The Daytime Emmy Awards were handed out in a ceremony last night. One of the more popular ones (I hear) was the Lifetime Achievement Emmy given to our friend Frank Welker. Frank has done voices and vocal sound effects in more cartoons than any human being who has ever lived and has added his voice to a stunning list of motion pictures. It would not surprise me if he had more credits than every single other person who was up for an Emmy last night…and I don't mean more than any one of them. I mean more than all of them put together, including nominees, winners and maybe even presenters.
Don't believe me? Well, take a look at this guy's list of credits on the IMDB and then consider two things. One is that a single line in that listing might represent more than 100 episodes of a series. The other is that I think the list is woefully incomplete. It omits a number of things that he worked on just with me. That might be a tenth of all this man has done and it doesn't include commercials or radio shows or industrial films or lots of other areas in which he works.
I hear he gave a warm, humble acceptance speech during which he demonstrated many of his cartoon voices, plus did frighteningly-accurate impressions of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Want to hear this speech? Well, I don't think you can. The Daytime Emmys were once broadcast live on network TV. Then they moved to basic cable. Then they switched to being represented on basic cable by an abridged version telecast weeks after the ceremony…and this year, they aren't on TV at all. Unless the Academy sticks some video up on their website or YouTube, we're all outta luck. There are some links up at YouTube that purport to show you the event but they all seem to divert you to websites of dubious integrity where God knows what you'd wind up downloading.
One legit cable channel did live-stream the red carpet arrivals and backstage goings-on. Here's Frank being interviewed on his way in. I'm directing some cartoons week after next with him in the cast and I will compliment him on his award, his humility and his graciousness when interviewed by someone who doesn't seem to have much idea who he is…