Search Results for: Frank Welker

A number of folks have written to ask that I comment on this article, How Celebrities Took Over Cartoon Voice Acting. Okay, I will: I don't think it's a very good article.

Its author's main thesis is that Robin Williams playing the genie in Aladdin rocked this world and changed the game. I think that's arbitrarily picking one instance when he could have cited dozens of others before, going back to Mr. Disney employing Bing Crosby, Jerry Colonna, Ed Wynn, George Sanders, etc. When UPA made Gay Purr-ee in 1962 with Judy Garland, Robert Goulet and Red Buttons (hiring Mr. Buttons right after he won the Oscar for Sayonara), how was that different from casting celebs in movies today? In 1977, long before Aladdin, Disney didn't cast full-time voice actors for the leads in The Rescuers. They hired Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor. There are plenty of other examples.

Yes, it is maddening to those who are primarily voice actors that they are often considered second-tier options when the big animated films are being cast…though I don't think the voice actors mentioned in that article (like Billy West, Dan Castellaneta and Frank Welker) are hurting for employment. In a sense, the article ignores the voice actors who don't work quite as much…the same "crime" the casting folks for those movies commit.

But there's a problem with dividing actors into these two categories — "real" voice actors and actors who are hired only for their marquee value. First off, many of the latter are really good. Ed Asner's performance in Up was universally praised. So were Mike Meyers and Eddie Murphy in the Shrek movies. Secondly, you have folks like Mark Hamill who are obviously not out of place among other "pure" cartoon voice actors. They just happen to have on-camera careers, as well. If you look back at the Golden Age of Animation, so did Hans Conried. So did Jim Backus. So did Hal Smith. So did Arnold Stang. Moving into the sixties, so did Howard Morris. So did (and still does) Chuck McCann.

I'm a big supporter of the kind of actor who doesn't have an on-camera career. I occasionally hire the other kind because a particular casting seems right but I turn down an awful lot of "stars" who are offered to me by agents. It's amazing who you can get these days for scale. Those guest roles on The Simpsons have especially made it not unfashionable for an actor who might otherwise have looked on a cartoon job as slumming to pick up a day's pay and have some fun. I'd usually rather work with the kind of actor who puts "on-camera" second…but then I'm not trying to arrange financing or pre-sales for a feature. I'm just doing a pre-sold cartoon show that only has to sound good.

I think voice actors shouldn't get as upset about the trend to celebrities as some do. Yes, a lot more "Movie Stars" are being cast in animated features than ever before. That's partly because a lot more animated features are being made than ever before. Eighteen movies are up for the Best Animated Feature category in the 2011 Oscars. Back in the alleged Good Old Days, there were four or five a year.

To the extent it is an injustice, it's a more complicated problem than the article describes. It also has a lot to do with animation producers and directors who simply would rather tell their friends and family, "I'm doing a movie with Tom Hanks" than "I'm doing a movie with people you probably never heard of." Years ago, a friend of mine who should have known better was about to produce a cartoon series for television and he said, as a way of praising his own writing, "This show requires real actors, not cartoon voice actors." That kind of thinking is something cartoon voice actors should get pissed about.

And by the way: This show employed "name" on-camera actors for many of its key roles and some of them were quite good. But in many cases, the producers found it necessary to throw away the voice tracks that a celebrity did and to bring in a largely-unknown voice actor to redo the part.

Here's an article about the Bullwinkle statue up on Sunset Boulevard…which is darn close to the most lasting relic of the Sunset Strip as some of us recall it from the sixties. I took the above photo a few years ago.

Bill Scott, as you all know, was the voice of Bullwinkle and the cartoon's head writer and producer. At the time of Bill's passing in 1985, I was collaborating with him and Frank Welker on a screenplay for a live-action Dudley Do-Right movie that the folks at MGM wanted to make. This has no relation to the one made by others in 1999 with Brendan Fraser. At the time, the statue had fallen on hard times with cracks and chipped paint…and Bill said it pained him to even lay eyes on it. Frank and I were witness to a friendly argument between Jay Ward and Bill about having it refurbished. Jay would only trust one certain artist to handle the task and since that artist had died, it was kinda unlikely they could get him.

But Bill kept after him about it and finally, Jay agreed to engage someone who was still alive. Just a few days after that engagement, Moose and Squirrel had a makeover and looked like new again. I remember how happy Bill was.

He passed away less than a month later — over the Thanksgiving weekend. He had directed a play out in Sunland…a production of Neil Simon's The Good Doctor which, he told us, Mr. Simon would have hated due to extensive, against-the-rules rewriting. I was too busy to get out there for it but on Saturday night, Frank went to the final performance…and at the curtain calls, someone (Bill's son, I think, who was in the play) announced that they'd performed it in the "show must go on" tradition since Bill had died a few days earlier. It was quite shocking to the audience and Frank was extremely rattled when he called me from his car on his way home.

I had planned to stay in that Saturday evening but when Frank called to tell me, I had a sudden urge to get out of the house. I had nowhere to go: Just that sudden, urgent need to go somewhere else. It was around 10:30 and my options were pretty limited as to where I could go. I decided on the Comedy Store, forgetting for the moment that driving there by way of Sunset would take me right past the Bullwinkle statue. Seeing it there, repainted and bathed in light, only depressed and frustrated me further.

When I got to the Comedy Store, I went backstage to see a friend of mine who was performing there, a fine comedienne named Louise Du Art. I'd decided on the way there not to start babbling to people about Bill Scott and I kept to that decision for around two minutes. When I told Louise, she was depressed. Then I ran into Garry Shandling and told him and he was depressed. Then I told Jeff Altman and a few others…and everyone I told, I depressed. None of them knew Bill personally but they sure knew (and loved) Bullwinkle.

I guess it was around 1 AM that I suddenly got what seemed at that moment like a brilliant idea. I decided to see if I could get a funeral wreath and go over and somehow get it onto the Bullwinkle statue. I figured the next day, news crews would be reporting on Bill's passing and someone would send a camera crew down to get some footage of the statue. So my question became where do you get a funeral wreath at 1 AM on a Sunday morning? There were no florists open at that hour but it occurred to me that large funeral homes have someone on duty 24 hours a day. I went into a pay phone, looked up the number of Forest Lawn and dialed. The conversation would have been difficult even if I hadn't had to cope with the noise of Sam Kinison performing in the next room.

A sombre voice answered and I asked the gentleman if he could tell me where to procure a funeral wreath at that hour. He asked, "Where is the deceased lying in state?"

I said, "This isn't for a deceased person. Well, it is but I just want to put a wreath on a statue."

The sombre one said, "I see. Can you tell me where this statue is located?"

"Sure," I said. "You know up on Sunset how's there this big statue of Bullwinkle Moose? And he has Rocky the Flying Squirrel on one hand and…"

The line went dead. He'd hung up on me. And when I thought about it, I decided that I'd have hung up on me, too.

It was about then that I decided the wreath was a silly idea and I should just forget about it. Bill would not have appreciated the gesture. On the other hand, I'm sure he would have laughed himself sick over that phone call.

About once a year, I go to an elementary school classroom somewhere and attempt to recruit innocent, unsuspecting children to the wicked life of creating cartoons. I basically spread two messages. One is that it's at least possible to make a living writing and/or drawing. And the other is that if you want to be able to do these things well, you need to practice, practice and practice some more. Based on past experiences, I think young folks are too quick to say "I can't do that" (whatever it is) if they can't achieve professional standards within the hour.

I'm not particularly out to convert anyone to that occupation but I do think school should expose children to more possibilities…and maybe if they are, they'll find some good probability in there and pursue it to good effect. Besides, I would have loved it back when I was in third grade if a guy who writes cartoons and comic books had come to my classroom, preempted an hour of Arithmetic to show us cartoons and draw my favorite characters on the blackboard. Which is what I did yesterday at a third grade class in West Hollywood.

I dragged my friend Mickey Paraskevas along to assist. Mickey is a fine illustrator of childrens' books…and a big thrill ran through the building (and a smile across Mickey's face) when it was discovered they had several of his books in the school's library. I taught the kids how to draw Charlie Brown and Garfield and Mickey Mouse and Spongebob Squarepants. Mickey taught them how to draw the Ferocious Beast from his books and TV show, Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. Some of the drawings the kids did were pretty darned good and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if twenty years from now, someone comes up to me at a convention or someplace and says, "I'm a professional cartoonist now and it all started when you and Mickey Paraskevas came to my class." Even if that never happens, I think some kids got the idea that you can learn how to develop some sort of skill and then use it to good advantage.

We started with the screening of a Garfield episode I wrote and then I got down to the basics of how cartoons are drawn. I am not a great artist but in a way, that helps in this kind of situation. When my pal Sergio Aragonés draws, I don't think you can learn a damned thing. It goes by so fast and it comes so much out of instinct that the process is largely invisible. When I draw, it looks humanly possible and the wires show. It's like a sleight of hand magician doing it slowly enough that you can see how it's done. Also, what the kids produce doesn't compare that unfavorably to what I do up there at the black or whiteboard.

The thing I've learned doing this — though I can always use the reminder — is how important these characters are to kids that age. They went nuts when I drew Scooby Doo on the blackboard and they oohed and ahhed when I explained that the person who does the voice now of Scooby is also now the voice of Garfield. That's Frank Welker…and Frank, if you're reading this page and you tell me you do: One little girl then asked me, "Isn't he also the voice of Fred?" Some of these kids really know their cartoons.

At one point near the end, as a kind of grand finale, I started drawing cartoon characters and they had to guess who I was drawing. I was halfway through Daffy Duck when all of the young'uns behind me were chanting "Donald Duck! Donald Duck!" I decided that rather than make them all wrong, I'd make it Donald Duck…so I added the sailor hat and rounded out the head and…sure enough: Donald Duck. Sort of. For what it's worth, their two favorite characters in the world seem to be Spongebob and Bugs Bunny, not necessarily in that order. They really know Bugs…although when I drew Yosemite Sam, almost no one knew who that was and my drawing wasn't that bad. I realized later that they probably know Bugs more from the merchandise than the cartoons, and there isn't much Sam merchandise out there.

Anyway, it was a fun day and I thank Mickey again, and I'll go back and do it for another third grade class at this school as soon as there is one. (Note to Self: Before you do, learn how to draw Dora the Explorer…and someone else on the Spongebob show besides Spongebob.)

For the benefit of those who've asked — and to get this list up on Wikipedia where it belongs — here's a list of the segments in each of the 26 half-hour episodes of the second season of The Garfield Show. These are already airing in many countries and start next week in the U.S. on Cartoon Network. I have no idea if they'll run them all in order (Show 33 ran back in December and may not be back for a while) or how long it'll take before every show on this list gets its first airing…but here are the titles. I am currently working on Show 54 for Season 3 and it'll be quite some time before you see that.

And I apparently really did have to post this here before it could go up on Wikipedia. I sent it to someone in an e-mail but the rules of Wikipedia do not consider an e-mail a credible source, regardless of who it came from. This site, however, is credible…to them, anyway. So here's the rundown…

• Show 27: Ticket To Riches / Gravity of the Situation
• Show 28: The Art of Being Un-Cute / Night of the Bunny Slippers
• Show 29: Blasteroid / The Big Sneeze
• Show 30: The Spy Who Fed Me / Meet Max Mouse
• Show 31: The Haunted House / Which Witch
• Show 32: Cyber Mailman / Odie For Sale
• Show 33: Home for the Holidays / A Christmas Story (2-Part Episode)
• Show 34: Planet of Poultry / Honey, I Shrunk the Pets
• Show 35: Night of the Apparatuses / The Land of Hold
• Show 36: Farm Fresh Feline / Inside Eddie Gourmand
• Show 37: With Four You Get Pizza / The Guest From Beyond
• Show 38: History of Cats / Dog Days
• Show 39: Garfield Astray / Master Chef
• Show 40: Black Cat Blues / The Bluebird of Happiness
• Show 41: Penny Henny / Pirate Gold
• Show 42: The Great Pizza Race / Love and Lasagna
• Show 43: Fido Food Feline / Mind Over Mouse
• Show 44: A Gripping Tale / Jumbo Shrimpy
• Show 45: Everything's Relative / Stealing Home
• Show 46: Cuter Than Cute / Pampered Pussycat
• Show 47: Depths of a Salesman / Detective Odie
• Show 48: Wicked Wishes / Full of Beans
• Show 49: Me, Myself, Garfield And I / The Big Sleep
• Show 50: True Colors / The Mole Express
• Show 51: Rain Or Shine / Parrot Blues
• Show 52: Unfair Weather (2-Part Episode)

This season, by the way, our voice cast consists of our four regulars (Frank Welker, Gregg Berger, Wally Wingert and Jason Marsden) and guest players Julie Payne, Laura Summer, David L. Lander, Stan Freberg, June Foray, Grey DeLisle, Laraine Newman, April Winchell, Misty Lee, Jack Riley and Marvin Kaplan. Like I always say: Get the right cast members and a rhesus monkey could direct these things.

First off, let me caption this photo. It's the cast and director at a recording session for The Garfield Show. Front row, left to right: June Foray, Stan Freberg, Jason Marsden, Gregg Berger. Back row, also left to right: Frank Welker, M.E., Laura Summer and then Wally Wingert. Why did I post this? Because Jack Lechner asked the following…

As a devoted reader of your blog, I find myself curious about something you often mention, which is your work as a director of voice actors. Could you please write about how an animation recording session works? (For instance, how long does it take; do you record more than one actor at a time; do you get wildly different versions of the lines, or do you know what you want ahead of time; etc.) I think a lot of your readers would be interested.

It's not all that complicated. First, I cast the show. On The Garfield Show, we have a group of regulars (the folks who do the characters who are in every episode) and the semi-regulars (who voice recurring characters). Since each of these folks can do multiple roles, I can often do an entire episode with just them. We very rarely need anyone new…and actually, one of the toughest parts of my job is dealing with all the actors who are submitted by agents, all the actors I know who call up to see if I have any work, etc. Many of these folks are brilliantly talented and loved but they outnumber the vacancies by at least a hundred-to-one.

There are shows that work in "splits," which means they bring each actor in, one at a time, and record his or her lines. For some reason, most animated features work that way. Some TV shows do but not the ones I direct. We get all the actors into a studio at the same time. The second toughest part of my job is working out that schedule with the agents. The third most difficult is handling all the paperwork and such to get everyone paid promptly. I'm kind of obsessive on that point. When I've edited comic books and had the power to influence the accounting procedures, we always paid everyone within 24 hours of them handing in their work. On The Garfield Show, we pay 48 hours after a recording session and I sometimes have my assistant drive the checks over to the actors' homes or to their agents. I figure: We expect them to be prompt to the recordings so we oughta be prompt with the moola.

The actors convene at the session. I work off a script that contains all the dialogue and all the action. Each actor gets a script with just the dialogue (for everyone) and all the lines are numbered. I assign all the new roles and then explain the plot of the story and how I imagine certain lines being delivered…though I try not to give them too much input up front. It's always interesting to hear what the actors come up with when they aren't trying to read it the way Mark said. If what they invent on their own is good, we use it. If not, I can always give them additional input later. If the show has been properly cast, you have clever performers there and you really want to work this way. Ours often come up with readings and interpretations I would never have imagined.

They're all in a booth. Each actor is at a separate microphone with his or her script pages laid out on a music stand before them. The less they have to touch paper while we're recording, the better because paper makes noise. They all mark their lines and every actor has a unique, personal way of marking a script to indicate which voice goes with which line. Some have little codes to indicate inflections or emphasis on certain words or when to take pauses. Some sit but most prefer to work standing-up so they can put their whole bodies into the performance.

I'm outside the booth, sitting at a console next to the engineer. On my other side is my assistant who will mark the selected "takes." After we get the mikes all adjusted and we're ready to record, I'll say, "Okay, let's try lines 1 through 30" or whatever seems like a healthy run. There is no rehearsal because there's no reason not to record the first time they read the lines. We can always do it again and again.

The engineer records a slate. He'll identify the episode and the date of the session and say, "This is Take #1." Then an actor reads Line 1 and someone reads Line 2 and so on. I may have them do it two or three times or ten or I may use the first take. Between takes, I'll impart whatever comments or suggestions I think will improve things. Whenever I feel we have a good reading of that hunk of lines, I may go back and do pick-ups, meaning we'll redo just certain lines. Once I'm satisfied, I'll turn to my assistant and say, "Okay, let's use 1 through 12 from Take #3, then 13 through 30 from Take #2 but we'll insert the pick-up of line 9 from Take #5 and the pick-ups of lines 22 through 24 from Take #4." She will notate this and the engineer (who takes his own notes as we go along, also) will use his notes and hers to assemble the final version later.

Once we have 1 through 30 done, we'll move on to lines 31 through 55 or whatever…and on until we finish the cartoon. An 11-minute Garfield will have between 90 and 120 lines. That includes dog growls, sounds of snoring, people who go "Oof!" when they fall down, burps…any sort of sound we need an actor to make. Each of those is a line. We hire very good ones and once they get warmed-up, you'd be amazed how swiftly it goes and how often we wind up using first takes. I think I'm the fastest voice director in the business, an achievement that is wholly accomplished by having the right people in the booth. We've been known to record an 11-minute episode of Garfield in 30-45 minutes. Allowing for necessary breaks and occasional technical problems, it usually means we start at 10 AM and have four cartoons done by 2:00 or 2:30. If we try to do much more than that in a day, the energy suffers and the episodes begin to take longer and longer and not sound quite as good. Once in a while, we have to do more but we try to avoid it.

I have an advantage over most voice directors because I'm usually directing scripts I wrote or story-edited so I know the material and probably tailored it for the players. It takes me longer to direct something I didn't write because I have less of a sense for how lines should be delivered. It also takes longer if, as occasionally happens (though not on Garfield), I'm directing actors I didn't select. You develop a rapport with certain performers and a kind of shorthand…and above all, a sense of what you don't need to tell them. You also learn how to maintain a friendly, constructive atmosphere in the studio so no one feels competitive and no one feels embarrassed when they're corrected or asked to do multiple takes. I think the most important thing a director influences is the mood of the session.

And that's really all there is to it. I may or may not be involved later in editing the voice tracks. I don't have to do much of that because I usually work at a studio called Buzzy's Recording and they're phenomenal. The fellow who runs it, Andy Morris, is as sharp and skilled as any engineer in the business. When I've been forced to work at other studios on other shows, the recording takes longer and I have to keep a closer eye on the editing. It's one of the jobs that doesn't feel like work and at the end of every session, everyone's attitude is like, "Oh, playtime is over?"

Several folks have recently written to ask me about a report on the Internet Movie Database listing for actor-comedian Dave Coulier. It says…well, here. I'll let you read it for yourself…

Was a substitute voice-over for the character Garfield on the cartoon "Garfield and Friends" (1988) when Lorenzo Music was ill.

This is not true. I was the voice director of Garfield and Friends and Dave Coulier, though a fine and talented man, never did anything on that series. For one thing, Lorenzo never needed anyone else to do his voice. The one time he was ill and unable to record, we had Frank Welker come in and play Garfield on a temporary basis. Frank imitated Lorenzo but it was always with the understanding that once Mr. Music was well enough, he would come in and re-record those lines and Frank's track would be discarded.

This was done…though it turned out to be more difficult than we'd imagined. The sound editors got confused at one point and I had to go in and help them decide if a certain reading of one line was Lorenzo or Frank. I finally said, "I think that's Lorenzo but you know, it really doesn't matter." Frank is the voice of Garfield these days, especially on The Garfield Show, which is seen every eleven seconds on Cartoon Network. He is not doing the close impersonation of Lorenzo that he did back when he provided that temp track but it's an awfully good voice in the same ballpark.

So there you have it: Dave Coulier did not fill in for Lorenzo on Garfield and Friends and since I was the show's voice director, you'd think I'd know such a thing. For some reason, a self-proclaimed "authority on cartoon voices" has been writing me for several months now telling me I'm either wrong or lying. He is quite certain that Coulier did several episodes. He says he can recognize Coulier and also that he has it from "another source" that yes, Dave Coulier was called in to play the role when Lorenzo was hospitalized.

Perhaps, I suggested to him, the confusion flows from the fact that Mr. Coulier once replaced Lorenzo on another show, The Real Ghostbusters, not as a fill-in imitator but as a successor performing a different voice for a character Lorenzo had previously handled. The fellow wrote back to me and said…well, here. Might as well let you read this, too…

No, I know Coulier replaced Music as [sic] voice Peter Venkman but I hear the timbre of Coulier's voice in several Garfield & Friends episodes, mostly 4th season. I don't know if you were unaware of this or if there is some reason to conceal the fact but as far as I am concerned it is fact. I cannot tell you my other source on this as I have to protect my sources.

So apparently, I was unaware that was Dave Coulier I was directing in those sessions. Maybe he was wearing one of those great Lorenzo Music masks they sell. Or maybe it's a closely guarded secret on which the safety of America depends. We must stop the Taliban from learning that Dave Coulier filled in for Lorenzo on that series. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out who could possibly be as authoritative a "source" on this stuff as the guy who cast and directed the voice actors. Maybe it's Glenn Beck.

This doesn't anger or frustrate me. I do get annoyed at times with folks who make up their minds about something and go to insane lengths to deny facts that prove them wrong. You may disagree just who's doing that in politics these days but I bet you think a lot of people are doing it. Some of them seem to have gone so far out on the limb with erroneous information that they can't see any way to crawl back and it's a shame. It sure makes discussions difficult in this world…and everyone agrees with me, even Dave Coulier. He told me so when we had him in to substitute for Lorenzo on Garfield and Friends.

Next Monday, The Garfield Show debuts on Cartoon Network in the U.S. of A. This is the all-new series that I've been working on for the last couple of years as a producer, writer and voice director. It began airing some time ago in other countries and did so well that we're already into production on our second season. Cartoon Network begins airing the first season on October 26 and then each episode will run twice a day, Monday through Friday. On my set, the two telecasts are at 7:30 AM and Noon but it'll probably be 10:30 AM and 3 PM where you are. Consult, as they say, your local listings.

The show features Frank Welker as the voice of Garfield, Wally Wingert as Jon, Gregg Berger as Odie and Squeak the Mouse, Jason Marsden as Nermal, Julie Payne as Liz, and Audrey Wasilewski as Arlene. All those folks also speak for other characters, plus they've been joined by a number of guest actors including Laura Summer, Tress MacNeille, Stan Freberg, David L. Lander, Melissa Disney and Susan Silo. The shows were animated by Dargaud Media and Ellipsanime Productions, directed by Philippe Vidal. I tell you all this because unless they've remade the end credits without telling me, they'll be unreadable on your set.

But that's about my only complaint. I was initially leery of CGI animation but as I've come to realize, there's good CGI and bad CGI just like any other kind of animation. I think we got some very good CGI. This guy Vidal really knows how to make cartoons…and that's about all the hard sell I'll give it. Hope you'll catch some of them and I hope you'll enjoy what you catch. On the first episode, you can see what happens when Earth is invaded by people from another planet where everyone looks like a piece of lasagna. And don't think that couldn't happen.

As I've occasionally mentioned here, we're currently in production on the second season of The Garfield Show — and be careful if you click on that link because loud audio may start automatically once you get there. This is a new animated series that is airing in many countries around the world. I am assured that this one, soon, will be among them. Today I was in a recording studio for much of the day playing Voice Director, mostly on scripts I wrote for said series. Here's who we had in today doing the voices I was directing…

Back row, left to right: Frank Welker (voice of Garfield and darn near everything else on this planet), me (looking like I didn't get much sleep the night before), Laura Summer (enchanting voice actress) and Wally Wingert (voice of Garfield's owner, Jon). Wally, by the way, is the announcer on The Jay Leno Show.

Front row, left to right: June Foray (legendary voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, among zillions of other credits), Stan Freberg (master satirist, cartoon voice and personal hero), Jason Marsden (fine actor and the voice of Nermal on our show) and Gregg Berger (yet another fine actor who, among his many credits, barks for Odie.) Gregg, by the way, will be a guest this weekend at the Mid-Ohio-Con in Columbus, Ohio and he and I are doing a panel on cartoon voice work on Sunday.

And may I just say what a personal thrill it is to work with June Foray and Stan Freberg? If you're anywhere near my age — physically, 57; emotionally, 12 — you may have some sense of how important these two folks were to many a childhood, especially one like mine. I've worked with them individually before many times. But between takes when they started lapsing into dialogue from St. George and the Dragonet, a record they did that I've played eighty thousand times in my life…well, that's not something you can ever get jaded about. I hope.