Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
It's Coast to Coast AM.
Connie willis here with you, playing great music, Open lines happening a little later on. Yes, I do want to ask about the Elon Musk information and knows anybody knows him, Get him to call in, Let's go. Let's go, or at least contact him and let him know that everybody tweet him. Just tweet him like crazy and say, hey, Connie wants to talk to you. She's got your answers for your UFO and alien questions. I mean, he's just asking the wrong people. Why is he not listening to us? What's the deal?
What's the deal?
Who is it that always said that? I know there was a character that was to always say what's the deal? Oh maybe that's a Seinfeld thing. Anyway, tonight, we have a guy that is in here that you've probably heard his voice somewhere and had no idea about. His name is Bob Bergen, and he is he does a lot of voices. He's here with us right now. You've already heard a little bit from him. You know, Bob, I just you and I got to talk a little bit before coming on the air with me, and you have
to take the acting classes. You've got to take the improv classes, whether you even know it or not at the time. But it's just because it works as well. I mean, it's definitely going to help you in the career, but it's also just fun and a part of all of it too.
It just all works magically.
Yeah, you know, I had emailed daily from people who want to I want to get into voiceover. Everyone tells me I got a great voice, and there isn't such thing as a great voice. There's only good actors and bad actors. I always tell people, Look, if you want to do what I do, the very first thing you do is you study acting. Yeah, and you study improv and then you study voiceover. And you know, nobody working today at my level lucked into this. This was hard work.
This is something they really wanted. And no matter what it is you want to do. I mean, I want to do voices for cartoons. Somebody else wants to be a painter, somebody wants to be a concert pianist. You need to want it more than anybody else and be willing to work harder than anybody else. There's no secret to this. You just got to work.
And I got to tell you though, the improv work, to me has been the most wonderful things in my career, especially radio being a basic that was the last thing I ever wanted to do. But these are things that teach you to do things live and if you mess up, you just keep on going. You don't worry about it, you don't.
Think about it.
In fact, you use it and you just keep going with it. And that is like something that man. When you can perfect that and keep going and not feel like a failure and not say cut try again, you know that kind of thing, and you just go with it, it really matters, especially with auditions or even doing what
you do. I mean that means you could even now you have to tell us all more about the scripting of it, but I'm sure they love when you can throw in some sort of neat little ad lib that they didn't even think about it because you're already so involved in the character that you can do that.
Especially you know, like I said now my students, is if you have one check for your training, study improvit it's the greatest training.
On the planet.
I don't think I don't care everything as cartoons or Shakespeare. It's great training. You're right, acting is reacting. So you don't want to dishonor the writer to the point where you're trying to improve on their work by living. But you definitely want to, you know, bring something to the table, especially in the in the audition. And I tell my students the script is a skeleton. Your job is to give it up body. What does that mean? It means
whatever your little creative mind wants to bring to that character. Yeah, all characters have a voice, but not all voices have character. You're creating a character, a living, breathing character. Your audition needs to sound like that character has been around for one hundred years. And it has nothing to do with the sound of that character. It has to do with the personality, the relationships in the script, the environment, the
box story. Everything an on camera or a stage actor does with a character, you have to do vocally with the cartoon character.
Let's hear some of your character work. Let's listen to some of the animation that you've done.
My name is Sam Fisher. I used to be a hero.
Now I'm wanted man.
Can I put my clothes back on? And it was called how I'm.
Gonna double you.
Spotts my just againts and cheating. But I could never kill her.
I'd be the prime respect. But if we killed each other's wives, jem, it would be that little perfect rime.
Stop trying to confuse me.
Your over confidence is your weakness. Faith in your mama.
I said, your mama, so fat Tub of the Hut.
Said, you know you aren't mental exist in the outside the world.
Oh, it just seems somewhat undressed. Quite a fashion statement. Put me a kid, and I got a cool toy for you.
Hi, the world's oldest Braggon proud to announce share table for two the Mama on your way to Grandma's house. I love the smell of fear the old man before he was, before he was, He said, I could escape into the light.
Please help me, mister bugs, I want you to hide this.
You put it.
As you know. There is no one way to make a clone.
Do you think I like jumping down this big dummy's throat every time he stuffs his face too much?
No way, But that's is.
The breaks here calls mister bomber, dropping us bombs and stuff on mister.
Duckie Dr Bunson, Honeydoo here at Muppet Labs.
Push, push it harder, you can get free.
Don't let them do to you what they've done to me.
It's so terrible.
I just wish you were on and.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news your airiness.
But if you don't find the player, your tea will be.
Fourth is not Michael is the greatest ever. That's that's my life. That's just great stuff.
That's Bob Berg and the who we're talking to here on Costa Cosam tonight. Those were his voices right there, in character voices.
You know.
I just find that amazing because it's being in the world of broadcasting. You use your voice, you're constantly doing that. People can recognize you from anywhere and you can get excited or do this or do that, whatever the spot calls for. But when you do an animated character, that's just a whole nother world, and that's like the cream of the crop for somebody like me. So congratulations that you're there.
You're so sweet. Thank you, Connie. And I got to tell you, I do not take it for granted. It's something I wanted to do since I was a kid. I'm still doing it, and I swear to you every time I go into my little home studio to record whatever I'm recording, I literally have a moment of I'm still doing this. I gets to do this. This is I want people to really understand that none of us who do this take it for granted.
I feel the same way about being on Coast to Coast.
Hey, listen, I got to tell you when I was on hole waiting to talk to you, and bidly, can I just give you a compliment?
Oh no, no, don't do that, don't you do you on.
The air is identical to talking to you off the air, because you and I have had several conversations, and what I love about you is you're the same person i'm talking to now live Coast to Coast as you were when you were going Yes, So let's just you know, and that is that is that's a good host. That's I've talked to many hosts where they put on hosts personality, and you're just Connie and you're really good at doing Connie.
Oh, thank you so much.
That that is the best compliment I think anybody can get in broadcasting. So thank you. And to get that from you. Thanks so much. I appreciate that. I'm sitting in the check in the mail. I appreciate thank you exactly. No, I really appreciate that, you know, as I was trying to find my way along the way, and we've we've done similar things.
It's so fun to talk with you about it.
But along the way, I thought it was going to be in film, you know, and acting and all that kind of thing. But I kept getting work that was live and everybody just wanted me to be me. Hey can you host this show?
Can you do this? And it's live and.
So live work for me and me being me, And at one point I remember stopping and going, Wow, everybody just wants me to be me and do live work. So I guess that's my bread and butter.
Yeah. You know, the hardest thing in the world is to be authentic and if you can nail that. I've talked to people who worked with Oprah Winfrey who said Oprah Winfrey was the same person on camera as she was off camera, and that is same with Dick Cavitt. You know, some of the greatest conversationalists are just authentic, and you know, authentic is what it's all about. If you're in broadcasting.
Yeah, and that's what.
When that occurred to me that that's where I was, I thought, you know what, it wasn't being the movie star. I thought I might be, But I actually felt even happier because I went, No, this is really the top of all that where you just people.
Just want you.
So that's so sweet to hear that from somebody else, to get that confirmation.
So thank you so much. I appreciate that. Yeah, oh, okay, good night. Everybody.
See improv helps you to just do that and people go right along with you. Now, I want to get to a ton of stories that you have, but so I'm trying to figure out which one to go to for Let's go ahead and go to the man with a smile. He's always got a smile. Let's see if you recognize what I'm talking about. And I know you have a story with him.
But he always spoke.
And he sounded like he always had a smile, which, by the way, is more of what a teacher would teach with anybody in the broadcasting narration, ward whatever, always have that smile on your face when you when you do your work.
So yes, yes, because he did. He always sounded like he was having a great jab. Yeah, Casey always had that smile, So I owe Casey case In my career. I had studied voiceover for about four years and I was graduating high school and a friend of the family knew Casey Kasem and had him send me an autograph picture for my high school graduation and I sent him
a thank you. He sent it from his from his his homewas home address was there, and I sent it a note and I said, by the way, I want I want your job, and I included my phone number. And a few days after I thank you note, I get this phone call and I hear this guy say, Hi, Bob,
it's Casey case and I got your note. And I said, that is the worst impression of Casey case Who is this And he said, all right, let me try it again, and he goes, Hi, Bob, it's Kasey Kayser and I got your He did the smile because he wasn't Kasey Kasem radio smile when he just called me.
He's not his authentic self exactly right.
So you know, he was very sweet, he said. He asked me all kinds of business questions I'd studied voiceover for four years. But nobody talked business back then.
No, they still don't, by.
The way they do now.
But about craft, well, I was with you in that world. If that's what I knew about his craft. No, I'm talking business. I'd already bestly rich by now.
He said, do you have an agent? I said no. He said, do you have a demo? I said no, so he said, he said, make me a homemade demo of as many voices as you can do, and if I like it, I'll give it to my agent. Well, he liked it, and at the time his agent, whose name was Don Pitts, was in the hospital. I don't know what has happened to Don, but he was in
an oxygen tent. I think it's Cedar SINAI and Casey went with a little portable tape recorder and through the plastic of the tent played my demo, the little homemade and weeks later, Done recuperated called me up and he said, kid, I think you're very talented. I'd like to represent you.
And I said, mister, I don't know what that means, but as long as it's after three o'clock, because I'm still in high school, okay, and I didn't realize I hit the jackpot with my first agent, who not only represented Casey Caseam, but he represented mel Blank and June Foray and Orson Wells and Paul Winshall and got my first Wells. I mean, and I really, I literally had no idea. It's sort of like a kid fresh off the bus and all of a sudden there was c AA.
I mean, there were the top theatrical agent in Hollywood. So I just got really lucky.
Connie, you did, you totally did. That's uh, I don't know. That's that's the open.
That's more than luck, even though luck is full absolutely a part.
Of all this, but that's that's just meant to be. That's great.
Well, you know, I agree with you. Luck is a is a big part of it. You know, everyone says you got to get your foot in the door, but your talent keeps you in the room.
You were also ready for exactly right, Yes I was.
And you know what if if? That? By the way, that little homemade demo that I said the case is also on my website. I have every tape of every class of everything I've ever done. I'm avoiding a recorder.
I am too. Every time I move it costs me a ton just to move these tapes and stuff.
I'm trying to digitize everything. Yes, just you know, I've got real I've got real to real demo. It's Connie from that.
I do too. I do too.
I've got even video that's like D two and into and what are these?
I got that too.
Oh my gosh.
I don't know how it's gonna happen, where I can put on the cloud or something. But you know, nowadays, all the work that we've got piled up, we can put that up, you know, on cloud or some tiny little piece.
But right now it's taken up, like I have a whole story room full of it.
I also have every script I've ever done, which is really kind of cool.
That is cool, That is cool. I might have lost mine or all along the way, but I got some of it. But tell me, so, tell me about that. Okay, So every dream, at least for me. But I know everybody else I knew on radio or TV, especially radio, they've always wanted to do an animated voice. Now I always thought, well, there's no way I can do one of those characters. Heck, I didn't even know if I could even do radio or TV or film because I
had a speech impediment all my life. I also when it came to the cameras, I had like a congenerally missing tooth, and so you know they were spread apart. You know, you start getting all this toothwork, you know, teethwork, toothwork done. I did have more than one. You have this teeth work done, you have. You start learning how to get rid of your speech impediment. You go to college and I took a performance class and they said, okay, all of you Kentuckians here, we're not going to say
I like ah anymore. You're going to say I, you're gonna sound like a midwestern You're Midwesterner. You're not going to say you You'll You're going to say you guys. You know, I don't know who determined that Midwesterners was a way to go, but that's how you were going to get work. So you start training and all that,
and that's enough for me. But you you got to learn like these little funky, crazy little characters that people somebody created in their mind, and even you can create some in your mind, but go beyond that, which is huge, and make it consistent and remember the syllables and how you end and start a sentence with this new creation
that you've put together of this little character. But I think at least going on top of that imitating somebody else's creation like a porky pig and nailing that, that's amazing.
How do you do that?
I will tell you that, you know, the majority of what I do is creating new uh loney tunes. Porky Pig is, you know, just a fraction of my career. Most days I'm auditioning for something new, or I'm recording something new. So the so.
You create it yourself.
When you go on for an audition, they say, hey, let's play and see what you can do for us.
Pretty much, so you get nice. You get the script. There's a picture, there's a description, and there's dialogue. And my job is to look at all that and create a character. And I do the same things I do with a cartoon that an on camera or a stage actor would do for an original character for a play or a movie.
You look at the.
First line, who am I talking to? What's my relationship? Where are we? But I have to do everything with my voice. Now, you still use your body. You know, you use your body.
For emphasis a lot.
With your arms to your side, you're just talking. But if you were to film. When I would take my students to a voiceover session a cartoon session I was doing, I would tell the engineer turn the sound down, and guys, watch the actors. You can tell what they're playing by their body language. Also, the microphone. When you're performing cartoons, the microphone is the ear of your scene partner. Where you are on mic from line to line, from seeing
the scene corresponds with where the characters are within the scene. Now, eighty percent of doing all this, eighty percent of animation is in the imagination. You see it in your head and you vocally perform it. If it's an audition, you're by yourself in your home studio. There's nobody there to direct you. But there's nobody there to tell you what to do. There's also nobody there to tell you what not to do. The only limitation you have is yourself.
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