unfortunately am not one of those guys.
I heard directors trying to tell actors, you know,
how to do a line and they'll say, you know,
"No, Mike, you don't understand."
Okay, now musically that's ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, okay?
And the guy will go, "No, Mike, you don't understand."
And it's like, no, no Mike, you don't understand.
And if you're musical you give 'em
what they want that much quicker.
It also just enables you when you're taking apart,
like an impression, you know,
you can do it musically, you know, like you, you think,
like, guys, you know if you're doing Walken
the first thing you gotta do is think of like,
where he sits in the scale and that's like:
♪ aaahhhh
That's the note, so you got that.
Then you start putting music in
and it's like, on the ends of the words
you go down, see, like this, and you get fun,
you go up and it's like notes on a staff,
you know what I'm saying?
And I see that he's taking his time,
he's pausing, yes, and ending up
on minor notes sometimes.
No punctuation.
Mary.
Had a little lamb.
Wow!
He said suspiciously.
I like my James Gandolfini.
He's one of my favorites because "The Sopranos"
was a good show.
Marlon Brando is [muttering].
Oh, I do "The Wizard of Oz."
I wanna go home, I wanna go home,
Uncle Henry, I'm frightened.
Rosie Perez.
[speaking Spanish] infinity plus infinity.
Sometimes when you win, you actually lose.
Singing George Bush.
♪ This land is your land
♪ This land is my land
♪ I'm a Texas tiger
♪ You're a liberal wiener
Even if you don't really do the impression well
you're still doing a character.
You're still doing, you know,
your version of that character.
I was reading that "Family Guy" script,
I'm gonna go on that audition I was like,
"Man, this is such a good script,"
how am I gonna get this part?
What if it sounded like Buffalo Bill from
"Silence of the Lambs" and they're like
'What does that even mean?'"
So I did all the lines like that.
Can I interest you in a 16 piece?
Maybe with some extra honey?
Would you like a Pepsi?
And it started there.
So I did all the lines like that
and it just sounded so [bleep] weird.
And I think they liked it.
Initially this was basically a Phil Hartman impression
so uh, so, yeah, it's a great skill to have
because you can then take that voice and--
and twist it or put a different accent on it
or--or do the bad impression of it and it might even
be funnier, you know.
I think Hank Azaria said that, you know,
he's just doing bad impressions.
They're wonderful voices, he's amazing, you know,
and they fit the characters so perfectly but he, you know,
they're basically kind of a little off impressions.
Lou--Lou the cop, for example,
is a pretty bad Stallone, pretty lazy Stallone.
Chief Wiggum is sort of almost Edward G. Ro--
it's kind of Edward G. Robinson-ish.
Or anyway, or the Mel Blanc imitation
of Edward G. Robinson.
Moe is a bad version of Al Pacino.
Uh, so yeah, but you know, they--they're imitations to me
but they come out as character voices.
I was just thinking what a good parking job
I did with it.
Yeah, hey, that is nice.
Hey Lou.
Lou, check out that park job in 7A.
Woo-hoo, that's sweet.
There's always that fun game of going
"Who is that? Who is that?"
or listening to commercials
and hearing a voice and going
"I know who that is."
"You're on SpongeBob?"
I love that, I love the fact
that they don't know it.
I'm Mr. Krabs, what do you mean,
you don't know?
I love, like, the look in the little kids' eyes
when they find out and they say, you know,
"Can you do the voice?"
Which happens nearly every day.
And sort of the way their eyes pop.
Bobby kinda sounds like this, Larry.
Are you a Jewish fellow?
That's so interesting.
I do love the fact that Nancy Cartwright
is a woman and she plays Bart Simpson.
And it freaks kids out. Kids'll say to me,
"Do Bart, do Bart!"
And if it's a little guy I'll say, "Close your eyes"
because, come on, I'm a chick.
I don't have nine spikes on the top of my head,
I'm certainly not 10 years old,
but, you know, for a little kid,
close your eyes, "Hi, I'm Bart Simpson.
What's happening, man?"
All you hear, all you need, really,
is the sound, right?
I think it's great.
On camera I'm pretty much limited to,
you know, what you see here.
I mean, you could put me in old age makeup
and I could play an older version of myself,
but uh, you can't put me in young makeup and make me,
you know, 10 years old again,
but I can play 10, you know, in a cartoon.
I can easily do that.
I can play, you know,
an older version of myself.
You know, I could play-- I could play
a female if I wanted to.
Doing a show like "American Dad"
we have such enormous casts every single week
and because we can't, you know,
be using 20 or 30 actors we have to do a lot of--
we have to fill in and do a lot of different characters.
So I've gotten over the last eight years
to really be able to stretch my range
and really get an opportunity to do things
that I wouldn't normally have gotten to do.
Animation I think, now for me takes the place of stage.
Because stage I could do lots of different characters
that I would never get cast on on film,
but it's like, stretching.
You know, you can stretch on stage
and do, you know, very bizarre old men
or young-- young women or boys
or whatever you wanna do on stage,
you do the same thing in animation.
Everyone's kinda got a little--a little bag
of tricks, a little cart that they bring
around with them, actually.
At least, that's how I look at it.
You know, occasionally someone needs a--
[pig squealing ]
Like a pig, but-- but that could be...
[deep pig noise]
You can open up the chambers in your throat
to make it larger.
[grunting animal noise]
And you can--you can modify the column of air.
[animal screaming noise]
You can just squinch it up there in all these
just horrific kinds of ways.
[large growling animal]
[animal noise echoed]
[baby crying]
What, you want a Jewish baby? Right?
What do you want, an Italian baby?
Say, that works swell.
The dolphin.
The dolphin-esque laugh.
I always loved Droopy.
He's always a very fascinating character for me.
Isn't that rather fetching, cap'n?
And yes, I have to do that.
It hurts after two hours, but that's all.
Well, I can do him sort of like that,
but it's a little, it's a little easier
if I take my jowls and go--
And then Jamie Thomason, the director at the time,
he said, "Try one."
And I, you know, I remember laughing, going,
Well, it does sound a little better with just one
and it's not too much that way.
Not too bubbly and yet just bubbly enough.
Aye-aye cap'n.
Set 'er down, boys.
Daws also talked about physical.
When he did Yogi Bear, he would stick his chest out.
That's how he did it.
What I teach my students is if you physically play
the character the voice will follow.
When I do Joseph my fingers always go out.
And the sound guys you can hear this because
there's this noise in my fingers,
and I never do this in my daily life.
A lot of it comes out of, you know,
"Bobby, I'm not..." and it just happens.
And we do Ackbar on "Robot Chicken" it is this.
It's because, you know, Ackbar's always,
"It's a trap" and he's doing this.
I remember with Rocko to get into character
it might be, "Oh my" I'd sort of literally
put my hands together because that's how
they animated it, "Oh, my."
You don't necessarily have to cross your eyes,
because nobody will see that, but for me, it helps
to get into that real dumb kinda guy.
You're not separated from your voice.
Your body's do--your body does the work as it will.
You see them all doing, you know,
you're in the character, your body can't help
becoming the character and you can't sit there and go,
my voice is doing this.
You know, it's like I see Doofenshmirtz up there,
I record the voice, he comes out there
and as soon as the voice is attached to those drawings
that's just his voice to me.
And the first time I saw a video of me doing it I--
my first thought, literally, was, "That's not what"
I pictured that guy looking like."
[speaking gibberish]
Volition is our ability to choose what
we are going to do.
Whereas evolution, that's got something to do
with monkeys, I think.
To be or n-n-n-n-- the opposite.
Tha-the-that is the question, folks.
They got a dime a dozen people who can say
"What's up, doc", "I tawt I taw a puddy tat,"
"That's all folks."
If you can do Shakespeare as Porky Pig
or Sylvester the cat and stay in character,
you probably can handle the script for the movie.
I'm not trained in this so forgive me.
All the world's a stage.
And all the men and women, merely players.
They have their exits and entrances.
And one man in his time plays many parts.
His acts being seven ages.
At first the infant.
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
[baby crying]
Doesn't sound good to me, folks.
And then a whining schoolboy with this satchel
and shining morning face.
Creeping like snail unwillingly to school.
And then the lover.
Sighing like furnace.
With a woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrows.
I don't know why he's talking to the eyebrows.
It's a strange place to talk to.
But there you go.
And a soldier.
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard.
Oh, a bearded pard.
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
seeking the bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth.
And then the justice in fair round belly
with good capon lined.
With eyes severe and beard formal cut.
Full of wise saws and modern instances, yes.
And so he plays his part.
Sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon.
How would you like to slip into a slippered pantaloon?
That's very naughty.
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side.
His youthful hose.
Well saved, a world too wide
for his shrunk shank.
Oh, that's a small shank he's got there.
And his big manly voice.
Turning again to a childish treble pipes
and whistles in his sound.
Last scene of all.
What, what, what?
There ends this strange, eventful history.
Is second childishness and mere oblivion.
- Sans teeth. - Sans eyes.
- Sans taste. - Sans everything.
Scene. Where's my check?
The thing I love is when people find out
that this, you know, SpongeBob,
and the lottery scratcher guy,
and the guy from the kids' show
that their three year old watches,
and the guy saying "side effects may include diarrhea"
are all the same guy.
I freaking--that, to me, that's the payback.
They go, "That's all you?"
That's all the same guy?" you go, "Yeah."
They go, "You're like Where's Waldo, man",
that's like, incredible.
"You're everywhere, yet nowhere, man."
It's really important in animation
to not just have one voice.
There are certainly people that can maintain careers
with a kitsch voice or sound,
but for the people that work a lot,
it's because they're versatile,
it's because they can change their voice.
For the most part people wouldn't guess that Bubbles
is the same as Terrence from "Foster's Home"
because one is like a very high pitched
girl like this and the other is a dude.
I'm not a chubby cry baby.
Ooh, that's even better.
All the way in Malaysia.
They're gonna pick people that, "Hey, can you throw in"
a cheerleader or a little boy
"or a little girl or an old lady"
and you're just going to work more
if you can bring another character to life.
Versatility is the name of the game.
The more changes that you can make,
the more nuances, the more characters
that you can come up with, the better chances are
that you're getting cast.
Sign falling on Randy, action.
Ow!
Sal infuriated by this loud space noise.
Ah, quiet!
I can't hear myself jack hammering.
Ryan's dad.
You mean before the Y2K turns our computers
and waffle irons against us?
I've played black guys, I've played transvestite
prostitute robots, I've played women aliens,
I've played so many different kinds
of characters through voice acting.
And it's f-- it's so freeing
and it's so much fun and I get to be broad
and I get to perform, I get to act,
I get to live this out.
On camera... playing-- playing a black guy?
There's no way.
I have a project called "Off the Curb"
it's with Mondo Media, it's a web show that
the whole cartoon itself is improv and it's four--
four guys on a street corner of African-American descent
talking about whatever subject they're talking about.
Frankenstein would whoop Dracula's ass.
- Ah, hell no. - No, it's the truth.
- That's ridiculous. - That is not ridiculous.
Here's why it's ridiculous.
How is the only thing Frankenstein got from it,
he got some metal bolts in the neck
where Dracula would normally bite him,
but Dracula would suck Frankenstein dry.
Willie, that's bullshit, man.
Frankenstein would come up on Dracula
and punch him right in the mouth.
Gentlemen, I just need to correct you,
it's not Frankenstein.
That's Frankenstein's monster.
The monster's name is Tomas.
You can't suck the blood out of a man who already dead.
That's right, it's green blood.
Green blood?
So that how it started and I thought,
about a year later, I should get an all star cast.
Why not get black people?
Why not get real black people?
Basically that stuff is um, animated jazz.
Nobody's louder than John DiMaggio.
The policemen are having the sirens ripped out
of the car and just replaced with
John DiMaggio saying "Slow down!"
He plays--he plays a black character
in this thing than we're doing and like,
there are people I love to be mad with like,
"Man, don't do no black character, you're insulting"
But him it's like, "Respect, respect."
So I've gone out and gotten him several
black girlfriends just off the power
of his throat alone.
He has what they call an anteo-negro throat
in the business.
Very negro throated.
He's the blackest white guy I know.
Hey, listen, I'm-- for one thing I'm gonna
tell you right now, white people,
with they dogs and they yoga,
man, frustrating.
That's all I gotta say, frustrating.
White people are frustrating.
Coming out to Hollywood you're like, "You know what?"
No, you're not gonna do anything and everything.
"Not all of it is-- is for you."
But with animation you can become anything
and everything you want.
Now I love animation.
I love animation because in the world of animation
you could be anything you wanna be.
If you're a fat woman, you could play
a skinny princess.
If you're a short wimpy guy,
you could play a tall gladiator.
If you're a white man, you could play
an Arabian prince.
If you're a black man you could play a donkey
or a zebra.
And if you're a Filipino Canadian,
you could play Chris Rock.
I don't know which staunchy guys
you've had in here that said it's difficult
I'd like to punch them all in the throat
for saying such a thing.
It's not.
Anyone can do this immediately.
Get in your car and drive to Los Angeles.
Get here right now and get on the microphone,
you'll make millions of dollars
and have both white and Asian women.
You know, we spend 98% of our time
doing the business of doing business
like tracking down the opportunities,
doing the auditions, sending in the mp3s,
blah, blah, blah.
But the 2% of the time we get to actually play
and have fun, that's why I do it.
The hardships with the voiceover business
if you're talent, number one, is getting an agent.
A good agent is somebody who's gonna get out
and try to get your name and your voice track around
so people pay attention to you.
Hey, Don Pitts, just callin' in to see how Casey's doing.
He was my first agent.
He'd be, "Okay, here's a spot for Target, Jeff,"
and he'd have a little thing and he'd have a timer
and he'd say, "And you got 60 seconds and go!"
You know, so all my-- all my readings were like,
"At Target" you have, you know?
When we cast a series our casting director
goes to the agents and asks them to submit their clients.
And that's how-- that's actually,
that is how it works.
Primarily my job is to find the talent
and to narrow it down to the top choices of people
that I feel would be best for a part,
pass them onto my show runner,
my creator, my director, whoever is making
those final choices, and then work with them
to get the best people in the booths.
We do tons and tons and tons of auditions.
I remember back when we were at Disney we had to do
a PowerPoint presentation and we calculated that,
you know, we did somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know,
5 to 15,000 auditions a year.
And I'd been there at the time for over a decade.
I'm not a math major.
But uh, that's a lot of auditions.
Auditions are our chance to shine
and to really show the writers and directors and producers
we're the right person for the job.
The directors bring voice actors in
because they know they'll perform
and they'll do it right on the spot.
You gotta be able to do it or you'll get the heave-ho.
The union standard is a four hour session,
it's either nine to one or two to six and uh,
they've also gotta record an 11 minute episode
or a 22 minute episode plus a whole bunch of ADR
from an episode that you did a couple weeks ago,
and then the animation came back on this other episode
and some of the lip assignments aren't right,
we had to change the lines and these jokes weren't clear
so we rewrote some of these.
So, you know, and that's all
in a four hour session.
You don't really have a job.
So you could be going to Cartoon Network all the time
and you feel like you have a job,
you feel like you're involved there,
but you actually don't work
at Cartoon Network.
You were hired for an hour, like, every other week
for eight weeks and then maybe you'll be able
to go back there, but it's kind of
a very tenuous thing.
You know, it's this vagabond kind of lifestyle
and you go in and, you know, you hang your shingle
in different little places and then it's time
to be moving on.
CD complete, Skipper.
Excellent, Kowalski.
Now all we have to do is blow up your hard drive.
Yes, of course-- what?
I'd just like to say that today is the last day
of "Penguins" record.
So that's what we're shooting today,
and it's a very sad day, but it will be
a very funny day, so that's that.
All right, we're gonna look at cue one,
this is show 327.
Here we go.
[speaking gibberish]
It's got everything.
You got laughs, you got villains,
you got people just having a good time,
cracking each other up.
That's what we have to get as well is, like,
the behind the scenes because usually the show
is the show behind the show.
I get to sit here and watch these guys goof off.
Explode!
Excellent.
And here it comes, cue 39.
Oh, oh.
Oh.
[grumbling]
Good.
That's good.
♪
See you at the pool party.
♪
There's a bunch of us that literally say
we get fired after every job.
And that sort of mentality to live by
in your day to day thing when you've got bills to pay,
that fear and that terror that comes with that,
I think sort of subsides when you're so grateful
every day for when that job does come,
and I didn't start doing voiceover full time until
I was 40 years old.
Spike Spiegel from "Cowboy Bebop"
that became a huge benchmark because right around
the time that recorded, and none of us really
knew how big that thing was gonna be,
and as it turns out that was one of the biggest things
that ever happened in my career.
And fans pointed out to me that
that was the first anime that was their gateway
into that whole genre.
With foreign dubbing or anime shows like "Pokemon,"
"Naruto," it's already been completely created,
animated, released somewhere oversees.
You go into a studio by yourself
and you sync it up to the picture.
So they will take each sentence line by line
and you will sync it to fit the lip flaps
of the preexisting picture.
You literally watch TV and talk at the TV all day
and hopefully you've got good writers and on that
fourth imaginary beep you try and bring this character
to life, you try to lift it off the page,
with the constraints of-- of time because it's already
been animated, the flaps are already there
and you wanna try and make it sound as natural
as possible so it's not one of these
"You have destroyed my village" kind of a thing.
I never really knew this world existed until,
I mean, I grew up watching "Speed Racer" and everything,
but I never, I don't know, it's weird,
you never sort of make that connection with,
"Oh, I can do this for a living?
That's pretty awesome."
People knew I was a fan geek way before
George Lucas' movies.
But, to me, you use your imagination
whether you're playing Robin Hood
or you're playing Zorro, Superman, whatever it is,
it's not that different.
It really isn't.
With voiceover, I'm just telling you, I said,
"Where has this been all my life?"
Because it's the ultimate kind of fun job to do.
This iteration of "Star Wars: Clone Wars"
came out, not only was the artwork tremendous,
not only was the writing outstanding,
not only was the voicework great,
but it was also in a world that had evolved
from, you know, my little 17 year old boner life
to--to this really super sophisticated comment
about what's been going on and what could go on
and how it should go on.
I mean, it's-- it was kind of outstanding,
and yet had this nostalgic feel.
Currently I'm um, I'm the voice of the clones
on "Star Wars: The Clone Wars."
The trick and the fun of it is to flavor them
a little bit differently each time we do them
to--to make one a little bit younger,
to make one a little bit older,
to--to make one, you know, with a little bit
more swagger to him so they all sound
a little bit different.
That's the fun acting part.
The hard part is just making it straight ahead, honest, real.
He'll strike a crippling blow to the republic.
Something has to be done.
We can't risk the possibility that he might escape.
As long as Krell's alive, he is a threat
to every one of us.
I agree.
George Lucas and Dave Filoni have said,
"Look, this character, Alec Guinness"
will never be Obi Wan Kenobi again,
Ewan McGregor will never be Obi Wan Kenobi again.
You're the representation of Obi Wan Kenobi,
"so make it your own."
So I take a little, "These aren't the droids
"you're looking for," a little,
"I have a bad feeling about this"
and I combine them into my own, you know,
Obi Wan Kenobi.
Prepare yourself.
The real fight is about to begin.
With the force all things are possible, yes.
Find a way, we shall.
We all grew up "Star Wars" fans,
we know these characters like the back of our hands.
You know, Dave is the same way.
Dave was a fan before he was--
was an employee.
It's my job to get the best out of them,
to get their greatest performance,
to get their greatest part, what makes them creative,
into the episodes um, and you just,
you can't disturb them while they're being part
of that creative process.
Just like there's--there's an actor for every role,
there's a director for every project.
You usually start out with a table read where
we just hear the script for the first time
and I am beginning to tune in on what the different actors
are doing and making notes about what we might
fix or adapt.
Come in with a plan, right or wrong,
and uh, if it's wrong you'll fix it,
and if it's right you're a hero.
Gordon Hunt was, yeah, like the godfather
of all of us.
And this was passed on, by the way,
to Ginny McSwain, to Andrea Romano,
who followed in his footsteps.
This was the, the core team of individuals
who sort of set a precedent.
Gordon Hunt was the voice director
at Hanna-Barbera for many, many years.
And so it was just a real actor's director,
and because of the nature of the way we make cartoons,
which is we record the voices first and then
animate to that, you affect the entire process
if you don't get a good performance from the actors.
Being from the theater I was envisioning
the characters as I might cast them for a play
rather than just looking down at the page
and listening to the voices coming in.
So I think inadvertently that's how we came on that style.
Gordon was really an actor's director
and so um, he instilled in me the fact that these people
on the other side of the glass are actors.
They're not mimics, they're not puppets,
they're actors.
It's almost like their voice
is their movie star face
and that's what they're really bringing to the party.
Just being on the other side of that glass,
I know what it feels like so I'm really sensitive
to making people feel comfortable and getting them
loose enough that we can just play around.
Actors love to play, especially voiceover actors,
you just wanna, like, play.
But I--I will credit Andrea Romano
for essentially teaching me how to voiceover direct.
She just has a very casual, easy, keep it going,
only get as much as you need, playful style.
And I--I adopted that when I started directing people.
I probably use as many different styles of directing
as I can and I-- I try to deal with
every specific series differently because, you know,
I'll direct a "Batman" episode and then go to
a "SpongeBob" episode and they couldn't be
more different as far as the energy
and what we're doing.
They also have to be honest, and real, and genuine,
and so I always deal from that point of view.
To be a good voice director you, you know,
you do research on the story and you have to know
the story you wanna tell.
To be able to give direction
without line readings...
"Say it like this, and I'm walking through the door,"
I mean, because it's not my performance anymore,
it's the director's performance.
So you're on a boat and you're--
and they're doing the character for you,
they're doing the character for you,
they're in the story going, "So you're in a boat
and you're swimming along and you say..."
and I peter out at that point.
They sense whether the actor will be happy
with a line reading or won't be.
I don't mind line readings at all.
I will do anything to get a performance.
I will do anything and have, almost.
Charlie's the fastest director ever.
He'll give you a line reading because it's the best direction.
He is an exception to the rule.
Can we show Charlie right now?
Charlie, I love you.
This is so spontaneous and part of what makes
the work so thrilling is not squashing the energy
and keeping the actors engaged and excited,
and spontaneous and still being able to balance
what's being said in the room,
being able to deliver it as quickly as possible,
as clearly as possible and without having anybody
feel like they're being dishonored.
With computers now anybody can sit at home and make
a little animated piece.
And you can get that out there and people can see it
and so many folks are getting, you know,
the invite either to come and create
or to do a show of that little bit
that they created on the internet,
some little YouTube film,
and that's how they're getting word out.
That's really great.
As far as getting your work out there to be seen
by industry professionals, I think the game
has totally changed.
At one point it was friends of friends.
You could only get your foot in the door
if you knew someone else.
But now when I'm searching for talent
I'll go on the internet.
Technically from-- as a guy who has
his own podcast and a producer side of things,
it's [bleep] great because I take my laptop
or my iPad and a plug-in USB mic,
and I go to Johnny D's house and we sit down.
Boom, here's the mic, get a drink of water
and we just talk about stuff.
I am actually quite astonished at who I was lucky enough
to find for my podcast this week.
- That's right. - Tracy.
- Tracy Morgan. - Genius.
That's what they told me I had in the Bronx.
I had genius in my mouth.
Nice, I got you goin' on it.
So now I got, what, 6 or 7,000 people
that listen to it every day, costs them nothing,
costs me nothing to produce, except my time
and I'm literally talking to people who are all
my personal friends.
- Who's your friend? - You.
You're my friend and you're my friend.
I love this guy.
- I'm a moron! - Don't worry.
I've got a plan that's gonna solve this biz.
Homies help homies, always.
I'm ready to hear your plan, homey.
You know, I do a lot of on camera gigs
where everyone does the shtick and the b-roll
about how they love each other.
It's such a bullshit.
The truth is in voiceovers
you really do love each other.
And they're-- it's just good people.
And I don't know if it's because you're not seen
and you don't get the-- the acclaim,
I don't know if that's the component
that makes everyone so kind, but they really are good people.
This is one of the rare mediums
where people do refer you for jobs.
Most of the jobs I get are references
from other voiceover actors; that never happens.
Or you don't get a job and you say,
"You know who would be good for this?"
Not me, but, you know, Nika Futterman would be better
"or so and so would be better."
That never happens, but it happens here.
Jim, I challenge you to a Tyson fight.
It will be indubitably good.
♪
In a sense what we have here
is a failure to exacerbate.
Don't look at-- don't laugh at me.
I'll crush you like a Hostess Twinkie.
I will get truly righteous and put hurts on him
that will show up in his grandchildren.
I think Jim's, Jim's Tyson's a lot better than mine.
He's amazing, he's like the everyman,
he's all over the place.
And you know what?
He's so talented you can't even stand it.
Jim Cummings, I know, I forfeit.
I gotta forfeit because Jim would win, I think.
I think the camaraderie stems from the fact
that no one ever sees our faces.
In voiceover you find a lot of people have
a little bit less of an ego because if you--
if you love what you're doing,
you don't need that validation.
We've seen--we grew up on these cartoons,
we think this can be an art form
as well as entertainment.
The future of animation and voiceover has expanded
into so many realms.
Now it's all over.
There's Adult Swim, there's flash animation
with "South Park" where it's two guys doing everything.
Or there's video games where it's 17 guys
from the Bay Area, you know, screaming their guts out
making these characters that people are gonna play
for nine hours straight.
The big thing about the progression in voiceovers
is video games.
♪
But at last, the whole of Azeroth will break.
The actors play a very crucial role
in video games, especially, with casting and recording
because we will spend a lot of time on the front end.
We'll have lots of brainstorming meetings,
we'll look at lots of concept art,
we'll do all this extensive work.
We work on our story, we do everything
we possibly can, and then we come to the booth
with our idea and knowing what we want.
And then this magical equation walks through the door
and that's the actor.
Right now video games is really dominating
entertainment in general.
It does take a huge group of people
to create these, probably to a certain degree,
maybe more than some movies.
If you've ever seen the making of "Avatar,"
that's how games are made.
I can't know the whole picture
doing a video game.
I mean, I can't know the whole story line.
It's impossible for you to-- and sometimes it's like,
"Oh, my God, how am I gonna explain this?"
The universes are just so huge and the amount
of information that they need to record
is so massive because there are so many variables
in the course of game play.
Go, go, go!
A lot of people might know that one.
Uh, get down!
Frag out!
Grenade!
That--that's me.
You can't teach that,
you can only hope to duplicate it.
There's been an evolution of video games, of the visuals.
You know, the visuals were very primitive in the beginning
and they're getting better and better and better,
especially as we get more MoCap and stuff.
The acting has evolved as the visuals have evolved
and we're allowed to be much, much more true.
You know, thousands of lines, you know, session after session.
Gandalf was, he went to the north.
He went to the south.
He went to the northeast.
He went to the southwest.
He went, you know, you have to do
every freakin' possibility.
You'll spend four hours there with scripts that big
screaming your guts out.
"Well, we want a scream when you're bleeding."
We want a scream when you're hot.
"We want a scream when you're sad."
"Give us now a 10 second fall."
Okay, a 20 second fall.
Okay, now you've been shot.
Okay, now your leg's been hacked off
"and somebody's shoving it down your throat."
We have pages and pages of reactions.
I mean, when you're going through the game
and you're playing and you hear this:
[grunting]
Like, you're recording every single one of those things.
You'll have short hit reaction,
medium hit reaction, long hit reaction,
short taking damage a-- you know, so we actually
go down and [grunting].
For pages.
I knew you'd make it, Marcus.
Normally you try and get video games scheduled
at the end of the week because there's so much to do
within a video game voiceover-wise
that you'll need the weekend to recover.
So, remember, this is where you're gonna just
totally peak at this point.
You just lost Dom.
You're done?
Everywhere you go, everything you do,
it's always nothing but death,
pain, and misery.
I just lost my [bleep] brother!
You hear that!
My brother!
You and your tower can go to hell.
Nice.
Let's try one where you're peaking right at the end.
Got it.
One second.
It's always nothing but death, pain, and misery.
I just lost my [bleep] brother, all right?
You hear that!
My brother!
You and your tower and all this [bleep] emulsion
can go to hell.
Literally I've had friends of mine who've
done that stuff and come out of there going
"Oh my God, that session was impossible."
I don't know how I'm gonna work tomorrow.
The Batman sound when I first started producing it
and I just scrunched down on my vocal cords
and I made this sound, it was really sexy
and really tough and really great.
Well, after a few weeks of that my voice was goin'.
I go, "Wow, this is-- this is a problem."
So I had to figure out a way to create the same sound
but supporting it.
Which is what you do on stage,
but I hadn't thought it would really be an issue
because there wasn't any projecting involved.
So you do have to keep your voice in shape.
Unique New York, unique New York,
unique New York.
[tongue exercises]
Okay.
I sing.
I sing on the way to work
and I sing on the way home from work.
If you--if you warm up properly
you're not gonna get hurt,
and if you warm down properly
you're not gonna get hurt.
It is an instrument, so just like anything
you wanna keep it warmed up and have your session when
your voice isn't too tired 'cause you can't do,
you can't curl the heaviest weights
if your muscle's fatigued.
The same with your voice.
You can't go to a football game and scream
and then expect to get behind a microphone
and have your instrument work for ya.
I've known guys with bleeding vocal cords
because of the work they've had to do.
There are guys that have lost their voice
and weren't supposed to talk for a month.
If I've injured my throat, if I've overworked my voice,
there's something called entertainer's secret,
it's just an herbal thing.
You spray, you breathe, it feels good.
Alcolol.
Not alcohol, alcolol.
It's been around since the late 1800s,
it's a throat rinse.
Well, I have at least half a bottle of whiskey
every night, two cigars, and a pack of cigarettes.
I see the words "blood curdling scream"
in front of me five times a day, for real,
on a good day; sometimes 20 times a day, okay?
And when they say "blood curdling scream"
that's what they want.
I've figured out a way to yell
that isn't as strenuous as it seems
and it's all about working the mic, you know?
It's like, as opposed to, you know, if I yell,
it's like aaahhh, it sounds like it's really loud,
but it's not, I'm kind of containing it.
And it's the same with like, movie trailers when I do
movie trailers and you're doing that whole,
you know, "Rated R. Coming to a theater near you."
It's like, it doesn't sound that big,
but when you're on a mic it sounds huge.
♪
There's nothing wrong with your television set.
Do not attempt to adjust your picture.
We are controlling the transmission.
This is my voice...
...on TV.
Dad, you're ruining the mood!
There's a certain distance that you wanna be
and if you're too close it's gonna be--
but there's an awareness of what that mic can pick up.
And you can, I can learn sensitivities
to that so I can do, play around with my voice
a little bit more, get more out of it.
If I go, "Pah," see how that moves?
It hits the microphone really hard.
That's called a P pop.
If you're recording and you get a P pop
you take a pencil or your finger,
"Pah, pah, pah, pah."
It splits it.
It makes the air go that way,
instead of that way.
Locust!
Hit it, Dizzy!
Omega two is online.
We're pinned down near the museum.
Request evac.
Omega two is online.
We're pinned down near the museum.
Request evac.
Each of us have our own particular bits.
Some riff on particular things that are funny.
I mean, like, I like to...
[cricket chirping]
You can always put a cricket in somewhere
and it seems funny.
[broken speech]
Fred Tatasciore is really good at that too.
He goes, "Uh... so I w--"
You know, it's like...
We love doing that kind of stuff.
[broken speech]
Sorry, man.
That's when I just take 'em off.
Then when they're actually trying to perform
just hit the button.
Voiceover acting is the best kept secret
in Hollywood that's now sort of starting
to get out there.
It's great-- it's a great gig.
And people are-- people are onto it, you know?
For a while people didn't really know that
it was such a big industry out there, but now the uh,
competition--the competition is getting tough,
and more and more people are going up for--
going up for those jobs.
I think it should definitely be more
about talent and skill.
I mean, I think the person
should obviously bring something to the piece.
I've relied several times "Oh, maybe they'll know my name"
because I've been too lazy to do a great job in there,
and that doesn't really work.
I understand that in the selling of the thing
they're trying to do, the powers that be
always want celebrities.
But the fact is celebrities can be good, can be bad.
But when you're doing something as fast paced
as the animation that we do for "Futurama"
and for "Simpsons," just slowing down enough
to say a celebrity's name,
"Oh my gosh, it's so and so"
slows things down.
Generally these days if we have a celebrity
we try to have them play a character.
Like, that's my preference.
And--and um, you know, I'd rather work
with the regular voice actors, myself.
Somewhere or everywhere there's a 19 year old firebrand
who's sitting there going, "Wait a minute, I wanna do"
what Rob Paulsen does, I wanna do what
"Jimmy Cummings does."
And it's like, "You mean I have to go"
be a celebrity first and maybe win a few Oscars
or Emmys and then they'll let me audition
"for a cartoon?"
You know, so it seems weird to me.
I have seen what it's like, you know,
I've hung out with the absolute pinnacle
of you know, somebody who's famous
pretty much every square inch of this planet.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, there it is,
there's Tom right there.
I'm Tom Hanks.
I've traveled with Tom and stuff like that
and I see the crap that he goes through,
but he's incredibly gracious about it,
I mean, it's mind blowing.
But not being able to go to Third Street Promenade
without getting mobbed?
That's--
I think at times these people
regard voice work as kinda like being Clark Kent.
You don't know that I'm really Scooby Doo,
you don't know that I'm really Superman.
You have that little thing tucked away,
you have that little confidence
and you bring it out if you need to.
When you step into that booth
and you activate these superpowers
that you may have, which could be acting,
it could be, you know, making funny sounds
or it could be dialects, it could be singing,
but suddenly you're transformed
into this super being that um,
that nobody knows, it's the secret
superhero life, and then once you're done,
you know, doing your show,
saving the world in the show, then you go home.
You step out of the booth and you put back on
your Clark Kent glasses and you go back
to your normal existence.
It's pretty cool.
It's really nice to be, to just be out amongst
and just be anonymous.
'Cause you really are a part of the world.
Shut up!
Stop talking, puny man!
Voiceover people are, for the most part,
different people because we're people that like
to be anonymous and so it isn't about ego.
And it maybe for some people that kinda sounds like BS,
but I really mean it, I really mean that it's about
a bunch of people who are really psyched
that we get paid to have fun.
I love it because I have friends that are,
you know, I have a lot of friends
that are recognizable, so I'm really cool.
No, but, you know, we can't go to Disneyland.
I was like, "Hey, do you wanna go to Disneyland with our kids"
and they're like, "I can't really go to Disneyland."
And it's like, "Oh, yeah, that sucks."
Disneyland is awesome."
So I went to Florida where my mom is and said,
"I'm gonna take you to Disneyworld."
And this little boy's standing there
and he's wearing an "Animaniacs" shirt, right?
And I go, "Yeah, I you know, I like 'em too."
It's funny that you, you know, you have that shirt
"'cause uh, you know, I do the voice."
Right?
And he goes, he goes...
"What? What do you mean?"
And I go, "I do the voice of Wakko" right?
And he goes, "So what? So do I."
For real.
And I go, "Oh, no, no, no",
I don't mean, like, for fun,
"I mean I do it on the show," right?
And he goes, "Pft, no you don't."
And I go, "Hey, wait a minute," I go, "Look at this."
And I had this card at the time that had
me and Wakko because it was my first series,
I was very excited, it had me and Wakko.
And I go, "Look at that, huh?"
And he goes, "Oh, yeah, you got a picture"
of the character, so, obviously,
"I'm so sorry I didn't believe you."
And I'm like, I wanna, now I wanna kill him, right?
And I go, "What will it take for me to convince you?"
He goes, "Well, let me hear you do it," right?
And dude, I never get nervous about anything.
I was so nervous now 'cause this little bastard!
And I'm like, oh uh, okay, and I go, "Well," I go uh,
"Boy, it sure is great to be here in Disneyworld.
"Happy Thanksgiving," right?
And he looks up at me and he goes,
"I do it way better than that."
I live in New York and um, I uh,
after the uh, the attacks on 9/11 we're getting
all these, you know, hundreds of meals ready
and this one guy in the middle of the night
like, three nights into this he goes, "So, my day job is"
I'm an architect."
He says, "What's your day job?"
I said, "Well, I do voices mostly."
"I knew it!"
He said, "You're the guy who does Batman!"
You're that Kevin Conroy."
So he goes into this dining hall and this is, you know,
the first week after the attack
and there had been just this somber sadness.
And you hear him go, "Guys, guys,"
you're not gonna believe who's been cooking your dinners.
"It's Batman!"
There's this long silence and you hear, "Bullshit"
from the back of the place.
And he said, then someone else says,
"Make him prove it" so, "Oh, this is good."
So I'm in the back kitchen and I do from the back kitchen,
"I am vengeance."
I am the night.
"I am Batman."
There's this long pause then you hear from
the back of the place "Holy [bleep] that is Batman!"
And suddenly people were laughing.
And the architect who had recognized me said,
"What's it feel like to be Santa Claus?
'Cause that's what just happened here."
I used to think I needed to have heads snapping
as I walked into a restaurant.
"It's him.
It's the guy from that show."
It just isn't that important 'cause it isn't real.
I'll never see those people again.
And when I come to something like Comic-Con, you know,
the place is loaded with people who are
into the work, know what we do,
know what we look like, and it's like getting
to turn off and on that, that fame thing
that my famous pals can't turn off
during the rest of the year.
I say it here and it goes out there.
Um, you don't know how many people
are actually watching at any given moment, you know,
and to see that at least a little bit of that
at Comic-Con and all the people
who truly are inspired.
You go to Comic-Con and you realize
you're doing something and these are peo--
they're grownups, they're people that you
grew up with laughing as well as five year olds.
And uh, it makes it-- it makes it really special.
If we go down to the comic book store today
we'll get free comics from everybody and then
I'll have six comics instead of seven!
I've been going to Comic-Con, this'll be my 16th year.
Like me and Comic-Con are old friends.
But Comic-Con is like the place where nerds commune
in their natural habitat without fear
of exterior persecution.
Comic-Con isn't just this grassroots
marketing opportunity, it is a place where people
who live and breathe and bleed for this stuff
go to be passionate with one another.
The cons are great.
It's like I'm a Beatle, it's nuts.
This is gonna be fun.
All right, big day, Comic-Con.
I should have put some of that eye stuff on my face.
I have to get my boxed lunch.
♪
Going to San Diego Comic-Con or Dragon Con in Atlanta
or any of these places, it's like a company picnic.
You see people you work with all the time.
You know, it's really-- it's really fun.
Anything you're a rabid fan of is cool, man.
And I think that the Comic-Con thing
did something really great because it gave these people
who are so into comics, and cartoons, and fantasy,
and anime, and all these mediums,
it's like it gave them a place to go.
Yeah, conventions are a trip, it's really amazing
to see the fans.
Isn't that ridiculous.
These people are that sick, they're super fans.
When we do a signing and we get to interact
with the kids and fans, and that's always great.
And I'll put the date so we all know where we are.
Yes, thank you.
♪
It's a chance for-- for somebody who
you really like something and you get to actually
meet the people who do it.
It's a place where fans can
completely be themselves.
You know, where they can live out their fantasy
with people that are of like mind.
Good for them.
Oh, my dog, I'm dyslexic.
These people know who we are and it's really lovely,
we're treated like rock stars, and these characters have
such a profound effect on many people's lives.
And that's a very special thing to be part of.
It's also cool to meet all the people
who actually wanna see you.
It's like, fun.
I like doing panels and stuff.
I love doing Comic-Cons and comic book shows
where they are gracious enough to have voice people come
and talk about the craft.
There's so many people that light up
that are interested in it and I've been blown away.
Still better than your cooking.
What's wrong with my cooking?
The best part, and this is gonna sound so cheesy,
but it's the truth, is you meet the fans
and you go, "Thank you, thank you."
Thank you for being into it, I'm glad you like that."
It's worth doing and it's fun.
If you can get through the sea of people.
♪
Comic-Con you walk around like a baby
'cause you can't move faster than a baby can
and you're just like waddling and everyone's like,
bumper to bumper, that's why you can't--
everyone's just clustered together.
Celebrities at Comic-Con, they escort them through
these back alley ways throughout co--
they escort them like, basically through
the garbage area, which is rad.
They sort of sneak you in the back, you know,
where the loading dock is lead you all these
dark corridors.
I know.
Gotta hustle, man.
This is Comic-Con for me.
Voice of Jake the Dog, John DiMaggio.
♪
I wanted to make this documentary
because I wanted to honor these people.
I wanted to show that my peers are really incredible.
They're an incredibly talented bunch.
I wanted to show those people, I wanted to show their face,
I wanted to show them as champions of the industry.
On the count of three, one, two, three!
I know that voice!
You guys are the best.
♪
[Bender laughing]
♪
You are kind.
Is this the Bible or Shakespeare?
I was Mr. Weed from "Family Guy."
Peter, you're fired.
Only you can prevent forest fires.
I played a character called Granny Good
who is an androgynous creature.
Moe the bartender.
Apu the Quicki Mart attendant,
and Police Chief Wiggum.
This isn't my home, actually, I just rented it.
I didn't really rent it, I'm just hoping nobody shows up.
Klaus on "American Dad," little fish in a bowl.
Hello, Swing Heil.
Foop on "Fairly Odd Parents."
Hey, baby, this guy right here, Johnny Bravo.
I've done Tweety for Warner Brothers.
Grimlock, Dinobot leader.
Eh, what's up doc?
Wolverine from "Wolverine and the X-Men."
Kids will come up and ask you,
"Can you do the voice?"
I'm Mr. Krabs, what do you mean, you don't know?
I don't do it for kids who come up and say,
"Do it, do the voice, do it, do it,
you were Mr. Krabs, do it."
Shockwave was a favorite of mine.
And I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?
Flame Princess on "Adventure Time."
Whenever I hear one of my Best Buy commercials come on
I'm immediately the first one to stand up
and hush the whole room.
I do the voice of Batman for Warner Brothers,
for 20 years.
I am Darkwing, did you get my good side, Duck.
I do the voice of Tommy Pickles and Babe.
Emily Elizabeth on "Clifford the Big Red Dog."
I'm Jimmy Neutron.
Bender from "Futurama."
Oh, yeah.
The screaming for four bloody hours.
Pluto, so I get paid to bark for a living.
I'm a very caring, soft-spoken Helia.
Jokey Smurf.
Worm guys, "Men in Black."
Gotta hava java cafe latte grande.
Which way did he go, George, which way did he go?
Stretch sort of sounds like this,
squeeze sort of sounds like that.
Neil is always like, "Oh, hello, Meg,
this, that and the other thing."
The noise of Maggie's pacifier.
[suction sound]
Daddy I wanna be a Powerpuff Girl
but they said I couldn't!
The teeth reminded me of the Blue Meanie
from "Yellow Submarine."
Those teeth, those teeth, those teeth!
The best thing about voiceovers,
when you're in this little thing
and you see everybody in the control room going--
You're going, "There, I just did my job."
Wakko on "Animaniacs" that was one of the first big ones.
Roger Rabbit, that was even before "Animaniacs."
I am Iron Heart in "Transformers."
I talk like this.
I couldn't say anything without rage.
Billy from "The Grimm Adventures
of Billy and Mandy."
Tee-hee! I like pie.
King Julian, "The Penguins of Madagascar."
I'm going to teach Kim Possible the power
of [speaking Chinese] monkey Kung Fu.
Megatron.
It's excellent, yes.
AKA Spiderman and AKA creepy promo guy.
SpongeBob and uh, his snail Gary.
Lrrr, ruler of the planet Ominicron Persei 8.
Can I crash on your couch?
Hermes, the Jamaican bureaucrat on "Futurama."
Judy Jetson on "The Jetsons."
Olivia on "Family Guy."
Oh, Stewie, what are you doing?
Chester McBadbat ace photographer and friends
of Timmy Turner on "Fairly Oddparents."
♪ It's a perfect day
♪ It's in the mid 70s
♪ Humidity is 60%
I know all there is to know about computers.
Just ask me anything.
My name is Izzy.
Yahoo!
I'm coocoo for Coco Puffs.
I play Hotaru in Naruto she's old.
Based her on Pepperidge Farm Remembers.
You, quadruped.
Sprecken zie English?
Forgot what I was supposed to say.
When I do George Bush can't remember the next line.
What was it?
Stay tuned?
Coming up next.
Member FDIC.
They hand you a sketch of the guy
and they can do that thing where it's like,
"Well, I think he'd sound like this."
I look at it, I'm like, "I guess he sounds like me."
Is that cool, can he sound just like me?
"'Cause I can do that."
It's really hot.
This is awesome.
Queen Jipjorrulac on "Fairly Oddparents."
I'm a chief and a little flea.
Dr. Richtofen from "The Call of Duty:"
"Black Ops" zombie levels.
That's true, that's one there.
Polly McShane from "The Kids From Room 402."
She collects spoons.
Space Ghost, Blue Falcon, Powdered Toast Man,
Roger Ramjet, I can't remember.
Pinky from "Pinky and the Brain."
Narf.
Yakko from "Animaniacs."
Cleveland Junior on "The Cleveland Show."
Daddy, will you wipe me?
William Fontaine de la Tour Dauterive.
SpongeBob SquarePants' grandma,
and Mrs. Lopart on "Handy Manny."
I do the voice of Master Shake
on "Aqua Teen Hunger Force."
Phil is kinda like this.
You know, he's just a boy, he's a little guy
and he's a lot of fun.
And Bubbles was, "First I thought Mojo
was a nice monkey, then I kicked in his face."
Elmira from "Tiny Toons."
Obi Wan Kenobi on "Star Wars: The Clone Wars."
Fred Flintstone, yabba-dabba-do.
The Hulk, or as Damon Baird in "Gears of War."
Oh, pinky-head, your feet, they look like boats.
Strudel who's um, she's uh, German.
Little Suzy in "Phineas and Ferb."
Captain Qwark from "Ratchet and Clank."
Hello, space cadets.
Lumpy Space Princess.
Will you button me, Ren?
I play Uncle Ruckus on "The Boondocks."
It's "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno.
Look at this face.
I don't think--
[speaking gibberish]
I don't know why I launched into Aaron Neville right there.
So to you I say, "Tha-the-that's all folks."
A one, a two, a one, two, three.
♪
♪ Stagger downstairs on that Saturday morn ♪
♪ Hey brother, hey sister, hey say it again ♪
♪ Hear my old familiar friends ♪
♪ Come out of that speaker horn ♪
♪ Hey brother, hey sister, hey say it again ♪
♪ From Bugs to Daffy
♪ From Stimpy to Ren
♪ Hey brother, hey sister, hey, say it again ♪
♪ I seen 'em all once
♪ And I'd watch 'em all again ♪
♪ Hey brother, hey sister, hey say it again ♪
♪ I love a million faces
♪ Lord, I made my choice
♪ Well, hey there friend
♪ Would you say that again
♪ 'Cause I swear
♪ I know that voice
♪
♪ I know that voice
♪ Either coming home from school ♪
♪ Or as a late night snack
♪ Hey brother, hey sister, hey, say it again ♪
♪ You know your cartoon buddies ♪
♪ Man, they always got your back ♪
♪ Hey brother, hey sister, hey, say it again ♪
♪ Be it Dudley then to Elma
♪ Be it moose or squirrel
♪ Hey brother, hey sister,
hey, say it again ♪
♪ Bringing joy, bringing laughter ♪
♪ To every boy and every girl ♪
♪ Hey brother, hey sister, hey, say it again ♪
♪ I love a million faces
♪ Lord I made my choice
♪ Well, hey there friend
♪ Could you say that again
♪ 'Cause I swear
♪ I know that voice
♪
♪ I know that voice
♪
♪ I know that voice
♪
♪ I know that voice
♪
♪ I know that voice
♪
♪ I know that voice
♪
♪ I know that voice