How you doing out there?
It's me Tigger.
I am Dark Wayne Duck. It's me Bunkers Deep Bobcat.
All right, y'all?
Did it great? Your favorite firefly you desire?
Hold old Knock guy.
My name is Jim Cummings and welcome to tuned in. Hello, Hello out there, everybody, Jim Cummings here. Now I know what you're thinking. When is d Bradley Baker going to be on the podcast Good News Ladies and gentlemen, presenting none other the Myth, the Man, the Legend, Dee Bradley Baker.
I'm here now, Hi, thank you, thank you.
For joining us.
Have you met Brendan from down Under?
I did fifteen seconds ago?
Hello again, Okay, it's lovely to meet you.
Did great to meet you. Where's my Where do I look? Do I look at Brenda on the laptop? Or do I look up here at one of these camps?
This is?
This is the audience here, and that's your audience camera if you want to look at that, and then you can just talk to Brendan.
Or okay you ever, I don't talk to Brendon. I don't do my best to ignore him. Yes, that's right. Chris is there, I'm here.
We're fine.
He's a it's actually an animatronic. There's no one down there. He's a Disney replicant.
He's an AI.
Yes, yes, better than being an a whole.
Hey, good night everybody.
Well, hey man, glad to be glad to have you here. Thank Yes, that's right. Well we've we've seen many other dimensions over the years, haven't we.
Yeah, we have. It feels kind of like, uh, you know, we're past the end of an era and it's sort of forming into a new one.
These things, Okay, what's the new one?
The new one is no more ensembles and we just see each others podcasts.
Yeah, podcast I miss the ensemble stuff. We've talked about it before. I like having people in the room. I like interacting. I like talking with people, and if they say something, it might inspire something different from you. And you know, I've said it before. I won't belabor it.
But if you do an ad lib that they want to keep, sometimes the line after yours doesn't work, so that person has to come back in and redo something, restated, reconfigure it so that it matches and makes sense, which usually they don't complain because it's another session, but it's still a bit of an inconvenience, you know, I don't know, I don't know if you ever have that, Chris, absolutely, And when you do the Clones, they I just love that you're the Clones, I mean, And which clone?
Are you?
The Clones?
Yeah?
I know, but which one? All ten thousand of them?
Yeah, except for Omega and U and Emery, I'm not them.
Yeah, hell with them?
Who see, I don't even know who they are, so the hell with them.
Well, Omega was the Lynchpin clone sister in the Mad Batch.
Oh her yes, oh yes, she said, ne'er do well?
Well sort of yes to good ends though she she kind of saved the day in the end there. But yeah, I mean that that was a show where for a lot of it I was kind of I served as the ensemble. And I miss that show very very much. But that's that's like nothing else. I mean, it's such a it's such an odd, unique project. That's like nothing else. But for me, I mean, I was thinking today just in the legacy of the shows that you and I
have done, that I really do miss ensembles. There's there's a lot of shows that I miss, not just the way that it's written and what the show is about, and then of course how people love it and how the animation looks. But you have this kind of Carol Burnett's show sort of collegial fun that the story, as
you were saying, kind of comes from. It allows for a much more effective uh, improvisation and just the living theater of creating something together as a group, which is I mean for me, that's why I got into Why why I Why why I gravitated to acting? I think is because it was a group activity. These days, Uh, it's a it's a weird way in where you start yeah, with by yourself in isolation, either on TikTok or YouTube, and then maybe you branch off into doing a podcast
or or maybe you collaborate with others. But it's less of a of a theatrical, more straight.
Experience in it's more linear, yeah, straight too.
But then there are those of us, you know, like a Tom Kenny for instance, Carlos Alzeraki, who come from stand up, which is solitary performing, but you're still connecting with a live audience, which I think is a really important part of learning the antenna of the intuition that you need in order to problem solve and create a story, you know, in real time efficiently, which is that's kind of the value that we bring as session players, which is really how I think of myself, is part of
an ensemble that's mostly anonymous, not really in it to be front and center doing the rock star solo necessarily, although there's times where where it falls to us. But for the most part, we're there to connect and with others, to read the room, to read the script, and to work with the producer and the writers to find something that flavors the stew as beautifully as we possibly can.
And we do that together as a group, not and I think it's more of a challenge to do an isolation, especially if you don't come from the experience of having him done that in some way.
I agree, Yeah, I agree. Well, I really really like recording with others. Yeah, you know, and COVID smacked us all around for a while, and you know, I've and we've stayed that way regrettably. You know, I'm like, we've done Mickey Mouse Club, Micky Mouse House and Mouse, Mickey Mouse Funhouse, but you know, on on for about thirty years. And when we did a few of them, very few of them. I just thought they were great because you feed off the other person's energy that ad lib Well,
he said something a little different. Now I'll say something a little different, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, you just go over it do it again.
Yeah. I think the energy of the other performers, it not only fuels, but it inspires and it really makes everything just that much better. I think you can get close to that if you have good people, good performers,
and then and the creators know what they want. But if there's more searching involved, yeah, or or or maybe those on the other side of the glass are less theatrically inclined, and shall we say, it's more effort to find something that fits beautifully in the story that they're trying to make as good as they possibly can.
Well, I know that, you know a lot of people are prone to ad libbing someone that we both know. But I don't want to come across as snide, so I'm not going to mention his name. But it's just something that happens. And there is that fine line, because what will happen is you have a clever line. Oh, that's really good, that's really good. Okay, but it stopped the story cold. You did your funny line. Now we
have to kind of kickstart the storyline again. And so I think if you can add lib in character and it serves the storyline, you're good. But if it's just you doing hey wack hey, I'll tell you you know, it's not so good.
Yeah. I think of it like seasoning. I mean, we did a little panel sag this week and for voice actors, and that was one of the questions was what about improv And to me, it's like asking, well, what about salt or what about seasoning? About it, it's like, well, let's taste the soup and see if it needs it, you know, and and just a little bit, you know, a little can go a long way on that, and once you put in too much you've kind of need to start over or change things in a really substantial way.
And so it's very case by case and in the moment and specific to the story that's being told.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You have to serve the story first, yep.
Got to serve the story. And that's I mean, that's kind of that's the role of a session player, of a voiceover session player is to is to do that kind of efficiently and beautifully and with a sense of fun and and so you're in and you're out quickly. But it felt great and it solves it. Often it ends up being better than they ever hoped. That's what you want with what you bring, that you bring something
that not only fulfills it, but it exceeds expectation. And it's done in this sufficient way so that you justify the price tag, the union price tag of bringing in a professional hopefully.
Yes, yeah, and hopefully even more than the bare minimum of people. Absolutely so true.
One of my favorite quotes of yours days is that you're just touching on my job is done well if nobody thinks about me, if I'm invisible. Yeah, And it's true because, as you were touching on, when they bring in these big names, now it's all about, oh, we've got this guy voice in this character, as opposed to how good is this character? It's more about who's voicing it these days.
Yeah, it makes the marketing people happy to bring in famous people, and sometimes a famous person can deliver the goods. But for me, and maybe that's just because of my career, but it's also just somebody he likes to watch this kind of stuff that is distracting. I don't want to think about I frankly don't want to see behind the scenes that I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to think about the actor playing the role. I want to think about the work.
I want.
I want to see the story. That's what matters to me. That's what matters to me as a as a voice actor.
Yeah, they're all Robin Williams anyway, right.
Right, I mean he was kind of the the the Roman candle that started this whole fireworks show of bringing in someone who is a name and then building a character around it, and that that was a brilliant choice. I work there, Yeah, I worked beautifully there. But now for me, it gets in the way. There's there's trailers.
I won't say which, but like there's there's trailers now where they they're really hammering it in who the famous person is that's talking right now, And so then you're watching the trailer just thinking of the famous person and it's like, wow, this really takes me out of the trailer, which probably tells me too much of the story anyway. In addition, and it's just but I mean it's it's just one more feature of I think, an industry that's
more fearful and money angled and less creative. And I mean some of my favorite movies I've ever seen were movies that I didn't know who any of these people were. I think back, there's any number of examples, like Star Wars is Like when I was a kid, Star Wars, I didn't know anybody in that movie. I didn't know anyone at all. That was not what was drawing me into that movie or what made me go see it
one hundred times afterwards. But it was a great innovative movie that I was afraid to make, bold, creative, interesting choices that came together and worked beautifully. That's what made me love that movie. Not that there were name brand people that I was going to see as as famous people.
And the sound of the pew pew, absolutely, I just that really is so damn cool. And then not to divert too far off there, but I saw the making of Star Wars, and do you know how they did that. They got that the face of the laser rifle sound. They went out to the country, got a big giant telephone pole that was held in place with the really thick, strong cable and hit the cable with a hammer.
That's it.
I love that.
That's it.
And they dipped it in reverb.
Done. Done.
Now we've got a thousand gunshots.
There's something so wonderfully open and innovative about everything about that original Star Wars. Oh god, it's we really lack. It was the first time for everything, it really was and it wasn't an expensive movie per se. It I think it costs less than Logan's Run, which came out a few months before, and everyone's like, ooh, Logan's Run, the big special effects movie, and the Star Wars like uh,
bye bye yeah, and uh, it's just it. It's more and more, especially in a movie cinema, it's uh, it's hard to find something that just knocks you in the face and just say, wow, I've never seen this, completely didn't expect it, and it's and it's full of really bold, creative choices like that, rather than you know, replication of an ip that everybody knows, which I mean to be fair, there's a lot of great examples of really good uh standard you know, I p that that's that's beautifully done.
Big tent poles big names, big expense, and it's good or or it can be really good. Often though it's it can be a little flat, a little tiresome, a little a little too expected and too familiar, and uh, it's just kind of a big money machine. But but maybe, I mean maybe Hollywood's always been a version of that, where the money calls the shots, and and like you know, Buster Keaton, this innovative director, we're just going to use him as kind of a funny guy to do some
not so funny lines. And he's he's just going to do his thing, and we're doing these musicals, and you know, you just kind of you don't really pay attention to being creatively innovative when you're making this giant money machine in the big sausage factory of Hollywood.
We make a lot of sausage.
We do, and some of it's quite tasty, but some that's a little overcooked or too big, and you can't eat that much.
That's right. God, now you you have been because I did my notes here and I'm trying to think of the first time that we might have worked together. Was it Phineas and.
Firm, Well it did some Yeah, I did incidentals and I did the sound of Perry of the Platypus, but I was, can you give us some Perry Perry's Perry's just.
Just like I know that that kills me.
This guy's got more sounds in him. It's like you're like Frank Welker's soul son or something like, well did that come out right?
He's a great inspiration. Absolutely, And he's the best. And he's I always I said, he's like he's Coke, and I'm I'm like Arci Cola.
Yeah.
I've often said that he's the Beatles and the rest of us are really trying to get into the Stones. Yeah, because he's the Beatles.
Yeah. And that's another beautiful example of when I was starting out three decades ago in Hollywood. Is to be in the room with him and you and and Charlie Adler and Tress and and others like that who are really online, really confident, and and I could I could see you know, being this little insecure, kind of comedy
oriented weirdo. How you present yourself and how you bring the power that's unique to you into a session so that it's collaborative and so that it's fun, and so that it really adds this fantastic element to what's happening, and that I needed to find my own version of that. That the answer is not to try to replicate any of that, but you learn from that and you sort of catch the spark from it and ignite your own flame.
And I'm just very, very lucky that I came into this industry with that sort of an education available to me when I was auditioning. It's one of my soapboxes too, that the new generation they can't they can't learn from others in the audition booth. There isn't even an audition booth anymore. You're sitting by yourself and you're trying to diagnose. It's like being a doctor where you can't talk to
the patient, you can't touch the patient. You have to just kind of look the patient over and then try to come up with what needs to be done. And this generation has to really search in the dark for the right kind of tone, the right kind of pace, and the right angle for auditioning, which I think is the hardest thing to do, but it used to be when I started. It's like, well, some have isdns, but you want to go easy on that because some people get their isdns where they audition from home, and then
suddenly they just stop booking. And now that's everybody, yeah, where it's hardest for everybody without the input to kind of triangulate what it is you want to do.
Well, it's good to have somebody who's got a pipeline to the producer, if not the producers themselves, the directors and the people hiring. And there was a place, happy to mention it called the voice caster where some of the best things that ever happened to me happened there.
First through the audition processes, they call you in, they give you the sides, which is the script, and you put your head, wrap your head around it, and you know, you study it, look look at it for like ten fifteen minutes, and then you go in, you audition, you and you leave and wait. And that's kind of the way it was always. But now we're sitting in our closets or wherever home studios and you know, recording this, recording that. Then we're editing it. Now you're the editor.
Now you're the producer. Now you're you know, you're the talent. And then you set it out and wait and it just it's not the same. It just doesn't feel like the same because you don't feel like you're performing because the people who are on the other side of the glass, as I say, they for me, they're an audience first, and if and if there's a bit of an audience factor there, I tend to elevate. I tend to Yeah, I'm a little better.
It's a meaningful part of the equation of what's happening.
Yeah, it's just better.
Yeah. And to sit in the in your little audition booth at home, you're wearing all these hats that you're you may not be trained in and are not part of why you got into this. It's like I didn't get into acting or voice acting to be a director or a producer or or an engineer, and these are all things that you need to be good at. Otherwise, what talent you have, it won't matter because it stops at the audition if it's not good enough. And it's yeah,
it's a great conundrum. The Union, Fortunately, they're offering a lot of free workshops with a lot of good people coming in so so you know those who are who are aspiring to this can see face to face. In addition to maybe studying with somebody who knows how to
do this, hopefully face to face. And I would love if if I mean for me, I also for me personally doing things like stand up and improv where you're working with a live situation that you know you've got, You've got co that might work in this context, but now it's got to work in this context with these people, and you start to be able to dance, tap dance, read the room and yeah, and find it, you know,
with whatever this audience is. And that was hugely important to me in being ready for doing this kind of work, was improv in particular.
Oh yeah, and did you do stand up?
I did.
I did stand up for a couple of years, and the lifestyle didn't appeal, but.
I learned that was rock and roll.
Yeah, yeah, you learn a lot from that from doing it, but also from the others who are doing it, and for those who are trying but aren't they're never going to make it, those who've made it but wish they could get out, those who are just going to go straight to sitcom, which is how it was in the late eighties. And then I also did I did a couple of years of improv with sac theater. It was just Theater Sports in Orlando, Florida, with the likes of
Wayne Brady and Jonathan Magnum and others. And I really learned a lot very quickly from that. It's like, I like this. It turns out I think I'm good at this, And and then it brought me these improvisational antenna that I use now all the time. That's that's vital to what I think we do, is it's highly improvisational. That is, you're ready, You're ready to steer it in whatever way it needs to go. And and that's the fun of it. And that's you know, that's that's it. That's what it is.
Yeah, yeah, you give them one as written and one as it should be.
Right.
That's that's right, for better or worse.
That's kind of my.
Faupefully, they're receptive. Sometimes they aren't. Sometimes they just want to hear what they did and oh yeah, sometimes they just want the line read. It's like, okay, I'm a session player, sure and and and I will do it. Tell me the line and I will say it as you did. But if I can, I'm going to try to give it to you the best that I think that it can be and a lot of the times it's compelling me in a way, you're kind of hired
for your opinion. To be really good in something means that you've got a really strong, compelling, sensible and an opinion that of what needs to happen, and it brings others along, it doesn't threaten them, and it helps. And that's that's kind of how I think about it these days, is that you're hired for an opinion in a way.
That's true.
No, you're right, Yeah, what do you think about this?
Yeah?
I think chances are put that copy in front of you, you're going to have a strong take on this, right, like this right, and that strong take is very probably going to be the best thing that you can give them. And that's it's not like this sorting searching process, but you lock right into it because you know what you do, and you know the whole orchestra that's available, and you just dial those instruments and here it is, and this
is the best it's going to be. May I'll do what you want, but this is the best my best I got.
Yeah, Well, I always joll My line is, instincts are the best stinks, you know, So you know, if it works inside your head, chances are someone out here in the world will agree. And if not, well then you go back to the drawing bird. All right, we'll do it your way.
Yeah, you know, yeah, that's doable too.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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What was your very first job?
Well, did we mean that my first I mean, like my first show biz job. Well, it was a game show called Legends of the Hidden Temple, and I voiced this giant talking rock in this kid's game show on Nickelodeon. Before that, I had done stand up in children's theater and plays and musicals and shows at Disney World. And oh yeah, just yeah, all you used to work at Disney World.
Yeah.
I worked at Disney World four and a half years doing a a kind of a sketch improv show and then also kind of street theater storytelling in the World Showcase at Epcot. And then I was also the walk around Beetlejuice at Universal Studios when that opened up in nineteen ninety in Orlando. And I so I go.
Through the walk around Beatles Juice.
I get, yeah, come on, come on over here, just take a picture of that kind of stuff.
Oh man, that's great.
Yeah.
I do these squeaky clean family shows during the day, and then at night I go over and don the Beatle Juice makeup and just kind of harass people in a way that they just loved. And it was it was it was perfect. Here Beetlejuice, harass my girlfriend, or okay, Beetle Juice, take a picture with me and my friends or whatever, and everybody laughs. It's a kind of freedom that I just can't I can't describe. But it was
all the things I liked. It was character, it was improvisational, and uh, and it's about stepping over boundaries, but in a in an amicable way. But you're stepping over boundaries, especially as beetle juice. Wow, and everyone is on board for it except for the elderly. The elderly weren't on board with beetle Juice, but everyone else on down was just very much come over and harass this and saypriate things.
And it's like the reason that people like Don Rickles, you know, it's kind of something in that in that NEXTI way, come.
Over and let me have it, but you do it in a way that you know. I mean, it's like you're you're coming after me, but you like me, and we're doing this together and it is fun and we're both doing it. Look what we're doing it, and it's it's exciting and it's fun. Yeah. So that that's kind of where I started, was with that, and then the Nickelodeon game show and the and the host Kirk Fogg said, come check out Los Angeles, and I was starting to do voiceover work out there at the time, and I.
Was doing in Orlando, and I.
Like doing the character stuff on stage and when we do like improv, I would do odd characters. I like to sing. I was doing singing training, so my voice was strong and I like doing weird things with my voice, and so I just said, so, I said, uh, I think I'll just try checking out Los Angeles. My wife was was good for that too, because she was an actor, and we just said, all right, well, life's good out
here in Orlando. It's sustainable, we have healthcare, we have, you know, a steady job, lots of different stages to perform on.
Interesting.
Yeah, but it can get bigger and better and who know go who knows where in La. So we're of the age. Let's just give it a try, and happily it worked. You just don't really know until you dive in if you can really swim in those waters. But it it worked out, it worked out.
How old were you when you did that?
I was.
I would be around twenty nine or thirty. I'm sixty two right now, so yeah, it was like half my life ago, but it was. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's I think you've got to You've got to sort of strategically jump off diving boards throughout your life, at all stages in life, and even now. I think it's important.
You know, even in a later stage of a career as a as an as a as a freelance actor and artist, is that you've got to find things that you like and that are odd and that challenged you, and that maybe a big swing at the towards the fences, but you still got to do it. I mean, for instance, I went and saw they did a staging, a concert staging of Randy Newman's Faust that I saw this weekend. Oh really, and it was.
I had that. I bought that album.
It was great, It was really great. They it's an interesting story.
Yeah, yeah, it is so sly his lyrics.
Yeah. God, I've always been a huge fan of him, and here he is. He's this old lion who's done all of these different things, and he put together this thing that was a musical that started out big, and the book wasn't quite right and they trimmed it down to this live performance that they did this weekend, and apparently he was very happy with it. I loved it.
I thought they fixed a lot of things about the storyline and added more humor to it, and it was It's exciting for me to see someone who's, you know, later in their career, who's still really going for it, even Megalopolis Francis Ford Coppola, bless his heart. I mean, he's swinging big and swinging for the fences. And for me because I respect and and and admire his artist's heart, I I'm on board for him whether or not I
think the movie is successful. I think there's something really admirable about an artist who is not afraid to swing big and to try something and just see if it works. And I think that's I think that's really it's.
Not bad cool, that's good stuff. Wow.
Well, who better than Randy Newman? You know his lyrics and his he's you know, he's.
My close personal friend.
In fact, let's call him let's do no no. But it's a you know, it's one of my honors to actually I do know him and and you know, sung any number of his songs, and so that kind of helps.
He's magnificent and most people don't believe what he's done. They don't know the songs that he's written for himself.
Yeah, and he and they all there are stories that have music in them.
You know.
I remember, way way back in Louisiana when I lived in Louisiana, he wrote that song Louisiana, louis They're trying to wash us away. Yeah, and it was about the great flood of nineteen twenty nine and how it just about literally did almost wash away Louisiana, and you know, and it just still resonates. And and he's like the poet laureate he is.
He's like a Mark Twain songster of I mean, he's got this folksy but biting intelligence that is it can break your heart or it can just make me laugh more than anything, because he has what nobody has anymore, irony. Yeah, and he's masterful at that. If you check back his last few albums, not soundtracks, I'm talking about his song albums, you know, Harps and Angels and all that. I mean, it's it's some of my favorite songs of all for me.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I was really gratified to see how well his faust came off. And apparently he had been there at the first performance and was very pleased with it, and the audience was pleased with it, and I just I felt good for Randy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not worried about him either. He's doing fine. That's good stuff. That is good stuff. So I have some questions.
For you, ask me some questions.
I would like to know who, of all your characters is your favorite.
My favorite.
Who's your favorite clone?
That one that.
Was the favorite clone. That's a tough one.
No, I think I was kidding, I hope, unless you have a really cool answer.
Well, the one that breaks my heart the most is fives. He died really tragically. Uh, And he was heroic. He was a hero that came that close. And he's one that breaks my heart that I really love. But I really I mean ninety nine and Rex, of course. And I can't really narrow that down very well.
I know, I know that was a trick question, but it was.
Let's see, I'll narrow it down to a couple. I'll say that it was. It was really fun. It was thrilling and and and scary and adventurous to perform Daffy Duck in space jam. That was early in my career. I wasn't. I'd only been out here for a couple of years yet, and I didn't know any better. And I didn't. It's not like I'd worked up a Daffy Duck impression, because I really didn't. I'm not really an impressionist.
I don't. I'm not really drawn to it. I can, I can do it if i'm forced, but I generally am not drawn to it.
Okay, now you're drawn to it, so you have to give us. You have to give us a little.
Let's let's all laugh at the Duck like I mean, it's like I if I could big Daffy Duck, I would love to be Daffy Duck. This kind of benevolent chaos.
He's all over the place, the plate.
But it was fun to be thrown into that mix with the challenge of a classic character like that, right that I resonated with, and then to have to be working with Ivan Reightman and you know, and Billy West and on this whole big production. Got to work with Michael Jordan for a day wearing the green suit, and it was It was thrilling and exciting and also an education in that we weren't invited to the premiere. I've been writing a secretary. He told me that that was for the actors.
What I kind of Oh my god, I remember that, I remember that.
And so yeah, So the story goes that Billy, Billy West, he got his agent to call up and finally they gave two tickets to me because I was Daffy, and two to him because he was bugs.
There was only.
Fifteen voice actors and and so my.
Wife don't have to cast.
Yeah, yeah, it's my wife gave up her ticket so I could take Porky Pig, which is Bob Bergen to the premiere. We we show up at Gramman's Chinese Theater and you know, the big guy with the clipboard and the sunglasses and the sorry so you're not on the list. You're at the theater over to the hide over here, this little theater that the secutives are not.
A sheet up on the side of the building, and there's a guy with a projector.
Like I am the star of this picture. And so you know, it was a little less than just in terms of how the the what's what's what's at work in Hollywood and how things play out, And so I didn't take it as as a as an affront. And plus, this is exactly what would happen to Daffy Duck if he were actually in a movie. He would not be allowed into the theater. So I think this is actually kind of appropriate. I know bugs personally, I know I am the see that pilster right there, you know that.
But it was a great lesson and it was a great adventure, and it was kind of a launch that I think affirmed some a little more confident confidence in myself and which I think you carry with you into your auditions and that leads to more work.
Yeah, there you go. That's good. Yeah.
What I'll find amazing about that story is that you improvised most of the lines in that film Anyway, Space Jams Duffy anythink, Yeah, essentially created the jokes of that movie. But they're not gonna let you in the premiere. It bog was my mind.
Yeah, well, that's just that's just the power structure of an event, of a of a of a premiere. There's a whole power structure that's in play that is not It's not about a meritocracy sorting of who deserves and who should be. It's really about power and the money and optics and all these other things that really optics, for sure, it just don't matter. And and so ultimately it's like, that's all right, you can have your big thing that serves whatever your needs are, but it doesn't
really matter to me that much. But yeah, that was one of the great things about Ivan Reightman, who is the guy that really directed us in the booth Forth Space Jam is that he's a friend of comedians and he knows to let comedians do their thing. You know, he knows you're going to get better if you let let people do what they're good at. And and he
was its. He skewed more towards in directing it. Kind of the gradient is from control to freedom, right, And some directors are very controlling and they'll give you the line read and they want it to be exactly this way, and it's a miserable long experience that goes on too long, not very creative for you. On the other end is just the freedom of this. I was like, well, there's a script, but if you've got anything better or something that works, just go for it, or let's try some stuff.
And that can be too free. But you know, Ivan Wrightman was very much on board with letting us try to make this funnier. In the mad dash that that was the making of Space Jam.
Yeah, well you and Billy in the studio together as bugs.
Yeah, yeah, they'd have us, they'd have us in the studio together, really the ensemble, and we'd read through the script and we'd riff off of each other and it just it wasn't run like it would be run by somebody who knows how to do animation, because there you isolate people so that you can so that the talking
over that you're doing doesn't ruin the take. But that's not how we recorded it, because we were recorded by on camera feature people, and so they're letting us step on each other and talk over each other, and they're going to animate to that, which is that's a little
bit tougher diceier. And plus there was only a year and a half of production on that movie literally before we got to get those T shirts and pajamas and target and there's an opening date, and so it was a mad rush and a lot of money was spent all over the planet to get that thing finished. Plus I'm right when the way he did it was that we would do our jokes and takes, they'd go back and animate it and he'd say, uh, we need we
need to change this part. So we would go back and then re record it, come up with new stuff, and they'd have to go back and reanimate it. Yeah, so the the animator is cheap. Yeah, Yeah, it's that's that's uh, that's not usually how you do it. It's it's that's how you do on camera, not animation. Uh. The animator put it. He said, with with on camera, you shoot it first, then edit it later. With animation,
you edit it first, then you shoot it. And they were shooting it like it was on camera, So it was it was it was quite a mad.
Dashy you went invited to the Premier.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
You touched on that you worked today with Michael Jordan. We have to talk about that. What was that?
Like, you know, it's it's I wish it were more interesting. I mean, ultimately, they what I think they should have done was to hire the actual voice actors to to don the green suits and to work with Michael Jordan, and I think it would have been even better. But that they gave to improv actors I think who did a good job, but they weren't really tasked with coming up with script ideas and so they just had to go off of the script, whereas we were.
Kind of empowered and enabled the word.
To bring stuff up so we could riff and we could have brought a lot more to it than we did. So it was just on that one day and Michael Jordan, I mean he seemed very nice very focused. There's Joe Pitka who's lurking in the back, and and Ivan Reightman was there a little more engaged with us, and and we you know, we we do our scene. We go through a couple of scenes, but pretty much as written is all we could do. And then Michael Jordan disappears
back into his entourage. They kind of swallow him back up and he goes back into the entourage and they go, I don't know, play basketball or have a sandwich or something, but kind of isolated in his own kind of Michael Jordan bubble. But it was fun and exciting and had a day of doing it. You know, get an autograph?
No?
I didn't, dare did he?
You wouldn't give him an autograph? No? She what an elitist?
No, I would not. Man, he could beg.
Well, okay, maybe eighty fifty bucks. How's that give him a discount? Yeah? Yeah, oh man, that's wild. When did you truly first know that you were going to be doing this? Not the podcast?
I meant just voice acting, period.
When did you get the boat? I'll tell you acting dancing?
You know, Well, when I came out here, I was open trying a lot of different things. I was doing on camera commercials and commercial voice acting and auditioning for for like little one off cartoons like they used to have back in the old days of Hanna Barbera a lot of cartoons and that kind of thing. But I was also trying to work my way into doing television
and comedy. Comedy television fit me the best. I did a little series called The Journey of Alan Strange for Nickelodeon, where I was an on camera UFO nut had to dig deep for that and uh. But anyway, so I was auditioning and there was one point it was working on Cow and Chicken, which was my first really full series with with uh, with the Brilliant, the Dreaded Charlie, the Dreaded but brilliant, dreaded but brilliant Charlie and Candy Myler and a lot of other just really monstrously talented
people who told me a lot very quickly. And I remember the producer of the on camera show was going to take me to producers on this show, but it conflicted with a Cow and Chicken record and her her basic take of the casting director was, well, are you going to go with me to producers? Can I I mean, have I have I wasted my time with you? Are are you or are you going to go to do
this little cartoon? Because if you can't, if I'm going to, you know, put you in submit, you walk with you and then walk in with you to producers, and you're going to bail on me, then we're done. That's basically the picture that I got is it's like, this is a fork on the road, kid, and if you want to do your little voiceover thing, that's fine, but but that's it. And I just thought about it fairly briefly. It's like voiceovers. Let's see, it's air conditioned. I don't
have to memorize lines. I get to work with really fabulous people. It's quick, it's close to home. They only use me for like two hours, maybe maybe three. I think I'm gonna be a voice actor. And so pretty much then I called off the dogs and just said, I think I'm just gonna be a voice actor. I can't I can't sustain trying to get two airplanes off
the runway that are going in different directions. So so that that that was, you know, that would be probably around ninety five or six or something like that, and I kept doing commercials that choice. Huh yeah, absolutely. So it's a suit that fits me well, and it's a lot of fun, and it's something that I like, that likes me, and you know, it's a great career. It's
as I'm it's fun to do. It's great fun. I mean, I listened to a lot of memoirs and audio biography is on audiobook of on camera people that do movies or television or such, and I'm very interested in that. But I've never listened through one to say, Gosh, I wish I had that career or wish I did that. It's like every time, it's like, man, I'm really glad I'm a voice actor. Oh yeah, I really, I have zero regrets about going into voice acting.
Yeah, oh yeah. Same here.
I had occasion, maybe like three times to work with read a Moreno, Great read a Moreno. And I remember, you know, I was kind of thunderstruck obviously, you know, I mean, she she's yeah, you know, I mean from.
West Side Story.
I was sorry my whole life and it was just amazing to be sitting there and we were doing Bonkers Walker's Bonker's deep up kit and uh and she was there and she the second or third show, second show, I think, she goes, Okay, I just have to tell everybody here this is the am this thing I've ever
done in my life. And she's looking at her, she goes, I can't tell you how happy I am to be here with all of you crazy people, you know, and and and she says, this is I've spent my whole life trying to calm myself down, trying to not beat like this guy over here me and uh and and uh what was I thinking? This is so much fun, This is so freeing, it's so and you know, and she's looking at everybody.
And and and we're all going.
Well, we're kind of glad to have you, you know, thanks for being here. Rita Moreno, who has an Emmy, a Grammy and Oscar and every literally every award you can get, pretty Tony as Tony and.
And we're going, retal likes us. This is pretty cool.
Well that's the right word, though, is freedom. There's it's and it's a it's a it's a daily dose of of totally fresh freedom. That's it's a different one. Everything that comes at you. That's it's it's the fun and the challenge of it is just to jump off a different diving board with a with a crazy character or a different idea, or a different style, a different tone.
That's it, and it's it could be different things on multiple different shows a day, and it's such great variety and and it's I just feel bad for on camera or sometimes even stage actors who are just you're you're just in this little box and you're much more confined with your you know, your physical type and everything else. And in voice acting, there's just there's this maximized freedom,
but it's not easier. It may be free, and it may be fun, but what you're bringing to bear as an actor is no less specific and no less contextually aware. And it's it's it's it's an art, but it's kind of a hidden, invisible one that I think people are only for the most part a kind of superficially aware of, because what they see is the is the fun characters
and the and the voices coming out of us. But what they don't see is that that process that happens of coming up with the idea, of finding the idea of haunting it so something that just works just right and beautifully and then moving on and clearing the deck for the next idea. That's what's really impressive and beautiful to me about it. But it's it's kind of invisible, the the the the nuts and bolts process of it.
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Would you would you rather?
You know, say, you know, God forbid, some venerable actor passes away and now it's time to replace them. They needed someone else to do that character. It's still going now. Have you had experience with that and if so, do you prefer that or is it easier to pick up a character that's established, or do you prefer to start over start from scratch like with the Clone Wars or you know, yeah, where it's it's you you're the you are the original you know which do you have any comments on those?
I mean, with the Clone Wars, the template was Tomur Morrison originally from the Features, but I wasn't really expected to kind of hang close to that. They let me move out from that into my my own thing, like like like Anaquin Anakin, they let go much much further. I mean anakline and the Clone Wars is very very different from the Clone Wars, the prequels Anakin. It's a very different character, voice, in a different tone and all
the rest of it. So there was freedom that I mean for me personally, I don't I don't really want to copy what somebody else has done. I want to I want to do my own thing that that works beautifully. And in some cases it's like Okay, they want Daffy Duck or.
Something like that, it's like, well, that's established. I've got a it's pretty established.
Yeah. But even with that, if something something like that that's that's absolutely established, you know, you can pick a decade and there's a different Daffy Duck to refer to. And then also with the way it's written, you're going to bring some of your own version to it. I mean, I suppose maybe you experienced that with Winnie the Pooh, where you're you're you're really trying to stay as close as you can, but then you freedom opens up, then it becomes yours.
Yes, that's very very true. Yeah, I always thought that the first thing, you know, job one is you have to sound like it, like if Pooh yawns, if who has tummy trouble, if Poo has the hiccups, it has to be him, right, It has to sound like him. It can't sound like someone with the hiccups or you know.
And then at that point, you know, it almost gets easier from there because if you if you've got those little nuances down, you can elaborate on that and and next thing you know, you're you're doing little soliloquies and uh yeah, and it just seems to be that way.
You're no longer replicating, but you're generating. It's just not a photocopy.
It.
It might start kind of like that, which like here's the reference line, here's you, here's the reference line, here's you. You're really trying to hit that, But then it opens up and become something that's nuanced and and everything from just little incidental. Sounds like you're saying to a whole paragraph.
Yeah, well back when I very very first started and I ended up being Winning the Pooh very early, very very early in my career, so it he was gone for a little while, but they still wanted it to sound like the original. Understandable, very understandable. But the problem was that he was in the like for instance, Pooh ought to be in pictures. It was Winnie the Pooh and Tigger and they all went to a movie theater. Now there were no movie theaters in the hundred that
already boom right out of the gate. Is different, so he's not going to walk around saying oh, bother and pass the honey all day because there is no honey, and you're in a movie theater, which is a place Pooh never was. So by circumstpt, just by necessity, he had to grow. He had to be a little more, for lack of a better word, worldly.
Yeah, it's a different energy because the movie cinema is going to be in a town and that's a different energy from.
Woods. Yeah, and they actually I remember I can see it now, them walking in and out of the theater and it's like, okay, well, we've never seen this one before, have we?
And uh?
And the same was true with the movie Christopher Robin, which I I just was crazy about. I just loved it, you know, and and it came along at a perfect time in my life too.
It helped me out.
Oh you know, so things like that, and it's these little touchtones. But you can't some characters you can grow like that, and some of you just can't. You have to be true to the original. Yeah, it's crazy.
Yeah, but every mission is different, you know, and you're and you're open to that, and sometimes you know, something comes across the uh, the feet it's like, you know, I just don't think. I don't think I have a good version of this for me. It's like I just I don't think I can make this sing. I'll pass.
Have you ever oh yeah, oh, I was gonna ask you, have you ever turned down an audition or a role?
Yeah, I'll turn down, I'll turn I'm trying to think I've ever turned down a roll. Possibly just they just want me to scream or it's like I can't, I can't do that. But I'll occasionally get an audition where I'll read through it and then It's like I read the audition and I check out who's making it, and and I see kind of what this needs to be, and I try it a little bit maybe, and it's like, I just I don't like what I'm doing. I don't I wouldn't cast me. I don't think I can make
something that's good from this. So I'm I'm I'm not going to waste their time. I'm not going to waste my time or my voice. But I I'm I'm not gonna. I don't want to waste anyone's time. If I'm sending in an audition with you, yeah, well maybe, but what I don't want is to leave a bad impression. I don't want to send something as like what the hell was that? Or no, no, no no no. I at very worst, I want to hear, oh hmm, that's interesting. I can see it. Not what we're going for, but
but interesting. Okay, yeah, he took a big swing knock gonna.
Yeah. You know, I've had a couple of those two because you're trying out for one character and then I can remember I wish I could think of who it was. I can't remember the series, but they said, well you are auditioned for Joe blow Blending. Yeah, and well they didn't like you for that, but now you are auditioned. They saved that because they want you to be the janitor. Yeah, and I really love being the janitor, so you know, so I okay, yeah, I don't care which key got me through the door.
Yeah.
I mean, I want to send in something that I'm proud of that it's like, at least I don't feel like I'm wasting their time. And I feel good about it because I think people remember that he's a casting director or or a director or a writer or whoever's listening to it. And I think, you know, like I like to say that some auditions take ten years to book, and if you do a good one today, that doesn't work for this show that was closed but not quite
but man, was it interesting? Good They remember it, remember a good audition just like that.
That's true.
I remember a really bad audition as much as they'll remember a really good one. And I just want to have good memories, whether they're cast or not. So that's that's what I aspire to in sending in auditions. Mostly I'll take a swing at it, especially if they say it's a request and they they're thinking that I might have it, and they kind of were thinking, it's like, okay, I'll really I'll try. I'll really try.
Yeah, your client request. Yeah, I don't think I've ever gotten one of those. Well they they you should go over to blah blah blah because they've requested you. Oh they did, so I won't be doing it. No, you probably won't be getting Yeah.
Usually yeah, it works that way. Usually it does. If they're going like that, it's like, well, we're really going to hire you know, Miley Cyrus.
But oh yeah, right, but we wanted to give you a shot at you know, you get that too, Miley little.
Well, well, actually there was one where it was well, well not quite close it was. It was Germel del Toro's Pinocchio.
Well that is it gets no closer.
I got to read. I got to read for the monkey in that and we and we did a read through of it that was recorded and then we might use it. We might not, but we're going to record it because he and and so I thought it's a monkey. I do a lot of monkeys. I got a good monkey in me. I thought I did really great on your back and the movie came out and it's Kate Blanchett is the monkey. And she didn't do a bad job. She actually did a pretty good monkey.
I thought you're kidding and and she and this is the one from a couple of years ago.
Yeah, that's Kate Blanchette is the monkey. So I mean, even there, it's like, we gotta get a we gotta get a name, We got to get a face for the monkey. Even I'm not even I'm not even I'm not bulletproof here anymore.
But uh uh well, samahayak. It's tough. It's tough. It's tough.
Crimea river, crimea river.
Oh man, that is painful.
How old were you when you knew that you were you've been struck or was there a big boying moment?
Well?
No, I mean I I acted when I started doing plays in musicals and such in second grade. And I really liked doing plays and musicals, but I never thought I was an actor. There were those who would you know, they get up on their stage and Petruchio and and uh Taming of the Shrew. At my high school, it's like that guy is an actor.
Cool ways to meet girls.
Too, Absolutely, that's that's yes. That's one of the fridge benefits. But I I never looked at it as a I first of all didn't think that's really what I was. I didn't know what I was. And plus it's like I don't think you can earn a living doing that. There's nothing. I mean you might.
Now you're talking like my dad, God rest is soul.
Yeah, that's that's that's I felt that way all through college. I didn't study acting. I did a lot of performing. I did choirs and musicals and plays, stand up. I mean, it was my version of it. But I never even when I graduated college, there's there's no way that I said to myself, now I'm going to be an actor, let alone a voice actor. But I kept doing those kinds of performing things that I thought were fun and whether they whether they paid or not, which usually they didn't.
I just did it because I liked it, and I kept doing it until it's like, oh I can make a little bit over here, this one pays. But actually this, you know, singing telegrams not a life I want to really commit to. But I made a little money there.
I know.
I did that for two days, a day and a half maybe, and it was the worst. It was over a easter, and so I had to be the Easter Bunny. Yes, and I'll tell you this, God, I'll make this brief. But I had to wear the stinking helmet, the big goofy you know where you and it's this big with the ears and everything.
And so the little one comes to.
The door and I go, hey, it's me the Easter Bunny, and I come home, my baby, you know.
And I'm saying, I can't remember what it was. And I realized that I'm.
Breathing the same air for and over again, and I'm I'm gonna pass out because I didn't have any fresh oxygen.
And so.
Then I pulled the thing off of my head and I'm soaking in sweat and the little fib real, you know, the Easter Bunny just ripped off his head.
Some guy's head is in it, the Easter bunny. Hay that guy.
And the lady looks at me, she goes, are you all right?
Why did you do that?
I go, I just oh, I'm so much better now, I can breathe.
Now, Oh, come back a little. Why is she crying? You know? And so.
And then you got to collect money for that yeah, it's yeah, it's.
Yeah, give me twenty bucks. I don't even think I got paid. I said, you know what.
I should go.
It was part of an actor's education.
I've traumatized your child. My work here is done.
Yeah, but there are a lot of versions like that, like I said, where you know, I tried it for a little bit for a while, and it's like I've learned from this. I just don't think I want to keep going. I want to move and just kind of
keep trying other stuff. And then it would be like my mid late twenties where it's like, oh, I'm actually earn a living performing, you know, whether it's kind of a health oriented musical for children for schools in Denver, and then theme parks health and then but all this other kind of performing where I always looked at performing. It's just something I do because I like it, and if it can pay me, then great. But the main thing is I've got to like it. I've got to
like whatever this version of it is. And I kept trying different versions of it until it finally just kind of narrowed into voice acting. But it wasn't. It really wasn't until my late twenties that I started kind of considering. It's like, oh, that's actually a career, and that is actually fun, and I think I've got some of the skill set to make that. I might. I might. I don't know. I might be able to make it work. But maybe LA is too big, or the gates are
all up and no one's gonna let me in. It's like, I don't know, but who knows. I'll give it a try. You just have to kind of jump out there and give it a try.
Yeah, well I've said before, you know. I read and I was already into business for about five years. I won't be labored this too much. But the great Gordon Hunt and Barbara. He was the guy who did all the Scooby Dooes and Flintstone, on and on and on over the years, the voice director. He wrote a book, how to Break into show Business. In the fifth one is how to break into voiceover. And I read this when I was already into business by five years, and it said, how to break into.
Voiceover, don't even try.
You're not going to be able to.
There are four or maybe five people who do this. You're not one of them.
They all live in Hollywood, California, where you don't, so don't And here's chapter six and I went, well, I'm glad I didn't read that sucker, you know, like five years ago. It's like, so don't even try. And you figure, well, this guy knows if anybody knows, it's Gordon Hunt.
So well, in a way, it's and I've.
Told him, God rest, So I said, by the way, you gave me the worst advice anyone ever gave. Anybody goes, what the hell? When did I do that?
And I go, we hadn't even met yet. I read your book. He goes voiceover.
I go, yeah, yeah, duh, you know so.
Well, I think it's useful. That's it. That's it. That's an interesting story because I think in the end, to to do this kind of stuff, you not only do it because you have the talent for it and the persistence and all that, but you've really got to want to do it despite the negative, despite the door slammed
in your face. That you've not only got to kind of believe in yourself, but you've you've got to have this tenacity to to set it through because you really believe that you have this and and you're seeing and then you start to see confirmation and that you take uh, take criticism where it's where it's useful, and and and and it fits. But but in a way it's it's like you need to hear that that the odds are terrible.
It's there's there is a deep bench of people who are very established and very very good that you're going to have to compete again, didn't be as good or better than. And then there's a lot of luck. You're going to need luck as well everything you need, and there's all of these things that seem to be in your way. But if this is what you've got to do, and this is what you've got to try, then you've got to do it. Just don't be don't be naive,
don't be don't be an idiot. Lord knows, there's all kinds of of of resources that you can avail yourself of, not just the one book from Gordon Hunt. When I was coming into it, I think it was Sue Blues book. Sure she had one, and other than that that was about it as far as I could find.
But now workshops that was it.
Yeah, yeah, But but now you can really get the inside scoop and and get a lot of good details I've got my own website, I want to be a voice actor dot com that has a lot of it has my my opinion on a lot of things about becoming a voice actor, and it's free, but that information is out there, but it's you still got to be a person I think you has to do this and who loves it and who has the talent for it?
Yeah, I agree, I completely agree. It's like I said, I knew I was going to do this when I was five, And I still remember my dad say, yeah, I was five and I was sitting there. I don't want to drag this out of total before, but I was watching Jack Benny Show and mel Blank was on there.
My dad goes, well, they see this master.
He does dog Bonnie and Daffredug and all that blah blah. And I thought, well, he's not getting in trouble and having to stand in the corner.
But well I'll do that.
And because whatever he whatever, he's doing, people like him and he's obviously making money, so okay, I'll do that.
So you saw the goalposts at five?
You saw it?
Oh yeah, the end zone was open absolutely okay, And I never and I had a million other jobs. You know on my way. But but yeah, it's so that was your.
North star, that you were always kind of going towards that.
Yeah, well I knew i'd never work in the steel mail, which I did, but I didn't wasn't going to retire from it, you know, that type of thing, and so I just, you know, it was obvious. I moved into Orleans. I was a decade on a riverboat. It's what you would do to break into voiceover. Then I designed Marty Ruffilo It's obviously another easy entry. And then I moved to California, made a demo tape, and I just I
was very, very fortunate. I got a job from that, and it was for Disney Dumbo Circus and that lasted a year and a half. So it gave me a chance to get an agent and everything, and now I get to hang out with you.
Well, I think having a life experience of things that are not actor related really is a It's a good thing to have. I think someone who's who's only trained as an actor can have a really narrow connection to the world and to themselves, and they can also be too refined, and there's an improvisational connection to life that having different kind of jobs and different kinds of experiences. I think, can you know, to have that available with
you as a performer is really a good thing. It's a really it's a really good thing to be open to that and not just a narrow training although for some, I mean summers like yep, I always wanted to be an actor. I went to acting school.
I trained to be an actor.
And now it's like, well, there are those, there is that sure, but there's some who just kind of kicked around and found their way in on a on a lark and others. It's kind of a mix of things that they come from music, or they come from stand up or or from animation or all kinds of different angles as artists. But they're storytellers and they apply that storytelling sensibility now to voice acting and they're ready to do that. But they can do other kinds of creative
collaborative creation as well. It's uh, yeah, everybody finds a different path to it. There's no one.
Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. I mean you hear different stories. I mean people like Corey Burton, he's like the the historian voice. I love the guy. He's amazing.
I mean, you know, you can't beat it.
He knows, he knows the type of microphone that they used with Captain Hook used for and he's got three or four at his house.
You know.
It's it's a beautiful thing. It's an interesting, interesting way to make a living.
Yeah, I really missed being around him and seeing him do his thing, which I got to see a good amount of, oh in the Clone Wars, in particular, to see Soody who was he he played He played cad Bane and but.
Also the big wizarded bad.
Guy who was right right right.
Yeah, he played Count Count Dooku and Bain and and probably other stuff too. But it's just it's to be in a room and and see someone do that in a way that everything that's coming out of his mouth is like this this unexpected kind of almost frightening surprise, and it just doesn't stop that, and it's so effortless and and and it's it's just it's it's both intimidating and invigorating and and it's amazing and inspiring. And to be in the booth with that as you're telling a
story together with that, it's such an education. It's such an actor's education to be.
It's a bit of a booster shot too. Yeah, yeah, so so I could do that, this is possible, Okay, right, yeah, you can raise the the goal a little.
Right, because then you sly it's like, look what he's pulled out of himself. I mean, he walks into the room, he's a chatty Cathy and then he gets going. It's like, look at that. He's not his default. That was a mask. He's got lots of different defaults. Maybe I've gotten more, Maybe there's more in me than just this thing that
I've been doing that people liked. It's like, well, maybe I'll try some more of that, or some more of this or or you know, and then you start to see, oh I can I can branch this myself creatively in these different ways. And I wouldn't have known that if I couldn't see someone who can do that kind of switch up with such ease and such and such brilliance, like him or like Charlie or like you. It's really a wonderful education to see that and to be in
the presence of that. I'm very, very lucky that you know that I came in. I feel like I kind of came in at the tail end of this era that has now shifted into a different gear that you know, every era I think has different technologies and different challenges to the space. But it's it's shifted away from from being collaborative theater. And in a way that's I think is like I said, it's it's it's much more difficult for those who are starting out, I think, so, yeah, to key into it.
Yeah, nowadays it would be I don't know how. I mean, not to discourage anyone, but it's a it's a tough road to hoe, Yeah, tough road to hoe.
But if you got to do it.
Do you think there's realistically a future for aspirring voice actors in major motion pitches anymore?
Look, I think there's always a place for talented, smart, problem solving creatives because just being a pretty face or being you know, an on camera star who's a very good actor, that's not enough. And we are we are session players who are brought into collaboratively solve problems, to pick apart puzzles and make them work beautifully. And that's a very useful skill to have a good opinion on how to problem solve something that's just coming together. We
didn't know, we didn't know what we're gonna do. It was just rewritten last night. And to have somebody step in and say, I've got a really good idea with this and then kick that right out. How about a different one? Yep, that too, and then you make your choice and you move on. The power to be able to bring that to other people is a very valuable power.
And I think if you've got the creative goods, if you've got the self possession and the experience and the confidence to be able to bring that, then you will find work because actually the work will find you. It's not you won't have to find the work. The work comes to you. Because people remember someone who does a good job, who's great to work with, who solved it and just moved on and it was effortless, it was fun, and it was it was unexpected. It was better than
you thought it was going to be. You never forget a person who brings that to you because the stories that we create are grand collaborations of you know, a few hundred people, and there's great uncertainty involved in the process of making something, and that part of what we do and what we bring as a session player is to bring confidence and reassurance to extinguish doubt, to make the path to the golden finish line even more clear
and even more well illuminated. That's what we bring. If you're someone who can bring that kind of magicianry to that's not a word, that's not a word. If you can bring that kind of stuff, the work will find you. It may be different kind of work, it may be work that changes or is of different consistency, but the work will find you if you can bring that. I think so.
You're another failed mind too.
Huh, another failed mind my tower?
Do you think with that? With that mindset, there would be a fee to improvise because you're trying to create what they've already created. You want to give them what they've already created, as opposed to give what you think they should have created.
Well, you're whatever you're bringing is always in service of the story, and hopefully your antenna are are educated enough that you can bring something that's appropriate. That's that's always I mean, improv is all about making the others look good, not you. That's the key. If you're not there trying to be a show off or trying to get attention for you, you want to make them look good. You want to make the story look good. And then if you fall off the stage or fall on your face,
that's actually a bonus. Then it gets a laugh because that's a genuine it's a genuine face plant. But you're helping the story and you're helping the others. That's the attitude. I think you start out as an actor a lot of actors where you want yourself to look good. You want to do a good job. You want to be praised, you want your applause, you want to stand out, you
want all these things. Me me, me, me me. But when you're a session player, when you're an improviser, really when you're a voice actor, you have to angle your whole attitude to make everything else look good. That's your job.
That's a great that's great advice, that's words to live by.
There, I'm going to look like an idiot doing what I do. It looks it's ugly, it's it's grotesque, it's humiliating, it looks awful, and that doesn't matter because I'm doing my job of making something that they want that's useful. And if it's a you know, it's.
Like, well, I kind of like the one where you grab your where you grab your your nose there and pinch it and you know, I don't even know what you're doing there, but.
It's it's modifying the column of air by by closing off my nose. You can it's just you know, yeah, it's playing the art.
I was just going to say that.
Everybody saying along, join it.
Won't you kids try this at all?
Do do try it?
Try it do That's that's the problem. Start when you stop trying, you got to you gotta keep doing that weird stuff. Follow your weirdness. Yeah, do it at school, follow your weirdness.
Do it in history class. Do it in church. You get the idea.
Especially there, especially, you'll get noticed.
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Were you like I was the worst kid in the world.
I was the worst kid in the world. Oh yeah, I mean I was terrible.
I would be you know, you know, we don't have dolphins and say, climb up, mister Cummings.
You do, now, you know? And I would you know, and my friend Bill pay for that. We would do.
And everybody's just sitting there and nobody looks around. Then eventually everybody looks around.
And then the sister.
Knows who and uh, And I said, no, you don't understand that this is talent they got. Okay, well, well you're so talented, you're going to be right. I will not be a wail in class anymore. Like fifty times, I'm.
Oh, I don't think I had that kind of uh appreciation. Well, I mean I wanted to do weir encouragement. Yeah, yeah, but I was.
I was.
I only gradually found a place for just being a weird person on a stage doing weird stuff. But I but gradually it's just like, man, I like, I like doing weird stuff. I like doing odd It's it's acting, but it's also this other weird stuff of sounds and characters and and just odd stuff. Like that. I like it. It likes me, people like me doing it.
I like it.
I'm gonna keep doing that.
On I'm outopia, right, Yeah, awful, glad to see you. I think there was a song about that. Yeah.
Well, and it's well.
I've often said that the stuff that used to get me kicked out of class I make a living with.
So yeah, so it worked, right, Yeah. I mean, especially as a creative, obedience only gets you so far.
That's that's a pretty good good line.
It really, it does. I mean you start out kind of wanting to learn the rules of the road and see how others do it, and you know, you you want to stay on the track and learn what the track is and then then learn how to stay on the track and all that. But ultimately, when you're auditioning and and when you're when you're working, your job is not to be obedient. It's not to ingratiate yourself. It's not to make people like you. Your job is to
make something awesome that fits, that works. That's the only job and so and and if your mindset is just set on being obedient and pleasing people, it's like, do you like this?
It's it's okay.
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. It's like, no, you you bring a confidence of good ideas. That is power. That's power, and it's a it's a wonderful thing that you should be proud of and not be ashamed of and and you should embrace that about yourself and not be apologetic about it and just offer that and then that's your job.
Well, nobody scales the giddying heights of adequacy, right right.
It's yeah, yeah.
Captain Kirk was right. You have to boldly go yeah.
You don't go through the session and every take it's like, yeah, that was good enough, and then we move on. It's like yeah, perfect, love it, or yes, you.
Know it wasn't expecting that. Yeah, that's that's my favorite.
But not that'll do I guess, yeah, that's that's not what you're aiming for.
No, it is not.
No, it is not. Man oh man, So is there anything shaken that we should be uh thinking about for the future?
Besides besides everything, Halloween, I'm gonna start putting together my Halloween I am. I have a problem.
I used to be.
Yeah, I've got my Halloween problem. I've got yea. Yeah, just just.
I'll be giving out his address later, so don't worry.
Well, I'll post everyone. I post it on my website creepyard dot com. I show pictures of my of my Halloween yard on my on my Halloween website. But yeah, there's nothing to other, nothing else that I can think of in particular that is worthy of note.
Well makes up?
Well, what's your Halloween costume this year?
Actually I don't. I don't do a Halloween costume because the way I feel is that every day I go to other planets and I become other creatures and other beings and other characters. I'm I'm doing that every.
Day, So you get that out of your system.
Right, I'm in service of other people's worlds. But for Halloween, I get to make my own world. So my yard for Halloween is the world that I make that's mine. So that's all I'm focused on, is my yard, not not what I'm doing to myself.
Do you have a sit in the decorations and just make animal sounds just to scare the kids who are coming to the door.
Uh? Well, I do make some sounds, but generally speaking, my version of Halloween is more creepy and less of the assault. Version of Halloween. There's all kinds of there's like, you know, Winnie the Putin in a bee costume Halloween, and then there's you know, Art the clown from Terrifier. It's just the spectrum of whatever you want the holiday to be, and mine is just kind of creepy and odd and maybe a little bit menacing, but not something that's that's coming to attack.
You, right, the ax murderer, the area, Yeah, I don't know. The people who have to walk around with their heads in their hands.
Yeah, I don't, no body parts, I don't, I don't off already.
That's not really Halloween. That's just you know shock Yeah yeah, Saw.
Yeah, they're not my style, not for me.
Would you like to play a game?
Speaking of Saw?
I've actually never seen Saw because it scares me a little bit.
That was such a good transition.
Okay, okay, we'll see. Let's try to take two, would you like? And then you say sure, sure, Okay.
There you go.
This is the voice swap game.
Here we go.
So we're gonna do if you're if you're willing, if you're willing, we do this little game every every time we have a guest on where Jim will do a voice, a voice line of one of his iconic characters, say Winnie the Pooh, and then we'll transfer to you and you'll do that same line, but in one of your characters voices, and then we'll switch and do vice versa.
Okay, I'll try to remember, Okay, voices.
Okay, come up with one of your characters, and you know, since we're in a Star Wars groove, I'll throw out some hondo.
Do you think?
Okay, great hondo?
Oh, okay, here we go.
I remember once when he was highly inebriated. Actually I remember like ten times when he was highly inebriated. But this one time he said, well, you know, I may not to be as young as I once was, but i'm older.
Well you know, I may not be as young as I once was, but I am older. That is the very daffy dog one. What did he say? Small? Right?
That was the quickest response we've ever had. Was that was the fastest by far. Most people sit there and they kind of think about it. That was so fast. Yeah, that was good. That was good.
You know what's fascinating about your daffy voice, too, is the fact that yours wasn't tweeked where Mels was.
Yeah, yeah, mine was not pitched. My daffy was that that was my voice.
Yeah, yeah, that's true. I think yeah, Mel's was a little bit was.
Yeah, yeah, more and more so. I think the older too, probably. But Bob Bergen would know.
Bob Bergen wouldn't know. He will know a D and he's got that. But a D but a D down to a science. Well, well we'll get him dragon out of.
The whole workshop. It's like a four week workshop on how to do but a D but a D y.
Yeah, it's a great workshop. Yeah, and when you get out of it, you can do it and uh yeah, okay, that's poorky. Okay, So give us one now, one of one of your uh favorite characters buzz line or catch phrase, and I will have I'll have pooh.
Do it poo, we need the poo.
Okay. In my book, experience out ranks everything.
Well, doesn't have a book, all right, Well we'll see, we'll see what's in my book. Honey, out ranks everything. He would have he would have, Yeah, he would have definitely had a little thrown a little curve.
And then we have to do tazz and tats because I think you're the first person who's voiced one of the same characters.
That's true, that's true.
Yeah, I did. I did Taz the Space Jam that's right, not since I think actually I did an audition for it. I think Ivan Ryman just kind of threw it to me. It says, uh, here you do it.
I remember something we need to And he only had a and that was it.
Just a couple of lines like lemony fresh.
Yeah, lemony fresh, that's the one.
Oh, he would know? All right, Now, do I guess I have to say it? Do I have to say lemony fresh? Yeah? Did you accidentally just do they fresh? Lemony fresh? That I always epunctuated with him.
Because you never know. Awesome?
Can we get an omec from saying Legends of the Hidden Temple? Because I love that show as a.
Kid, Legends off the Hidden Temple with your guide Cook Fog.
Come on, Jim, what are you gonna give us? You're gonna have to say that?
Okay, Legends of the Hidden Temple with your host Kurt Fog.
Did I say the right word?
Yes?
Okay? Good?
I have I have a combo. I have a combo suggestion. I have another suggestion. Here we go Bonkers and Klaus.
Okay, well you know I am the first two detective in the Hollywood Tune Division.
Well you know I am the first true detective in the Hollywood Division Division. Thanks, I turned into you.
That was terrible division. No wait, sorry, anyway, division.
There we go.
Yeah, you can fix that post wherever that is. Oh man, Well very cool. Well, thanks brother, Thank you for coming out today.
Yeah it was. It was a real pleasure. Pontificating endlessly.
Yes, absolutely there.
Well, there were there were some nuggets in there for our budding young friends out there.
I hope there are there are nuggets, right, definitely good, I hope so a lot of one. A real pleasure.
Thanks buddy.
Happy Halloween ladies and gentlemen.
De Bradley Baker come once again, everybody, Thank you for watching another episode of Tuned In with Jim Cummings and today we had d Bradley Baker.
Thank you for joining us.
You're welcome.
Don't forget to like and subscribe. We're almost at one hundred thousand. I'm not going to bother you anymore, so do it. Eighty two percent of you watching are not subscribed, so you need to subscribe to get us there. And thank you of course to our patrons. If you don't know, you can find bonus content on patreon dot com. You can look for Jim Commings podcast over there and get a whole bunch of bonus goodies. As always, I'm producer,
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And bravo, there it is. We did it.