Tagged: music

Emily S. Whitten: Dee Bradley Baker is an Animal!

Whitten Art 130813Well, actually, he’s a lot of animals. From Perry the Platypus on Phineas and Ferb to Appa and Momo on Avatar: The Last Airbender, voice actor Dee Bradley Baker is the man behind a whole slew of animal and creature sounds you might not even guess could come from a human being. Of course, he also voices awesome speaking characters, such as all of the clones on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Klaus the German fish on American Dad! And then there are all of those video games he’s provided voices or sounds for, like the Halo series, Portal 2, Gears of War 1 – 3, Diablo III, Left 4 Dead 2, the Ben 10 video games, and several Marvel and DC games, including Batman: Arkham City. In fact, if you look over his ridiculously long IMDB page  (329 titles!) I think you’ll find that even if you are not a heavy consumer of entertainment, you’ve heard Dee’s voice somewhere and probably didn’t even know it. And that’s the way he likes it.

I had a chance to sit down with Dee at the San Diego Comic-Con and talk about his amazing talents, examples of which you can listen to here, and his experiences as a voice actor (and for those who are interested in getting into voice acting, I recommend Dee’s site, I Want to Be a Voice Actor, as a great resource). It was an awesome interview, which you can watch in its entirety here. Or, read on for the transcript!

You’ve worked on a number of things that are being featured here at SDCC, so please tell me about those.

My first day was a panel for I Know That Voice, which the great John DiMaggio, the voice of Bender and a ton of other voices, is overseeing; and it basically chronicles the history of voice acting and who’s working in voice acting right now – most all of the A-listers – and it also speaks a lot about Comic-Con as well. He just kind of assembled some Avengers of Voice Acting on that panel, and we had a really fun panel. I also did one for Phineas and Ferb, and that went beautifully. I’m Perry the Platypus on Phineas and Ferb (demonstrates Perry). That’s a great and creative show; and I really love that show as a dad, because that’s one you can watch over and over and over again, which is what kids like to do; so that was spectacular. Yesterday we had a big panel in the gigantic hall for American Dad!, which was also a lot of fun. (In character) I’m Klaus the fish on American Dad! And I am in a little bowl.

And what was it that Rob Paulsen said about that voice on the I Know That Voice panel?

It just makes him happy. It makes him happy to hear me speak with a German accent. Or to speak in German, which I will do for him.

It was funny to see the reactions on that panel when you started doing Klaus. I think everybody loves that.

Yes; well, I have a real fondness for the German language. I speak it, and I spent a year in school there, and I studied German writers and philosophers. And it’s just kind of a forgotten language in this country basically since the 20th century, and it’s a fun little thing to pop out and show everyone.

With the German language thing; when you go in and a director says they’re looking for a German voice do you ever do German and they say, “that’s too authentic, we want something hammy”?

No; if they want me to dial down the accent, I’ll do that; but I’ve never gotten that request. I understand what you’re asking; but actually, for me, it usually works out – what’s sometimes difficult for me is if I go in to do a dog or a cat, and they want something that doesn’t sound like a dog or a cat. They want something that’s goofy; or that’s more human. So I have to make myself bend away from something that’s authentic into something that expresses it with the tone that they want.

When you’re doing that process, do you just sit there and try a bunch of noises?

Yes.

Can you give an example?

Well, if you want, like, a dog bark (demonstrates different dog barks) you can humanize it. You can make it more Scooby, or more like a dog. And then you can dial in whether it’s small or big or whatever. But it’s a little different for every show, and that’s kind of what I do as a voice actor.

That’s great. Now you mentioned philosophy – did you study philosophy?

Yes, I was a philosophy major in college, with practically a minor in German.

So how did you go from philosophy and German to voice acting?

Both coexisted fine, really. I’ve done performing all of my life, and had a lot of fun doing everything from plays and operas and stand-up and children’s theater and improv, to singing telegrams, summer stock, Shakespeare-

Singing telegrams, really? Where do you even find that job?

Oh, just look in the Yellow Pages! Or whatever exists now. You can get money to do a live singing telegram.

Did you have to dance, too?

Well, it depends on the character. On what they want the character to do. Whether it’s like a nerd strip-a-gram, or…there are just various characters that they hand you, with this horrible script, and then you have to walk into a situation where either they’re delighted or they’re just completely mortified, and it’s really uncomfortable. And then you have to try to get them to pay you your money, because the company that hires you is not going to help you with that. It’s actually a fairly unpleasant job for me to do. So I didn’t do that for very long; but I did it for a while. But you know, it’s either that, or work in an office; and I don’t want to work in an office. So – I like performing, and I’m happy to try something stupid in front of people. I always have been, and that’s how I earn my living; is basically that.

And you’re fantastic at it, so that’s great! Now, I looked at your IMDB page. With voice actors, it’s impossible to even remotely cover everything, because you all are so versatile, and you do everything.

Yeah, a lot of us are very versatile, and do a lot of different kinds of voices; we do impressions; you know, I specialize in sounds; some are women who do little boy voices; some are known for the sexy; some are known for the powerful, or the evil, or the big; or maybe they can do them all. So yeah, a lot of us have a lot of different shows that we do. That’s how you earn a living as a voice actor, is to do a lot of shows; as opposed to on-camera, where you’re pretty much just doing one show at a time.

And as I was looking through your IMDB, I never actually got down to the bottom of your very first gig. I was scrolling, and I was like, “I’m never going to get there,” so I’ll just ask: what was your first gig, and also, what was your first experience performing in front of people, like as a child or whatever.

My first performing-in-front-of-people experience was I think in first grade, when they asked me to present flowers at the University of Northern Colorado homecoming queen beauty pageant, and I had to present flowers to the gal who was one of the homecoming queen candidates at the university. My second performance was the lead as Oliver in the play Oliver at my school, which was a K through 12 school in Greeley, Colorado, and that was my first really acting/performing gig, was starring in Oliver. I was in second grade, so about eight years old. My first professional gig, being paid, would be performing Oliver, again, at the Chuckwagon Dinner Playhouse in Greeley, Colorado. They paid me something like thirteen bucks a night to be Oliver. I was probably ten or eleven. I did Oliver in Greeley three times! I did it once at my school, once at the university, which was not paid, and then once for the Chuckwagon Dinner Playhouse, which was paid. And that was my first paying gig.

But when I was a kid, you know, I did ventriloquism; I did plays; they’d bring me over as the boy soprano at the university for Bernstein’s Mass or various productions. That was not paid; that was just for fun. That’s how I came to become enamored of acting and performing, was just doing it for fun.

So what was your first voice acting gig that was professional?

My first paid voice acting gig was doing a non-union commercial in Colorado Springs for Mexicana Airlines, in a horrible Spanish accent. That was my first voiceover gig, if I remember correctly. It was terrible. It was truly terrible, but I got paid to do not-my-voice in a commercial.

And it’s all experience, whether you’re paid or not. That’s the best teacher; that’s what you want. You need experience. Not necessarily classroom study, although that can be a very good thing. But you’ve got to get in front of an audience, and you’ve got to convince people to give you money to do what you like to do.

Now you were saying that you’re known for creatures, which I of course knew and appreciate-

(Dee does animal noises!)

So can I ask you, how do you do…

(Dee does crickets!)

…that. How do you do the crickets? I love the crickets!

(Demonstrating) The crickets are done with the back of the tongue against the soft palate, like you’re gargling; it’s very relaxed back there. You can do it other ways too, actually. You can do it in the front of the mouth. But I do it in the back of the mouth; and then while I’m whistling, I dial in the uvula; and then I whistle with an inhale, which is a higher whistle for me; and then I just do it in reverse. So that’s what you do. But you can do that! You can practice that and you can do that. I’ve shown people how to do it.

I believe you! And I love the crickets.

Everybody loves the crickets. Except for a writer. A writer doesn’t like the crickets. Because you insert the crickets when there’s a pause or when the joke falls flat. So writers don’t like the crickets; that’s one thing I’ve learned.

That makes sense. Now you do tons and tons of creatures. Have you had any particular ones that have been really difficult to come up with, or that really stressed your voice?

Well roaring and screaming like you often do in video games can be really taxing on the voice. But I try to do it in a way that doesn’t tear up my voice. That’s done by relying on – not the voice. By relying on the throat. (demonstrates) Like that – where I’m using not just my voice but other things to make the sound or the effort. It also helps too to use it on an inhale sometimes, because that can get you a lot of sound but is not as hard on the voice. It’s taxing on the voice, but not terribly so.

When you do that in public and people smile like I’m smiling now, do you get a big kick out of that?

I don’t do it in public, and when I do they don’t smile! Well, they do here! It’s gotta be set up right, otherwise, there’s something wrong. There’s something obviously wrong, and they don’t smile.

Well, I was going to ask, also, because a lot of voice actors are known for the voices that they do, what is it like being the creature guy; being a voice actor who’s most known for animal and creature sounds?

I love that. I’m happy not to be known for anything. I don’t need to be known at all; it’s not really on my agenda. It doesn’t serve my life to be known; other than professionally, in professional circles, for people to know that I do creature and animal sounds. But that’s part of the appeal of a voice acting career, is that you’re not saddled with fame. You can live a relatively normal life and have normal relationships, and have to deal with your own human limitations in a more immediate way than you do in the sort of mediated, buffered world that a famous person has to cope with. So that’s part of why I like voice acting and was drawn to it, is that in particular.

Has that changed any for you since YouTube and having voice actors at cons and things are more prevalent now?

I can still go shopping at a grocery store and nobody knows who the heck I am, so no. But! There are a couple more people at a convention that recognize me; that’s fine. But for the most part, they don’t. And that’s okay.

Okay; now with The Clone Wars, you were saying the other day that it’s strange for you to be doing a normal voice. Can you talk about that experience?

Yes, well, when you’re establishing your career in whatever you’re doing, you kind of start with your default strength, and that for me tended to be more (in character) wacky or comedic character roles, that were more broad or cartoony. And I still have that in my wheelhouse. But when I auditioned for and got on Clone Wars, (in character) it is a straight-ahead soldier; I mean that is a normal human being that is as straight-ahead as you can imagine. There’s nothing bizarre or strange about a clone. They are a soldier, and a human, and that is what is interesting about them.

And so I would never have cast myself in doing that kind of a role at that time. That was kind of a mental limitation I had imposed upon myself, just because of what I’d been doing and what worked. But that kind of opened up for me the realization that I can do normal! That I can do normal and variations of normal; and the acting challenge of applying the gradation of character to the clones really opened up my mind in terms of what I can do and how I look at what I can do. So from that, I will occasionally get a villain character. For instance, Tarrlok, in Legend of Korra. (in character) Tarrlok, he speaks mostly as I do. But he is a character who is duplicitous, and you’re not always sure what he’s going to do; if he’s friendly, or if he’s evil…or what’s up with him. And that was another just straight-ahead character; who was kind of unsavory in a lot of ways. But again, I got to do that. Or Ra’s al Ghul in the Batman: Arkham City video game. I mean, that’s a straight-ahead villain. That’s a heavy. And I booked that, whereas I think a decade ago or so, I don’t think I would have even auditioned for it. No one would have thought to, and I wouldn’t have thought to. I would have said, “Nah, that’s not really what I do.”

You’ve worked a lot in both video games and animation. What’s the difference in experiences there? Do you prefer one?

I like video games in general because I think it’s not just an art form, but an evolution in how humans communicate, and what they do. I don’t think normal society really understands that. The sort of established, grown-up society; I don’t think they understand the profundity of what that means in terms of connecting with millions of other people in different countries and doing something together. Like, with World of Warcraft, or on Xbox or something like that, you’re literally playing against the rest of the planet, or you’re playing with them, as you play against them. It’s competitive but at the same time it’s cooperative. And I don’t know what else we’re doing as nations and countries that is like that. I think it’s a really positive and necessary thing, that has the potential to lead to kind of benevolent connections among societies; that we need, as the world seems to be falling apart. I think it’s a thing that brings large groups of people together, who don’t even necessarily speak the same language. And that’s something; that’s unique.

It also brings in a lot of different art forms in addition to writing and acting. It also puts music into the ear of young people who probably aren’t getting that; because arts and other essential education in this country are being cut, because education is not a priority in this country, sadly. Tragically. And so I like that it brings music into the mind and into the ear; as many of the projects that we have here at Comic-Con do. Whether it’s the X-Men feature film, or a Halo game, the music that you’re hearing, this sort of nineteenth century programmatic music, is really marvelous. It’s a marvelous form of expression. We should know it and appreciate it and cultivate that in our world, I think.

I agree. Now speaking of the con again, were you also doing Wolves?

Yes, I did! I was doing wolf sounds for Wolves. I don’t know what I am allowed to tell about it, but it’s David Hayter’s project, and he’s got a great werewolf-type project, and they brought me in to do some wolves. (demonstrates)

That’s fantastic. Are there any other new projects we should be keeping an eye out for?

I wish there were more that I could talk about. I continue to do a lot of stuff for Disney, and for Phineas and Ferb, and Jake and the Never Land Pirates, and lots of shows that kids really like. For Jake and the Never Land Pirates, I’m the Croc, and – I’m pretty much the animals in that; whether it’s a bee or a plant or a lizard or a bug or whatever it is, they call me in to do that.

What does it make you feel like if you’re watching a show that you’ve done, and there are people talking, and you are all of the background noises or whatever?

I like that. I mean, it’s fun! It’s fun to be in there, and I like it best if people don’t realize that that’s what that is; that there is a human doing that. The goal would be for it to sound natural and seamless and invisible, sort of like a special effect. You don’t want an audience member to think about a special effect. You want them to experience the scene more accurately to what your vision is as a creator. And that’s what I want to be as a voice actor who adds the weird or the animal or the alien, is to make it feel like this is an organic part of what the story is. Not, “Oh, who’s that guy, doing that sound?” That’s what I don’t want.

I think you succeed very well, because I would never know.

•     •     •     •     •

Dee is a such pleasure to talk with, and I had a fantastic time interviewing him! And, of course, I asked Dee to do a shout-out for ComicMix, which he was kind enough to do. Don’t miss it at the end of the video!

And until next time, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis Goes Super Nigga!

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold Gets Real Small

 

Emily S. Whitten: SDCC Part 4 – A Note About Hannibal

Whitten Art 130801As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve watched the first season of Hannibal and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The show is fascinating and horrifying and engaging and cinematically very well done and, dammit, the food makes me hungry sometimes (which is so, so wrong, but omigawwwd, that grape gelatin dessert. I want it! Just…without the human bits, m’kay?).

The show is also not above regular and sometimes slightly terrible puns, which is why I don’t feel the least bit guilty about the title of this column (wait for it), or about saying that although I would have loved to make it to the Hannibal panel or chat with the whole cast and crew while I was at SDCC, I was happy to get at least a taste of production insight by talking briefly with Hannibal’s original music composer Brian Reitzell before BMI’s ‘The Character of Music’ panel discussion (aaaand now the title’s pun lands. Yes, I’m terrible).

We literally had just a few minutes to chat, but in that time, I managed to squeeze in several questions and learn some really neat stuff. So here’s my little amuse-bouche of a conversation with Brian!

How did you end up on the show? Were you a fan of the franchise?

Who’s not a fan? David Slade, who directed the pilot, and kind of really set the stage for everything – I had done a horror movie with him called 30 Days of Night. And that’s very much part of David’s style. I mean, music and sound design as well, you know; so he brought me in. It was his fault!

And did you know all of the Hannibal collection, or just Silence of the Lambs, or what?

I’ve only seen Silence of the Lambs. I haven’t seen the other ones. But I want to see them now; especially the Michael Mann one.

When you’re composing the music, where do you go for your inspiration? And what do you have to go on from the show?

I get the whole show. I don’t read the scripts. I like to sit down and watch the whole show, and instantly start working on it. I like to be like the audience; I don’t want to know what’s around the corner. I actually want to go there myself. So it’s very reactionary. I find that horror music is really good that way.

When you’ve got the food scenes versus the different character scenes, what is your inspiration for these different areas?

It depends on what’s going on. I love the food scenes. I used to be a chef, so I can appreciate all of the detail that goes into it.

I have to say, it makes me feel guilty, because sometimes the food scenes make me hungry.

I know! But saying that, I just keep seeing the shot of him cutting up the pig’s lungs. Those were actual pig’s lungs.

Can you tell me a quirky bit of trivia about your work on the show?

I can tell you that with the last episode, where the Will Graham character is losing his mind; David Slade had said, ‘You know, it’s like…it’s spinning out of control.’ So I thought, ‘Okay.’ And I got this thing called a bullroarer, which is – basically it’s a piece of wood on a string, that you spin around – or a bone. They’ve found one on every continent on the planet, dating back to like, 1700 B.C. And it creates this kind of whirring sound, like a Doppler. I have a few bullroarers, and I have this microphone that has four capsules on it, so it records a perfect surround sound. So what I did is, I set the microphone on the floor, and I took a bullroarer, and I spun it around my head; and it’s literally, in the show, it’s spinning, and it’s like you’re in this vortex; it sounded crazy. And we just kept upping that, so if you’ve seen it, you know, he’s in a dream, he’s in a nightmare, and then he wakes up, and he’s got blood on him, so he’s still there. The realities have completely merged.

For some reason I keep getting these jobs where people are going crazy. I’m not really a TV guy – this is my second TV thing, and the other show I did was called Boss – but in that show, the guy was losing his mind. He had this neurological disorder! And I’m always doing these psycho jobs; but that’s – I’m very proud of that.

Will there be a Hannibal soundtrack, and will it come with snacks?

Actually, there’s been demand for it, which is weird! But I’ve done soundtracks for pretty much everything. Even Boss – we did a double vinyl. And I just did The Bling Ring, so I just did a soundtrack with Def Jam, which is also weird! But yeah, there will be a soundtrack.

And what would be your preferred snack to go with that?

My preferred snack…do you know about the miracle berry? If you eat it, and then you drink lemon juice or eat a lemon, it actually tastes sweet. It takes everything sour and temporarily makes it sweet. It’s a trip. So I’d like to have a miracle berry, which is quite small, and either a lemon or something…or maybe to go even more extreme, you could do something like maybe some fish eggs. It’s Hannibal – it’s gotta be weird!

•     •     •     •     •

I totally agree; and I look forward to eventually listening to the soundtrack, and eating my miracle berry and drinking my shot of lemon juice as I listen to the bullroarer whirl and attempt to hold onto my sanity.

Thanks to Brian Reitzell for this interview, and to BMI for setting it up!

And until next time, Servo Lectio!

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY MORNING: Marc Alan Fishman… Well, actually, the woman NEXT to him…

 

Dragon*Con Buys Edward Kramer Out

300px-DragonconlogoThis is very good news. Dragon*Con announced this on their Facebook page today:

The Board of Directors and Shareholders of Dragon Con / ACE, Inc., producer of Dragon*Con, Atlanta’s internationally known pop culture, fantasy and sci-fi convention, have agreed to merge the company into Dragon Con, Inc. (Dragon Con) in a cash-out merger.

Led by Pat Henry, David Cody and Robert Dennis, ownership of Dragon Con includes five of the six founding owners of Dragon Con / ACE (the old Dragon Con). The effective date of the merger is July 8, 2013.

Edward Kramer, who has not had any role in managing or organizing the convention since 2000, was offered cash for his shares in the old company. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“This decision only affects the ownership of the old Dragon Con,” said Pat Henry, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dragon Con. “Our members and others who attend Dragon*Con 2013 will experience the same fantastic convention they have come to expect from us.”

Dragon Con will continue the agreements with each of the host and overflow hotels associated with the convention as well as all of the guests and performers scheduled to appear at this year’s event, either “as is” or with amendments recognizing Dragon Con as owner.

About Dragon*Con

Dragon*Con is the largest pop culture convention featuring comics, film, television, costuming, art, music, and gaming. Held each Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, Dragon*Con attracted more than 52,000 attendees in 2012. For more information, please visit www.dragoncon.org.

Hopefully this will now put the major stigma of having Mr. Kramer continuing to be associated with Dragon*Con behind them.

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GUEST ESSAY BY AUTHOR MICHAEL A. GONZALES-B-BOYS, PULP CULTURE, AND BLACK PULP!

  • News
  • June 22, 2013

On B-Boys and Pulp Culture:

Black Pulp edited by Gary Phillips and Tommy Hancock

by Michael A. Gonzales

Michael A. Gonzales

Planet Hip-Hop has always overflowed with folks into various forms of

pulp culture. Over the years, I’ve interviewed many rap artists and

producers who shared their love for Star Wars, crime movies, karate

flicks and the novels of Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines. Still, I was

surprised when Queensbridge legend Nas told me in 1999 that he had

once created a Black Pulp hero when he was a kid.

“I used to used to draw my own character called Sea God,” Nas told me.

“I copied the body of Conan the Barbarian, but had him standing on the

corner instead of in the forest.” Without a doubt, I’m sure Nas isn’t

the only one with a stash of drawings and/or writings detailing the

bugged adventures of urban champions.

Last year, when respected crime novelist/comic book writer Gary

Phillips invited me to contribute a short story to his latest project

Black Pulp (Pro Se, 2013), co-edited with Tommy Hancock, I immediately

thought of that long ago conversation with Nas and decided I too

wanted to create a hood hero.

Leaning back in my office chair, I closed my eyes and thought of my

own pulp filled childhood growing-up in Harlem: of listening to old

Shadow radio programs that were released on records, watching

blaxploitation and kung-fu flicks every weekend, devouring the

Marshall Rodgers/Steve Englehart’s version of Batman, discovering the

weird worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard, watching

Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon serials on PBS and falling in love with the

work of pulp artist supreme Howard Chaykin, the dude George Lucas

requested to illustrate the first Star Wars comic book.

After an hour of drifting on those dusty memories, quicker than I

could say, “Batman and Robin, Green Hornet and Kato or Easy Rawlins

and Mouse,” my own pulp heroes Jaguar and Shep were born. The lead

character Coltrane (Jaguar) Jones owns a Harlem rap club called the

Bassment and drives through Harlem cool as Super Fly in a fly sports

car. His murderous friend Shep, who just got out of prison, becomes

his badass sidekick as the two self-appointed crime fighters go in

search of a music minded kidnapper.

Although I’ve never been big on constructing strict outlines for

fiction, I knew that I wanted the period to be 1988, the last year

Mayor Koch was in office. Crack was at its height, Public Enemy’s

brilliant It Takes a Nation of Millions was rockin’ the boulevards,

Dapper Dan was creating his bugged designer fashions and New York City

was still on the verge exploding.

Recalling Fab 5 Freddy, who also appears in the story, telling me

about the jazz/hip-hop shows he did with Max Roach at the Mudd Club in

the 1980s, the finished story told the tale of a be-bop lover trying

to rid b-boys and their music from the streets of Sugar Hill.

While working on the story, I consulted with my good friend Robert

(Bob) Morales, himself an accomplished comic book writer, co-creator

of the black Captain America graphic novel The Truth and a pulp

culture aficionado. Although he was working on a graphic novel about

Orson Welles at the time, he always found the time to talk. Once, when

I thought the Paul Pope/John Carpenter-Escape from New York inspired

climax might be too crazy, Bob reminded me, “It’s a pulp story…there’s

no such thing as too wild.”

So, after several weeks of calling Bob, sometimes a few times a day,

and writing, “Jaguar and the Jungleland Boogie” was finally finished.

Sadly, Bob Morales died suddenly on April 17, so I’d like to dedicate

the story to him.

In addition to my b-boy/be-bop tale, Black Pulp has a cool line-up of

creators of color that include famed novelist Walter Mosley, who

penned the introduction, Gar Anthony Heywood, Christopher Chambers,

Kimberly Richardson, Mel Odom and others.

Walter Mosley introduction:

Springsteen & I Examines The Boss’ Influence in July

Springsteen 1We don’t usually cover music but then again, there are few performers who have had as much of an influence on culture as Bruce Springsteen has since his debut in 1972. As a result, we wanted to make you aware of the documentary being released next month.

Centennial, Colo. – June 17, 2013 – With more than 120 million albums sold worldwide and numerous awards, including a staggering 20 Grammy Awards®, Bruce Springsteen’s music defines a generation. In celebration of 40 years of iconic music, NCM Fathom Events and Arts Alliance Media present Springsteen and I in select U.S. movie theaters on Monday, July 22 and Tuesday, July 30 at 7:30 p.m. local time. Springsteen and I will take audiences on an emotional journey through the personal insights and reflections of their fellow Springsteen fans. Directed by Baillie Walsh and produced by Ridley Scott Associates and Mr. Wolf, Springsteen and I incorporates the efforts of more than 2,000 fans around the world who submitted personal video clips to make the ultimate collective filmmaking experience about how Springsteen and his music became the soundtrack to so many lives.

Springsteen 2Including Springsteen performing some of his greatest hits and exclusive never-before-seen archival concert footage, the cinema event features unreleased big-screen performance highlights from the London Hard Rock Calling Wrecking Ball tour and a behind-the-scenes fan meet-and-greet with their hero.

“This beautifully crafted film provides a unique insight into the powerful bond between a recording artist and those who connect so profoundly with his music,” said Ridley Scott.

Springsteen and I will be presented in nearly 500 select movie theaters around the country through NCM’s exclusive Digital Broadcast Network. Tickets are available at participating theater box offices and online atwww.fathomevents.com. For a complete list of theater locations and prices, visit the NCM Fathom Events website (theaters and participants are subject to change).

“Springsteen and I is totally unique – audiences have never seen Bruce and his influence presented like this before,” said Dan Diamond, senior vice president of Business Development for Fathom Events. “This Fathom Event is a rare opportunity for fans to gather together in movie theaters, experience and share their love of all things ‘Bruce’ – as it was produced by the fans, for the fans.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVQUeCi9V0s[/youtube]

THE MUSIC MAN BEHIND THE FICTION-CHARLES BOECKMAN AND JOHNNY NICKLE!

CHARLES BOECKMAN PRESENTS JOHNNY NICKLE, recently released from Pro Se Productions, is the first volume in a fantastic, already popular new imprint from the cutting edge Publisher.   The imprint centers on characters created by classic Pulp Author Charles Boeckman in original stories beginningin the 1940s being written in new stories by some of today’s best authors.  CBP PRESENTS JOHNNY NICKLE contains tales by Richard White and Brad Mengel and focuses on a jazz musician with a penchant for getting into trouble and mystery around every corner.   Even more amazing than Boeckman’s wonderfully colorful characters is the fact that Johnny Nickle, as well as others, have their origins in a real musician.  Charles Boeckman himself.
A renaissance man in many ways, Boeckman is a self-taught man of many skills. He taught himself to play his horns, about music theory, to write, and about photography and darkroom work, as well as many other talents.  Knowing a great deal about music theory, Boeckman wrote all the arrangements for his own Jazz band. He used lead sheets. The real Dixie musicians didn’t need them, but he had them for all the instruments in case he had to get a substitute who needed them. 

Boeckman (left) and Pete Fountain
92 year old Boeckman literally wrote the book on Jazz.  “Cool, Hot and Blue’, published in 1968, is a history of Jazz aimed at young readers.  Another book by Boeckman, “And the Beat Goes On,’ has been used as a text book in universities.  He also wrote a novel, THE LAST JAZZ BAND, based on some wacky musicians he knew and played with on bands where he was a sideman before he started his own band.. 

Performing professionally since 1938, Boeckman is remembered as the founder of the 1970s tradition of Sunday evening Jazz marches down Starr Street in Corpus Christi.  According to Charles’ wife, Patti Boeckman, “As a matter of fact, at its height, the Dixie band played in a smoky dive (the perfect venue for Dixieland) in downtown Corpus Christi, and during the evening, the band played The Saints, marched out the door with customers following in a long line, marched to the end of the sidewalk and back, and then finished the tune back in the dive. After a few months, the police noticed what we were doing and said we needed to get a parade permit. So Charles went to police headquarters every week for the permit, until they finally told him not to bother anymore.”

Charles Boeckman’s Band, featuring Patti Boeckman
Boeckman’s band, which Patty was a member of as a Bass player and a Charleston dancer, played in various locations in the area.  According to Patti, “The band played in some of the most prestigious locations in town, the Country Club, the Town Club (for rich folks), in church, etc. We did play other kinds of music. For example, we put on two gospel concerts. We also had two locally promoted concerts with our band and the Jim Cullum band from San Antonio, well known in jazz circles, in a battle of the bands contest.”

Charles Boeckman was awarded a star on the SOUTH TEXAS MUSIC WALK OF FAME in 2009.  This honor is the South Texas version of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, but for musicians, recognizing those who were born in or have lived in Texas and who have made a lasting contribution to music in South Texas.  Boeckman received over 300 nominations for his Star.

Inductees include the likes of Selena, Kris Kristofferson, Freddy Fender, and more. The star is embedded in concrete in the courtyard of a complex called Water Street Marketplace in down town Corpus Christi.

CHARLES BOECKMAN PRESENTS JOHNNY NICKLE is available from Pro Se’s own store at  http://tinyurl.com/c52g4cc and at Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/cz6s2q3for $8.00!  Available for $2.99 for the Kindle at www.Amazon.com , the Nook at www.barnesandnoble.com, and in other formats at www.smashwords.com!

For more information concerning Pro Se Productions, go to www.pulpmachine.blogspot.comand www.prose-press.com.


Happy Mother’s Day From Monsters University!

MU_Bleachers_Online_1s_w2.0-1Ever since college-bound Mike Wazowski (voice of Billy Crystal) was a little monster, he has dreamed of becoming a Scarer—and he knows better than anyone that the best Scarers come from Monsters University (MU). But during his first semester at MU, Mike’s plans are derailed when he crosses paths with hotshot James P. Sullivan, “Sulley” (voice of John Goodman), a natural-born Scarer.  The pair’s out-of-control competitive spirit gets them both kicked out of the University’s elite Scare Program. To make matters worse, they realize they will have to work together, along with an odd bunch of misfit monsters, if they ever hope to make things right.

Screaming with laughter and oozing with heart, Disney•Pixar’s Monsters University is directed by Dan Scanlon (Cars, Mater and the Ghostlight, Tracy), produced by Kori Rae (Up, The Incredibles, Monsters, Inc.) and features music from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and award-winning composer Randy Newman  (Monsters, Inc., Toy Story 3). The film opens in U.S. theaters on June 21, 2013, and will be shown in 3D in select theaters.

Mike Wazowski’s (voice of Billy Crystal) lifelong dreams of becoming a Scarer are derailed during his first semester at Monsters University when he crosses paths with hotshot James P. Sullivan, “Sulley” (voice of John Goodman), and their out-of-control competitive spirit gets them both kicked out of the University’s elite Scare Program.l 2013.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9N12nUVYZY[/youtube]

Emily S. Whitten: Billy West at Awesome Con DC!

imagesLooks like it is just Interview Central around here these days, folks. Because following up on last week’s column, in which I briefly recapped my Awesome Con DC experience and posted my interview with the fantastic Phil LaMarr  (go read/listen if you missed it last week! Good stuff!), I now get to share with you my Awesome Con DC interview with the excellent Billy West! Hooray!

Even if you somehow haven’t heard the name Billy West, before, I almost guarantee you’ve heard his voice. Voicing everything from classic cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Woody Woodpecker, and Popeye to four of the main characters on Futurama (Philip J. Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, and Zapp Brannigan), Billy has voiced characters on a myriad of other shows as well, including title characters for Nickelodeon’s Doug and The Ren & Stimpy Show; and is also the current voice of product mascots Red the M&M and Buzz the Honey Nut Cheerios bee. Billy was also one of the voices of The Howard Stern Show from 1989 to 1995, where he did astonishing impressions of everyone from Johnny Carson and Al Michaels to an ailing Lucille Ball. (His Jay Leno is uncanny.) As a voice actor, Billy has an amazing range – going seamlessly from one character and reaction to another; and you can see some fun examples of that here. For a good time, I also recommend the Star Wars Trilogy: The Radio Play video, shot at ECCC last year and featuring Billy and a number of other talented voice actors doing the script of Star Wars in some of their iconic voices (including, for Billy, Stimpy, Fry, Farnsworth, and Zoidberg). My absolute favorite bit is when he does Porky Pig at about 45 minutes in. Seriously. You must watch it.

But quickly! Before I get lost in YouTube again: let’s get to the interview! If you want to listen to the interview (listen to it! He does Richard Nixon’s head in a jar!) you can do so here. Or, you can read the (slightly edited) transcript below!

Hello, this is Emily Whitten for ComicMix, here with Billy West at Awesome Con in DC. Billy, thank you for being here with us – and Billy is busy, so we’re doing this while he eats.

I ain’t that busy; I can talk with a mouth full of vegan sandwich.

That’s fair! So you are such an amazingly storied voice actor, etcetera…

Aww, thank you.

There’s a lot to talk about, but I’m going to try to distill it down a little bit. Let’s start with the earlier things; so – how did you decide to get into voice acting? Because I know you also are and were a musician; so what was the career path there?

Well, I remember I was like a little freak, you know? I was always running around making noises, and doing voices. Every time I wanted to play the piano – we didn’t have one, but if we were at somebody’s house – to me that was a golden opportunity. I just wanted to hear it, touch it, and make it do something; because the sonic world that I had going on in my head would dictate that I would go over there; but the thing was: I couldn’t play. And down comes the lid: “Can you not do that?” I heard that more than any other kid, probably, in the world, “Can you not do that?” And I was always trying stuff; it was peripheral and surreal; abstract stuff, but, you know.

I had a weird childhood. My house was a horror-house, and my dad was just, like, certifiable, and a drunk and a crazy; so I was growing up kind of terrified. And I was very hyper-vigilant. I could tune in to things – like I could tell you what kind of a night I was going to have by the way the car pulled up in the driveway, or the way the key went in the door. I was so in tune with people’s behaviors – you know, out of survival mode. But it also trained me, like a cop. I was becoming an observer; an extreme observer.

So from your experiences, you were able to be observant about people and how they acted and how they behaved, and so that would help you later on?

And I loved radio. Oh, I loved radio so much, because of the voices. And there were still some radio plays going on when I was a kid. There was a radio guy named Stan Freberg that had a radio show; and he had one of my favorite voice guys on it, whose name was Daws Butler, and he did a lot of the Hanna-Barbera stuff. He was a little ball of fire, this Daws Butler; and I just came to know these people. But there was no way you could know anything about show business in those days; because there was no emphasis on it. That was for “other people.” You know, “Well who?” It was like: nobody in my town. I was such a geek, I had to hunt down the only other kid who had comic books, and he lived on the other side of town. I just set my inner GPS and found him. I just walked and walked until I found him somewhere.

So what kind of comics did you read, when you and this kid were growing up?

Silly stuff; we read the Marvel stuff – I didn’t mean that that was silly – [Marvel and] DC comics were not silly, they were exciting. But, like, Gold Key Comics were silly; there was The Fly, which was Archie Comics, and he was their superhero – and he fell by the wayside because the other machines were a little more happening and powerful. But I had the original issues of some really important comic books. I had secret origins of like, Batman and all of those. They came out around 1960; 1959, maybe 1961.

Do you still have them?

No. No, it went up my nose, heh.

Back in the day?

Yeah.

Well, do you still follow comics these days?

I try to. I like the revamps of stuff they’re doing. Because there’s so much time that has gone by, that these characters have been around, and eventually they’ve got to morph. You know, they’re not going to get older on us, even though they can dance in and out of timeframes, to show old Superman, like where he wound up.

Yeah; they did that, of course.

Yeah! And there are so many comic books that it’s tough to keep track of them.

Do you watch the movies?

I try to go to movies, yeah, when I can. I’m writing a lot, and I stay up late, late into the evening.

Oh, okay, what are you writing right now?

There are a couple of projects that I’ve got going with my partner that I worked with on Ren & Stimpy. His name is Jim Gomez; and we’ve put together five fully developed shows, most of them animated. We’re pitching them around town, and we’ll see what happens. I love doing what I’m doing – you know, I can be an objective fulfillment machine for the rest of my life – but at some point I do want to create or own something, and give myself the objective.

I think all creators feel that way – it just makes sense.

Yeah – I mean, but I will still always go and work for somebody else, probably doing voice-over.

Now you said that you love radio, and you’ve been on the radio – and I know when I was growing up, I heard you on K-Rock; so tell me, what was that experience like? I mean, I used to listen to that in the morning, when I was getting ready for school…

Didn’t you feel like there was subterfuge involved with that? Like you couldn’t just let everybody hear that.

Yeeeaaah; don’t tell my parents, okay? They didn’t like that show; they didn’t like Howard Stern. I had to be subtle about it.

Of course not. Of course not; but the people who listened to it got it. They understood that everything was silly. It was all about being totally silly in the face of the most horrific subjects.

And pushing boundaries.

Yes, pushing boundaries. It was very organic. We didn’t play records. And Howard was a great ringmaster; he knew, okay, when something’s enough. We’d beat it so far, that’s fine, let’s go to commercial and we’ll start something else. He’d always keep things moving.

And how did you end up working there? I know you’d worked in radio before that.

I was in radio in Boston, and I wasn’t a disc jockey. I was very creative, and showcasing the works of others for a living didn’t turn me on; because I would always feel like a curator in a museum. But these disc jockeys were really pompous about playing records, and it’s like, “Dude, you didn’t create the statues; you just dust them.” And I used to get reamed for having that type of attitude. It’s like, “You’re not allowed to unmask these icons,” and it’s like, “Screw you. You don’t do anything.” I was always surly because there was so much phoniness that used to drive me crazy. My heroes were the artists, not people who were famous for some cottage industry reason – like disc jockeys or TV show hosts. They’re not creating anything. So my heroes were never celebrities. It was always artists. And if they happened to be a celebrity that was a byproduct of their great artistic talent.

Right. So being on a show like The Howard Stern Show, where you got to interact and do your own thing, that was what you were looking for.

That was very appealing to me. And you had to be ready for anything.

So did that help you prepare in large part for the voice acting? And were you also doing voice acting some when you were on the show, or did that come later?

Well I’d already been doing voice acting in Boston, on the radio, and then when I went to New York there was just more of an opportunity to open up and to push myself to see what I was capable of. Plus, I had one of the funniest people in the universe lobbing in little lines here and there for me. But people said, “Ah, Jackie wrote everything for you.” Hey, yeah, sure: let me just talk straight, in a character, for seven minutes. A guy can’t write every bit of dialogue that you say for seven minutes. He can put in ideas, and you integrate them into your conversation. I mean, he did it for Howard all the time. But Howard was very generous; I mean, that’s like loaning somebody a nuclear weapon, that he would let Jackie Martling facilitate me.

And now when you were doing all of this, I know you also played guitar and had a band, and you’ve played guitar with Roy Orbison, Brian Wilson…

Oh, I opened up for a lot of famous guys that I knew growing up, like Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry, The Four Seasons, and Jan and Dean… And later on in life I actually got to play with Brian Wilson.

When was that happening, in comparison to the radio and the voice acting?

Radio just started happening as I was phasing out of playing music.

Okay, so that came a little bit before?

Yes, and then after a moratorium, when I did pick up again, in the future, as the years went by, I wound up playing with one of my idols, which was Brian Wilson.

So what was it like playing with Brian Wilson?

It was so strange; because the first time I played with him, we were at a little hall in Santa Monica, by the beach; and it was me and The Cars guitar player – Elliot Easton – and we were playing with Brian, and then a friend of mine was playing bass. We put together a little band; but I mean, I knew every note of the whole catalogue, I knew every harmony, I knew every chord change, because I was so into The Beach Boys. The Beatles and Jeff Beck; the English stuff was good. But The Beach Boys were our band. And it was like a dream, you know, just playing with Brian Wilson.

And then next thing, we’re at Lincoln Center. And then we played David Letterman. And it was crazy, I mean I’m playing these songs with Brian Wilson; and I still can’t get over it. You know, he did all those hot rod songs – girls, and cars, and fun – and we did 409 onstage, and he was singing 409, which is the old hot rod song, and in the chorus, “Nothing can catch her, nothing can touch my 409, 409,” I started going (hot rod revving noises), and he looked over with this happy, astonished smile, like a little child. He’s like: “What’s going on? But I love this, whatever you’re doing over there.”

Oh, that’s fantastic. So now obviously your voice acting is a large part of your career, and Futurama is a huge part of that – and you developed Philip Fry, well Philip J. Fry, if I’m doing the whole name —

— Well that’s because most cartoon characters’ middle initial is J. Rocket J. Squirrel; Homer J. Simpson; Stimpson J. Cat.

Yes. So when you were developing that character; you’ve said that Fry is similar to you at twenty-five; so when they had you in auditioning for Futurama, did they ask you to develop that character; did you come in saying “this is something I have,” or what?

They showed me the pictures when I went in, and there was some dialogue they wanted me to read; and…you know what it’s like – something, you look at it and it just gives you an impression, and depending on your experience, or your talent, or your intuition, you’re hoping that you’ll come up with what they’re looking for. And all of them were pretty much very close to what I gave them. They described Fry, and I said, “You know what? I don’t do this very often, but I’m going to just use my own voice, like when I was twenty-five.” I remember, I was very whinyyy, and complainyyy, and I just know I had a plain vanilla voice. I had no idea I had this wild animal in my throat somewhere; this big clumsy beast that could do anything. You know, I really didn’t know back in those days. Because I was singing and playing. But I would go in and do voices on stage like when we blew up an amp, or a string snapped, or whatever. Out of embarrassment, I would just keep going and entertaining. Might not have been the music or anything, but people loved it. Launching into characters that I would make up, and imitate, or whatever.

Right. And now, on Futurama, you do a lot of the voices. How did that come about?

They would just keep showing me pictures, and I auditioned for everybody, including Bender. I played him as a construction worker, and John DiMaggio came in and mopped the floor with that audition. He played him as kind of a punch-drunk fighter.

Yes, Bender is a great voice.

Oh, it’s beautiful. And it developed into what it is. In the beginning, none of us sounded like who we were. I mean, that’s who we thought we were, at the time, but voices morph. You listen to an episode #10 from The Simpsons, and you listen to the 200th episode, and it’s like, “Huh?” Well, Homer Simpson was like (voice impression), and then later on he developed all of these other facets that make the character so interesting and believable.

Yes. Now in Futurama, or your other roles, what are your favorite characters to play or have played? And what were the most difficult?

I love doing all the characters, and I love them equally; so I can’t pick out a favorite. Because I just try to bring so much imagination to it. I was always trying to do something nobody had done, and that served me well. I didn’t want to mimic people. I could do it – I’ve held up franchises. I did four years of Woody Woodpecker; and Popeye…the works, you know? But you only make your mark for real if you start creating and it catches on. And you have faith that you’re just as good as those impressions that you relied on; that were your little power base.

Right, well because they were starting out once, and they made up those voices, and so why not you? And so what was the most difficult voice to do?

I don’t know; I know that I had become fearless; totally fearless. I’m not afraid of anything, and I’m willing to try anything. I’m willing to fail. I was like that in comedy clubs. Because it didn’t make sense to me – why should I memorize twelve minutes worth of material and then go out and pretend every night that I’d just thought of it? I needed stakes. I needed real things at stake like dying or bombing [on stage]. I really did, and I wasn’t afraid to.

Did you do a lot of stand-up?

Not a lot. A little bit, and then I got into radio, and that was it. Stand-up is very, very hard. There are guys that are just so, so amazing at it and everything. But my forte was not stage performance, doing stand-up. My forte was radio; and that was a bigger playground. You could dodge in and out of characters, and you didn’t even have to have written material; you could ad-lib while you’ve got these crazy voices going back and forth.

In your voice work, how much do they want you to or let you ad-lib?

They want to get what they want to get; ideally, what they had in mind. And then after you do that and they’re happy with it, they ask you if you thought of anything, or you want to add or bring something; and a lot of times I would, and a lot of times it made it in. A lot of it just winds up – they want more rather than less. Because that way they have options; they can play with stuff they didn’t think would work and all of a sudden, oh my God, it works beautifully.

Right. Because sometimes improvisation is the best part of life.

Yeah; but it’s also this constant wonderment of discovery – whether something’s going to work or not. That’s exploration. It’s like, you try to control every aspect of everything as much as you can, but when serendipitous things happen, like, “What was that thing you just did?” “Oh, you mean this?” and they’d say, “Yeah, what if he just goes right into that?”

Like when I did Nixon – I’m old enough to remember when Nixon was running for President, and John F. Kennedy, and they did the debate on TV. And I was astonished at how perfect Kennedy looked – like a game show host, with his perfect teeth, and his buttered-toast hair. He was made for TV. Nixon was made for wanted posters. He looked like a stolen car. And he was (in character) “shifty-eyed, and he was nervous and…ar-rar-rar.” And he was sweating. While the interview was continuing, he was getting worse, and his beard was coming in; you could practically see the bottom half of his face get darker and darker. And I said to my mom, “Mom, he’s going to turn into a werewolf!” Because I loved horror movies, like with Lon Chaney slowly turning into the werewolf. Nixon was kind of almost there – lycanthropic. So he was just doing his thing, and I said, “That’s awful; he’s almost unwatchable.”

And then years later, I get the chance to do Nixon, as a head in a jar, and I would say something like, (in character) “You filthy hippies, get off the grass outside this White House,” and then all of a sudden I would go: (werewolf noises). Like I was changing. You know, just replacing words with noises and stuff.

Hah, wow. I know it’s hard work, but it just sounds like so much fun.

Well, you gotta keep coming up with new bags of tricks, and keep expanding them and everything. That’s how you keep working.

Now you were saying earlier that you have essentially had conversations with yourself. Some examples of that are Farnsworth introducing Fry to Zoidberg [in Futurama], and then Doug and his arch-nemesis. How do you deal with that; how does that work in your head? Because that seems to be even a double challenge over consistently trying to sound a certain way.

It’s like I had my boot camp training in Boston doing consecutive voices. Because I got a job as a producer; and there’s no producer school you can go to. I had to learn how to splice tape, and I had to learn how to write and create my own characters and bits; and then put it together so it could be air-able; with sound effects, and music, and everything. I didn’t quite know what I was doing, but I just did it.

And it works for you!

Yeah, I mean, I’m very strange in that way; like I still, to this day, can’t tie my shoes properly, I just can’t. And a necktie, I have problems with. I can’t do anything practical; but if you ask me to do something only like, four or five other people in the world can do, I have no problem.

So now as a voice actor, what’s the experience of celebrity? How do you experience that as someone who’s mostly known by different voices, so someone might not actually know, talking to you, that yours was the voice they’ve heard on shows?

Well, celebrities were never my heroes. Never. To this day, I don’t give a dismal damn, really, whether Kim’s having problems with her pregnancy, or whatever. It’s like, “Fuck you.” You know what? Anybody who can fart the national anthem can become a celebrity. Any stupid-looking bald guy can throw on an earring and a goatee and a leather jacket, and now he’s Pawn Stars. And they pose these guys like rappers, like album covers; they’re all big, bad, and bald – and they’re basically lucky imbeciles, because show business ain’t what it was anymore, now it’s supposed to be “reality.” These guys just have to be who and what they are. And then they learn how to act; because they go, “I like this ride very much;” and they know it’s going to be over, and they want to stay in that business. They don’t want to go back to oblivion.

Yes. So how do you interact with fans? And do some people just know your whole oeuvre? What is that experience like?

There’s people that know more about me than I do. Because I can’t remember every little fiddle-faddle, you know? But I’m just grateful; I’m so grateful – I mean, what are the odds that there would be people in this world that would put aside time in their life to know what you do, and to follow it? It’s mind-blowing to me; it’s surreal – and it still is, to this day.

Well that’s a great and very humble attitude.

Well, I mean, I know. I know the drill, I know the deal. You have to somehow connect in one way or another with people who admire you; and hopefully you’ll keep up the same standard of work that turned them on in the first place. So I always try to – whatever new thing comes along, I just try to come in like gangbusters; you know, get some attention. Like, I like to turn tables over, bash chairs. You know, when I first went to New York I was like a Terminator. I got all skinny because I knew I was going to be walking everywhere, and auditioning; and I used to listen to bagpipe music.

Bagpipe music?

Yeah, because I’m half Irish; and when I hear bagpipe music, it makes this Celtic side of me boil, and prepares you to go into battle. I’d be galvanized, like I was marching into a glen with my compatriots, and we’re all going to get stabbed and shot; but it’s okay, because we’re doing it for the right reason. And I used to listen to all these bagpipes, going up 2nd Avenue, 3rd Avenue, to work, and I would get to the audition, and I’d feel like a Terminator.

Like you were ready. That’s fantastic. Speaking of getting ready for new things; what are you working on currently that we should be looking forward to?

I’m doing some kids’ stuff. I never used to get hired by Disney; because I wasn’t their kind of guy, you know what I mean? The stuff I did was very Gothic and dark-ish, like screaming and yelling and very dramatic. But I got this show called The 7D; and I’m playing Bashful, because the 7D are the seven dwarves. (Singing) “We’re The Seven D,” and they get a beautiful, cute song and everything. And I love it; I love it to pieces.

And is that out now, or coming out?

It’s coming out. And I was doing some voice work for Avengers Assemble. There’s a character called Rocket Raccoon. So I’m doing him. (In character) “Yeah, he’s got kind of like a Joe Pesci. And like, Steve Buscemi.” “Blood has been spilled, Jerry. I’m through fuckin’ around wit’ you, Jerry.” But somehow he has that voice. I thought it would be perfect to just tweak it; and it’s not a dead-on impression – I could care less about that. What it is, is: “Is it funny? Is it interesting? Does it fit?” I did a bunch of hours of recording the other day. And then I have my projects going. That keeps me busy because I’m always writing. I stay up all hours and stuff, but it’s a labor of love, so you feel energized somehow.

Yeah! Well I hope that we see some of that from you soon.

I hope you do, too.

And thank you so much for this interview.

My pleasure.

•     •     •     •     •

Nope, it was totally my pleasure, Billy. You’re delightful.

Big thanks to Billy West for the interview, and big thanks to the ever-helpful Kevin O’Shea, producer for Made of Fail Productions, for cleaning up the audio file for me. (And as ever, check out the Made of Fail podcasts for fun geek-tastic discussions, in which I have actually appeared a couple of times.)

That’s all for now, and until next week, when I’ll be sharing my interview with the talented cartoonist Nick Galifianakis, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

 

Wow, it’s Been 30 Years Since Fraggle Rock Debuted

BEAUTY SHOT

UNIVERSAL CITY, CA – Celebrate 30 years of dancing your cares away with the Fraggle Rock gang when Jim Henson’s imaginative series commemorates three decades of music, magic and mayhem with the Fraggle Rock: 30th Anniversary Collection, singing its way to DVD May 14 from The Jim Henson Company and Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment.  Headlined by the iconic characters, Gobo, Red, Boober, Wembly, Mokey and the adventurous Travelling Matt, the groundbreaking series from the legendary Jim Henson originally aired from 1983 to 1987, and continues to capture the imaginations of adults and children of all ages today through recurring airings on The Hub. Teaching valuable lessons on tolerance, spirituality, personal identity, environment and social conflict, the 30th anniversary collection will give parents who grew up watching the innovative television classic the chance to share the wonderful world of Fraggle Rock with their children.

Fraggle Rock 30th An#B55E30The colorful and exciting world of Fraggle Rock is an underground universe behind the baseboard of Inventor Doc’s workshop, populated by upbeat Fraggles, the industrious Doozers and the giant Gorgs.  Through the different communities, the pioneering children’s series encourages tolerance, diversity, empathy and peace by modeling how these characters learn toto live in peace by working together to achieve common goals.

The Fraggle Rock: 30th Anniversary Collection DVD, including all four seasons of the celebrated series, along with behind the scenes interviews recently discovered in the archives of The Jim Henson Company, a collectible Red plush keychain, and an all new exclusive Fraggle Rock graphic novel featuring a parent-friendly activity guide, will be available for the suggested retail price of $129.99.   Additionally, the new collection Fraggle Rock: Meet The Fraggles, featuring the pilot, as well as five acclaimed episodes highlighting each of the beloved main characters, available for the suggested retail price of $14.93 will be available to introduce Jim Henson’s world-renowned series to a new generation of fans.

Synopsis: Dance your cares away as you return to the magic of Fraggle Rock in this 30th Anniversary Collectors Set!  Inventor Doc and his dog Sprocket spend their days in a workshop..and a hole in the baseboard of that workshop leads to the underground universe populated by the upbeat Fraggles, the industrious Doozers and the giant Gorgs.  Get ready for music, magic and mayhem from the iconic Jim Henson in this beloved series that continues to capture the imaginations of adults and children alike.

Flash Gordon (1979) vs Flash Gordon (1980)

  • News
  • March 28, 2013

The end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s saw fans confronted with two completely different visions for what Flash Gordon could be.

It began in the late Seventies when producers Norm Prescott and Lou Scheimer wanted to make a full-blown, live-action Flash Gordon movie, probably for television but possibly for theatrical release.  They commissioned a script that turned out to be, in their description, extremely close to the original pulp source material and potentially amazing as a film–but also far, far too expensive to produce.

Instead they decided to create an animated version of the movie using essentially the same script.  They did so, complete with references to Hitler and the Nazis working with Ming the Merciless, but then decided to revamp the concept into a weekly animated series.  That’s how we ended up with the show as it now exists–known at the time simply as FLASH GORDON but today called “The New Adventures of Flash Gordon” to distinguish it from other versions of the property.

Needing extra money to be able to complete the project, they hooked up with film producer Dino de Laurentiis (he of “Orca” and 1976 “King Kong” fame) to help fund the show in conjunction with the production of a live-action movie.  This, of course, would result in the Sam Jones/Max von Sydow 1980 “Flash Gordon” film.  De Laurentiis saw the animated series as perhaps raising public awareness of the property in the months leading up to his big-budget movie’s release.

As it turned out, the movie was about what one would’ve (or should have) expected from De Laurentiis–an over-the-top camp-fest, best remembered today mainly for its fantastic Queen music score.

The animated series, however, lives on as a mostly very-good-to-excellent example of late Seventies animation (with rotoscoping of human movement, interesting back-lighting effects, and pioneering use of scale models for spacecraft animation).  It’s also just a flat-out great planetary adventure pulp story, with Flash first confronting (as foes) and then gathering to his side the leaders of the various other kingdoms of Mongo, in common cause against their evil ruler, Ming.

As a side note, not only was the animation cutting-edge, the music is excellent (an orchestral score–for a Saturday morning cartoon!) and the women… well, let’s just say you can tell this project was conceived as a movie for grown-ups and retrofitted into being a kids’ cartoon!  Wow!

The series is available on DVD and, with the ability to fast-forward through some of the repetitive parts necessitated by the serialized format of a weekly half-hour show and budget constraints, it is well worth your time.

(Addendum: The voice of Ming the Merciless is performed by Allen Oppenheimer, later known as the voice of Skeletor in Filmation’s “He-Man” and “She-Ra” series.  This might prove distracting to some, as the voice is quite distinct.)

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