You're watching too good with Jim Comings. Its clears me, but hopefully you're gonna like it.
Do what you did with Kim Coming. How you doing out there? It's me Tigger Duc Wayne Duck. It's me Bunkers keep bobcat.
All right, y'all, did a.
Rate your favorite firefly you desire?
Hold the old knock guy.
My name is Jim Cummings and welcome to tune in.
Thank you so much for being here again.
Due a man. I'd be here every day if you guys would finally would let me know where you're gonna be. But you move around, yeah, you're always on the move. Sure, I'd be like Ed mcmahanson in the corner going yes year.
That on the road, bouncing around. It's been fun though, it's been fun. And honestly, when when you guys were on last year and at the last year last year, at the very end of last year. Yeah, yeah, when you guys were on, that was like probably my favorite location that we've ever had.
I like this one.
This is the new favorite love.
Right, Yeah, that was great. That was great and you know, of course you're in the hotel, you feel like you know, thirst and hell the w.
And you know what they did, you know what the staff did. I don't know if you guys knew this. So that day it was you guys, Ron Pearlman and Shazam.
Zachary Levi Zachary.
Yes, yet it was you three that day.
They recorded all three that day. Wow. Yeah.
And they bought it. The hotel brought a bottle of champagne for every guest because they were so thrilled, really that they were that we were bringing people into the hotel.
You know what, It's beautiful that they did that. But I think, honestly, you know, it's like I kind of you know, car knows this very well. I kind of lived my life, and I think Jim does too. I want to be the guy that people are happy to see walking in and walking out. I don't know that they would do that for everybody, but I think this guy, no, seriously, I think he breeds so much goodwill and he's automatically he's got a part of people's hearts just because of
what he's done. So, you know, it's like the excitement of him being there, and then the people you mentioned being there myself, notwithstanding, they're probably like, oh my gosh, it's it's Jim Cummings with this person. This is the best day ever. Man. You know, like, if if you know people didn't basically sleep with a plush version of you every night, maybe they they do, you know, a
lot of them there, Jim. Jim's one of the only people I know who could walk up to anybody and say, you know, you've probably been sleeping with me for years and yeah.
Well they do bring him to cons they're old and he didn't looking.
I go, oh, that's a that's got a lot of hugs on it.
Jim. I'll say, man, it's you know. What's what's crazy is when I was a kid. I think it explains me being kind of a pack rat. Now. I had a box my my family moved away when I was sixteen, and I had a box. And in that box where all the precious relics that I kept from my being born to when I was sixteen, pictures in school reports and things like that. And in there in that box, which sadly got lost and it broke my heart, was
my Winnie the Pooh. And I slept with Winnie the Pooh from the time I was about four to the time I was about eight. But you know, it was so sweet. I never told you this in all the years we've been palace.
You should totally be getting this.
This is real, this is this is the real stuff. Man. I when you know, my mom said, you know, she said some point she said, do you think you want to keep sleeping with Winnie the Pooh. You know you're gonna to be a big boy. And I said, say what A little little while longer, a little while longer. So the one night came and I go, you know, Mom, I think I think I'm okay to sleep by myself.
You can put Winnie in the chair over there. And she goes, okay, So she picks him up and she's walking away, and no kidding, man, I go, you know what he said, he gets scared in the chair. Just put him at the foot of the bed. So I slept for like another year with Winnie the Pooh. If so facto you right down there between my beautiful That's one of the reasons I love you, man. I love that one of them.
Man, Yes, it's good. I have a question burning in my mind.
First, the first question is your hair looks fantastic and why.
I'm growing it out? Everybody, I'm trying to get like Jesse.
Soon enough, he's going to be a tribute act. It's going to be fair. He'll go out on the road instead of me. It'll be and we're going, right, I mean we're rolling okay, Oh yeah, yeah, we're going. This is it?
Can people see you?
Let me look great? He smells really good to see him. Don't don't bother, but just go over and smell him a little bit. Yeah. You know what's crazy.
Another little way you never know what has been crazy is going to these conventions. I've now started getting noticed at conventions and they're like, oh, your producer, Chris. And I've been walking through you know, center before and people are like, Chris, and I turned around and I don't recognize this person's face at all, and they're like, great to see your body.
And I'm like, what in the world you're here. You're gonna get mister mamoa, mister mamaha, so be careful.
I used to get that a lot in college because I had the law I'm playing football.
I was like, another fifty pounds, dude.
But the question I want to ask you is when in your life did you start dressing so extravagantly Oh my god, that got to be like because I'm picturing I'm picturing a high school Jess.
What did you wear to high school?
Dude?
You know what's funny is my life is divided into like several different like sections. Right, My first section was kid actor Jess and I did when I was a little boy. One of the biggest things, one of the first biggest things I ever did was I was in a major production of Oliver and I played the artful Dodger. Of course you did well, yeah, yeah, it was good. You know Colin's hideous out at home? Oh that that
was me? Right, well, what was fun about that? This is a fun story too, my father and I'm going to get to your answer, but this, whether you use this or not, it's a fun anecdote. My father, Jim knows this because he met my dad, thank goodness, was a very accomplished memusician. Chris. I mean he backed up like some of the legends Judy Garland and Peggy Lee and Franklin him. Of course absolutely, and he had a very distinctive way of talking. And this is yeah, this
is good. This is a good anecdote because what happened was I loved I saw the movie Oliver. You remember that movie with Roby, you know, And I just I was like six or seven, and I'm like, this is the greatest movie I've ever seen. I would watch it over and over. My mom would take me to theater. I'd see it over north And one day I happened to look in the newspaper. I was living in Philadelphia, and it said casting for the national touring production of Oliver.
And this was in the days when if they had kids, they cast them in the individual cities rather than take them around the country. Now they take around the country. And it said looking for babblah blah, the artful dodger, right, and it said must be hang on, I'm trying to remember everything. Must be between five six and five eight, have dance training, this, that and the other as a kid, right, as a kid. And I had none of these things. I think I was about five foot one. I was
just a little kid, you know. And I was eight. And they said between the gag eleven thirteen without with your voice and not having changed yet. And I was like eight years old. And I saw it and it's like big production, and I knew the theater was at the fancy theater in Philadelphia. So I'm going to see my dad. My dad had a very distinctive way of talking where he'd emphasize a random word and it sounded very odd'll illustrate. And he's sitting there reading his own paper.
And I go and I go, hey, Daddy, I said, I have to go to this so I can be the artful dodger. And he goes, let me see that. And now, if you've never met my dad, it's one of my best impressions. I'm sorry they don't have a point of her because this is a good impression. And he looks at the parpent and go, you can't go to this, and I go why not? He goes, you don't have any of the qualifications, because he would even get these words very straight. And I said, I said, wait,
you mean he goes, you don't dance. They want a kid that's five six, you're five to two. You know whatever. He goes, he goes, you're not going to get this, and I said, no, you have to take me so I can be the artful dodger, right, and he goes, you know what, I'm gonna take you, And you know why, I'm gonna take you. And I said, well, I go so you can find out that you're not always gonna get what you want right. And I said, okay, So he took me. Oh that's a chat. Yeah boy, I did.
I got it right. And I'm like and and he's like, like, I couldn't believe that I pulled it up, but I did. And that was my introduction. So I had this this little kind of showbized kid thing and I did TV. I had a Jesse Harnell TV show on local TV. Yeah. Man, it was like, believe it or not, nobody can see it. I would. It was just a local, a local show in Philly. Somebody dig it up, Somebody send you out there. I know you can find it. We'll get that into
the Smithsonian. That would be freaking great. Man. The only way could have been better is if he was on him. But I digress. It was like an American idol for kids, and I would introduce all these kid acts and they compete. They'd win like five hundred bucks in the finalist would win a thousand or something.
And how old are you now?
I'm nine? Okay, And I got really good reviews. The all everything was funny and by the way I was shorter than the kid who played Oliver, because the whole dynamic was they wanted the boy to be taller than Oliver, but I was shorter and it went really really well anyway, So I'm doing that. I have the Jesse Harnell Show, and I'm thinking, this is my life. But then I was when I was fourteen years old. When I was fourteen years old, I went to like it was a
kiss concert. Maybe I was younger, maybe twelve or something, and I saw these guys and there's fire blowing up and there's all these lights and there's a lot of girls screaming, and I went, that seems like a good jazz. So I couldn't exactly circling back to your question of forty five minutes ago, Chris, I couldn't exactly go to school dressed in armor and dragon boots. But I could raise my mom's closet and find scarves and like vests and stuff like that that fit me.
So you were doing that in high school.
But it's gonna get much more dangerous because what happened was man. So I always sort of did it, I mean because I like it, and in fact, all you kids there I met a lot of you guys on the road, and kids ask me about about the clothes and stuff like that, and I always tell them, I say, look, you know, I said, I always the way I figure it is if everybody else is wearing the same stuff and that's covered and I can do my own thing. And I tell them that you can do your own
thing too. Doesn't have to be this as long as you're being true to who you are. It's a beautiful thing, right And kids sometimes say, they go, well, what if people don't like it? And I go, well, here's the good news. The people that don't like it aren't the people who are supposed to like it, and the people who do like it are your people and they'll find you. So it's awesome. But the clothes thing, that the clothes
thing took a huge leap when I met this one. Okay, it was it was like this, and then it mushroomed into this gigantic explosion in my life. And because she's a certified stylist, Kara is so many good things, but she's an amazing stylist. Basically with the clothes. I won't use fell language, but I kid you not. She at the beginning of each week. At the beginning of each week, we have a clothing rack and she hangs up my outfits for the week with her outfits for the week
next to each other on hangers. Shirt, trousers, jacket, if a jacket is we weren't coordinated color.
Yeah, you see the fabrics, look at that.
It's it's just and they have to be customed right just far away.
From ma and mind.
I'm so glad, you know what, because she looks better than me and whatever.
Yeah, I'm telling you, man, he's a sexy got No, it's like she just because you love you love the stuff just as much as me.
Yeah, I do.
I love like fabrics and playing with different colors and different patterns, and Jess is just cool enough to be able to pull it up.
I tell people I'm her man Akin what I did see that? Man?
I was in Tokyo last year and I texted you guys and there was literally like the coolest like sequince suit and literally like I saw it in the window and I was I need that. My mind raced. We got to go back, We got to go texted you for your sizes and what do you know, in Japan, they didn't have anywhere near your side.
Oh no, no, yeah, we don't have one of like twelve year old children. No, it's amazing. Another very This is a very quick anecdote, but it's true. Before I met car I was single for a few years and I was just kind of, you know, searching the world
with a telescope, looking for my girl. And I would go shopping and all these fashion guys in these manufacturers that I know, and they'd have like a girl's dress or a girls this or a girl's that, and I'd say, yeah, I'm gonna get all this stuff from me and let me have that dress. And they go, oh, you got a girlfriend. I go nah, and they go oh okay, and I go, no, no, no, it's not for me. I said, this is this is she's this is for her when I when she comes, and they go, well,
how do you know she's gonna like it? She didn't like it, And I kid you not. If she hadn't, if she'd shown up and this wasn't her, stop all this stuff, I would have been We'll give it to somebody else. But when we met, I said, I've been buying you clothes for four years. She said, I said, oh my goodness, I love this, I guess, and she started wearing all this stuff and it's like it was so cool.
I had like every single color like that was starting point, that was the base, and then it just true.
Is that nuts? That is crazy? I know. Man.
We dressed like this separately though, Like when I lived in London, I still dressed this way. Like when we met for the first time in person at the airport, we kind of looked at each other and went, ah.
Yeah it is it was. It was worth the way. Oh that's good stuff. But isn't a cool because stylistic it is, we cut from the same cloth.
Chris, again, there's plenty more of that.
No, I love it. I love it. I love seeing you guys on the road. You guys are always so cute together.
Thank you. Man. Well, that's another funny thing, dude. This is gym will related to this, you know, when we're out there.
Very jingly with this is this.
Okay, it's fine, it's Christmas, we're coming up on the holidays. This is great. What was funny is if we don't do this right, like let's say, if we do a can or something like that, and we don't show up dress.
Similarly, Yeah, if I'm like wearing pink and he's in green.
They're like, you guys aren't like counseling. So we did.
It once, like I wanted to wear like this neon fusia pink thing and Jesse didn't.
Right, well, you know, look great.
Now we have to get him some because he was wearing wanted to wear and you wasn't. You was in blue or something.
And you remember we went for lunch and they were like you guys okay, and we were.
Like, there's whispers. So now we're like, oh, we got to make sure because you know what else is very sweet man. It's a lot of people, Jim. You know, they'll come to our table and we'll catch up and they'll say, well, I said, so can I you know what do you need this? No, I'm good man, I really just wanted to see what you guys were wearing. It's like it's taken on a light. It's wonderful and it is fun. Man. It's like it's like we got a lot of crayons.
Okay, and follow follow up question because I know the people are wondering. I'm looking out for you guys. He is see around the house. You're chilling. It's Sunday, COVID. What are you wearing around the house?
Same thing?
You're not getting all dressed up, just sit around the house. Well, okay, you you don't own any sweatpants. I do because like rostones on them and stuff. Dude, I'll send you a picture, you know what, you know we'll do. We'll send you some of our casual work, even inserted into this.
Puzzle people kid, and I'll show you. Please do. I don't want to show that because this is this is basically it.
We just we But you mentioned COVID. I'm just gonna say something wrong. When when COVID was happening and we.
Were just kind of I forgot, Yeah, this is good in the house.
We still caes.
Also the cages she does after midnight.
Man, my funny accent, isn't it.
Sorry?
No, we still had like the Friday night date night, but we would get fully dressed up. We were going out, like Jesse came in the sequin blazer and the jackets and everything, and we'd have like we still have dinner.
She'd make dinner and we'd pick it up someplace and bring it home and we'd like candles and sit there. Yeah, we did dress up big halloweeners. Oh yeah, we like Halloween.
Do you have a costume for this year?
Well? See, our Halloween plans kind of got to rail because we did have costumes, and she'll tell you what they were.
But no, when does this come out?
No?
Yeah, but it doesn't matter. But but what happened was we had these costumes, but then something else came up the same night we were planning to go to Halloween party stuff, and we had to like rethink it because the costumes we had required more time. She was going to be like a sexy Jason from Friday the thirteenth, and that was like a heavy metal Freddy Krueger, and she was going to do our makeups and stuff like that.
But now, so we had to get something that we could change into really quick because we're coming in front of a formal.
Doing like a boat party thing, so we couldn't be like Freddy Kruger on the.
So tell them what we're going to be because it kind of sizes the whole thing in a bow. Yeah, bo like you know, kind of puts a ribbon.
On you mean cat.
No, that's another story.
So we're going to be in something like this for the boat party, right, and then we need something that we can change into in the car to get out.
And right, by the way, they're talking about a Lamborghining. Well it's a stolen one, but it's a you know, and we found it.
So they've got like they've got the seats are molded onto them anyway, Yeah, they're molded into that.
By the way. Best thing about that car, folks, I want you to know. It has nothing to do with prestige or the title of the car or how fast it goes. It has to do with this. Hey man, can you pick me up at the airport? Dude, I'd love to No trunk space, they can't do it. Go ahead, who are we're going to be?
We pull it over our outfits because we were like, we can't get changed. Probably we just needed something to pull over. So we've got the outfits and it's pea pods.
Gonna be piece of Yeah, I've heard of them in the pod. It's gonna be nice.
Well inside a picture, so you don't think I'm crazy. It's really cool.
Yeah, it's gonna be. It's gonna be cute. It's still us and we can do it in thirty seconds. I'm gonna I'm going to go on record and be a hater.
I don't like that. Caution. I want to see a picture, yeah.
One of us, because we got to picture the costume. But you gotta wait, I got to fill it out.
You guys have to send me a picture.
It'll be good. Change my mind because right now I'm going to be a hater. Yeah, funny, I understand, I get it, man, But I think that when you see it, well, then the other thing is we might be it might be I.
Don't know how we're going to.
Say, and we can't live it up, like yeah, you're like you're walking around like a pea pod. But you know it's gonna.
Be Welcome everybody to another episode of Tuned In with Jim to We have Jessic Carrall Carnell. Yeah, and and it's been a great time already and we're going to dive right into it.
Yeah, where is right? You know what's awesome, man, is it's like doing this Honestly, is it even like doing an interview? This is like hanging out with my pal for my whole life and my new palam of a couple of years ago, and it's just comfortable. It doesn't feel like, uh, you know, well the next question, Yeah, you know, it's not. It's just it's just does hanging well.
That's the great thing about a podcast, right, It's like a discourse. It's like very good lax. And it's interesting too, Like of all the guests, I think we're we're in the seventies now of the amount of guests that we put on.
Congratulations guys.
Yeah, and almost one hundred things, almost one hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube.
Too fantastic.
It's like, busy, make it happen with this one. We're at ninety seven thousand. Let's just get three thousands subs right now. Two percent of you aren't even subscribed. So if you subscribe right now, then we'll make it happen. And that's all because of you.
Guys. Let me, how can I want how can you not want? Him to be happy? He's we do need the freaking pood dude, get busy, come on.
What he said, Yeah, no, it is great. And what I was saying is like some of the some of the guests we have on. It's interesting too because like this podcast kind of format, you know, this medium is kind of new, you know, to like at least popular culture.
Yes, and a lot of people.
You know, will you know, when we're in talks of booking them on the show, they're like, Okay, well can I have the questions in advance? And it's like, no, it's it's a discussion. It's very casual. It's very you know, you're almost getting to know somebody in this forum. You know, it's it's we want it to seem like a discussion between two people, not like you know, not like Katie Curic, you know, like a b C. Here's the agenda, you know, let's see where it goes. And if we don't get
to anything, come back on. You know why I'm not going.
I hope to be a frequent visitor because it's so much fun. And I'll tell you what you just said is very interesting, Chris, because what it sort of does. And I mean no disrespect to the folks who want to work that way. I understand their feelings, of course, but and I'll throw this over to Jim and to get your thoughts on it. Man. One one little kind of ground rule that I have for voiceovers that I've
had for years and years and years. When we talk about voiceovers, people say, how do you know when you really have a character down, like do you when? Is
it like second nature? And I said, A character is second nature when I can sit down with you and you can talk to me for fifteen minutes and I'll be that character with no script, no pre arranged stuff at all, and I'll know exactly what to say or how to react to whatever you throw at me right when you're very very So it's almost like maybe guys who want the questions in events haven't really found their
own character. Yeah. I don't know, no offense to them, but it's like it's yeah, you know, because because when we have our guys down, I know I could talk to Jim as Tigger for half an hour. Yeah you know, it would be well, you know.
And often when we get and I credit you with the this answer as well, because they'll say, well, what you know being a voice actor is this, and and I remember years ago, and I've given you credit every time.
Thank you.
I said, yeah, Well, when it comes to being a voice actor, small V capital A, that's it, you know, and so you know, and and they say.
Well you do voices, you do? You do voices, blah blah blah voice voice voice voice voice.
Yeah, and I go, yeah, but okay, how.
Never, ye what what I what I feel like I'm doing is I'm a character actor.
I'm a I do characters. That's just how they sound when they talk. Wow. I love that. Yeah, that's okay, that's that's it. That's really it.
Yeah.
My my version of that, I think I like yours a little better is I say that it's not about doing funny voices. It's about creating believable characters with your voice. But what you said is actually more heartwarming. And it's like, you know, you're a good example of it, because no, because seriously, it's like it's like, you know, I think that nostalgia aside the we need the Pooh thing in particular, Uh, there's so much heart when you do well, no, you
know what I mean. And it's like there are people God bless them, you know, who do that impression and and oftentimes it's a very good impression, but there's no you did. You know. It's it's like there's no foundation of love and soul has the soul dude, that's it. And that helps because he's he is a soul man, I mean, Jim, absolutely soul. So so yeah, right, I mean, isn't that true. It's like it's like, that's that's what it comes down to, and it's not it's not about
doing funny voices. It's about being believable, knowing your stuff and being able to answer questions and a character. I know really well is this one so you can ask me anything. That's right, that's right. I'm real good at being me. Man. Yeah, I'm the second best atage.
That's a beautiful thing and it's very true. It's very very true. Like I said, like you said, small v capital a, that's it money all the way.
And you know, for all you guys out there hoping to do it, good news is that you can get better, you know what I mean. At those things. Then the way to become a good actor is to act. And if you you know, look into community theater, look into classes, look into things like that, because there's something near everybody. And another really good thing that we didn't have so much when we were coming up. We used to record ourselves. Remember cassettes Jim, Oh yeah, I used to.
We still have a ton of them in the office. He's gone, like a ton of these cassettes.
Yeah, oh yeah, And I'd get a call to Jim to do fill in the blank, you know, can you do so Alan Arkin or something? And I'd go and I'd find a VHS of an Alan Arkin movie and put it in the thing and stand there and look for a good scene. Hold my cassette up. Go like this, you know, and like and like be in the car listening to this little cassette and parroting it, parrotting it until I had it. Go to the gig, do the gig, and promptly forget how to do it. Well. Now, there
are so many tools that you can use. Guys. You can use YouTube to find things. You can do an exercise like a really quick great vo exercise if you've never tried it and you don't eat anybody but yourself. A phone and a remote control. Turn on your TV. Okay, have the MU and pressed press record on your phone, unpressed the mute. Listen to what's going on with the TV for about five seconds. Mute it again. Repeat exactly what was just on the TV. Try to sound as
much likely as you can. Change the channel. Do it again. Do this ten times. Not only will you get an awesome head rush at the end of it. When you when you turn it off, you're gonna find out, Wow, I can kind of do a Scottish accent. I didn't know I could do that, And wow, I do the worst impression ever of John Malkovich. But that's kind of a cool new voice I just saw. And you you get done with that stuff, you will find out stuff you never thought you could do. So there you go.
That's right, that's well said, exactly really yeah, And also as far as the acting thing, read things, you know, record things and read them, and you listen back to them. Forget that it's you, and ask yourself, now, if I heard that, would I think somebody was reading it to me? Or was somebody was talking to me? And if it sounds like somebody was reading it to you, keep doing it until it doesn't. It is perfect all she wrote there it is man, drop them like boo. Yes, no, that is so true. Right.
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And I remember years ago you were playing everyone's one of I gotta believe it's everybody's favorite character in the Wizard of Oz and you were the Cowardly Lion, and I remember seeing pictures of you and and it was I think it was an interior Ontario somewhere in the end of the Empire. Yes it was, and I was like, damn, I can't get out there for some reason or another. And I guess you just crushed it. And do you love the stage too well? I mean, obviously playing rock and roll on Rock.
And Roll show, that's and that's as you know, and as you've done, that's that's the court. That's the foundation of everything that I do mean in the voiceover stuff, Jim, and it definitely applies to you. I think one of our secret weapons and a lot of our friends out there who we work with have the same thing is being a singer helps so much and As far as being on stage, I always said, I said that I
like like theater. I really enjoyed doing theater. But I've never been partial to haircuts, so I can really only play a pirate Jesus or the cowardly Lion. Therefore, I love I've done Jesus for Jesus Christ. Super I was gonna say, you've got you're two out of three? Yeah, three, bro and the cowardly line. You know the sweetest thing about that, Jim, It's just it's just magic to me, man, It's like it's a there's a question I got for you.
And then seg way back, did you like or have a relationship with Winnie the Pooh before you became Winnie the Pooh?
Was I knew you were aware of it, but did it have well, yes and no, my younger brother Terry did. Okay, And and gosh, I think I've told this before, but it's a terrible.
Now to me, please, but it was.
You know, this is obviously in the the original in the whenever that was in the sixties. Yeah, And he would watch it on Disney whatever, you know, the world of Color.
The wonderful, the wonderful World of Color. Yeah, And I said, do.
You know, WINNI the poo.
You know what poo is, don't you? You know what poo is?
If you take that h off, it's pooh.
We need a poop. We need a poop.
And and he brought that up years later and he goes, okay, yeah, hey, we need pop.
And said, yeah, okay, you're in the House of Boo built man. Yeah see that. Let me get this, Okay, I feel better now.
Wow.
So well, the reason I ask you the question is because, seriously, bar none, I've I've you know, I've been so blessed so many times in my career by so many things, and one of them was my all time favorite movie is The Wizard of Us. Right. I think, to me, it's like the most perfect movie there's ever been. I'm so glad they haven't really tried to redo it but have just let it be its thing, right, And the cast was so perfect, and I grew up with it.
Every year, at Easter, Thanksgiving, whatever it was, my family would sit down in front of the couch and we watched, you know, we watched The Wizard of Oz and everything. And one of the first voices I ever learned to do was the cowardly Lion. So not only as it happened did I end up playing it in a in a big musical production of it, which was very good
and a very nice memory. But I became the official voice of the Lion for all like the Warner Brothers ancillary products and for Wizard of Oz show revivals and cartoons and stuff like that. And it's so cool because every time I'm on I'm like, can I stop doing this? I got happy and saw it all. It's it's just like, you know, yes, you know, it's like it's like it's just.
Like I remember that, I thinking that was the damnest lion whar I ever heard?
Oh? But just because what is it? Yeah, it's not even yeah.
It was he.
Is there a so that that voice has to come from the original, right, Well yeah, you know in my in my mind, and it's it's sort of okay.
A really good parallel to draw to that is it's like, you know, there are certain things like this this beatle thing that Jim and I worked on recently. It comes to mind too. It's the same kind of thing. There's certain things. My band Rock Sugar is all about taking stuff that you're really familiar with and making it new, making doing new things with it, doing these mashups and
creating something new out of it. But with the Cowardly Lion, when they said here's the audition, right, and that said, you don't you you may or may not do an impression of Burtlar, you know, and I'm like, look, man, you know, I know I could create something with this that would be different, but that was perfect, Like like I could grade something that was pretty good, but that's perfect. So if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do that as a tip of the hat. I mean, I give
him full credit, you know. And it's like it's like if when Jim does we need the poo, he embodies, we need the pooh, and if he you know, well, I'm gonna put I'm gonn I'm gonna change it. You know. It's like saying, no, man, it's not and he and he does it. He takes it to another level. But he's he's faithful to what people's Yeah, I think you have to be yeah, you know, and sometimes sometimes they
do that, they bring things back. I won't mention any names, but you know, we've been involved in in reboots of shows, and so many Arthur was that was safe too? Yeah water, yeah, but yeah, they didn't take that seriously handle have it with that. It's terrible anyway, you like the original he's talking about the talking about the Yeah, it wasn't. It's a whole other show y see, well should that says it?
But no, it's like it's it's like there's certain things that are that are that are classic and perfect and you don't, you know, don't repaint the mona Lisa Man the yeah you were, you were?
You mentioned your experience on Abbey Road, like, Jim, do you want to talk about that a little bit forever?
Yeah?
The audience, the audience, what did you guys do?
Well, what did we do? I sat there and it just was overwhelmed. That's what I did. But but no, well you recorded that a road.
Did recorded recorded three songs because because because the world is round, that was that was very intricate harmonies me, Jim and Robert unbelievable. And then no reply that was a due It was a good one. And then you know, this is terrible because I remember singing songs with you there that we didn't sing.
Yeah, we were just I remember I just I can go through them. I can go through all these songs, you know, And did we do that? Wee, No, we didn't do that. We kind of feels like but it feels like we did.
And I gosh, again, I give myself goose bumps when I think when I when I recall this with this man, um, you know, it was magical. And I'll tell everybody, you know, we're going through these songs and you know, you walk in and go, wow, this is Ivy Road.
Yeah, Beatles, Beatles recorded here. Wow. Okay, yeah, that smells.
Like the Beatles, you know, and you're just going through and you know I was there, Margaret was there, you know, we were all.
There, and we made her sing too, by the way, Yes we got her exactly right.
And somebody said something about blisters on their face.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we had a special guest RINGO. I'll I'll throw in a bit of a bit of back context that I'll throw backward to Jeniffer. You guys, so you understand what's happening here. It's like, so, okay, my all time favorite band, Jimmy is who is your all time favorite musical artist? Is it the Beatles? The Beatles?
Okay, so I always say, no, I think you're asking me who my second one is, Okay, because okay it's the Beatles, and now we can talk.
Okay, Yeah, God got it, Yes, perfect, I see exactly what you're saying. Well in my musical background, Chris, because I definitely that's the biggest part of my background is music, and I always tell people I break it down like this. The Beatles taught me how to write a song. Steve Perry taught me how to sing a song, and Kiss taught me how to perform a song. Because it's like when I was a kid, those are my influences, but the Beatles to occupy a very special place in my
heart and in my life. Right. My first memory as a child was my big brother Jeff, holding my hands up and dancing with me. I saw her standing there. I was wearing a diaper, but I can still I described the room to my mom and she's like, you were like not even one years old when we were there. I said, yeah, but I remember the washing machine and she's like, and there's no pictures, so it was very strange.
So the Beatles have just always been this enormous thing in my life and in Jim's as well, and then probably lots and lots of you guys. Well, my beautiful wife is from the UK and I've taken a lot of trips over there, and I would routine go to Abbey Road, which is the studio that the Beatles recorded
like ninety two percent of everything they ever did. And of course the famous crosswalk from the album cover is there, the zebra crossing is there, and people go and they take pictures, and of course there's the building right So every time I was there, Chris, I'm like, I want to see Studio two saw Yeah, yeah right there, say say say this is what I'm talking That's the zebra crossing right there, folks. So I wanted so bad to go into studio too, because that's where they did all
this stuff. And I'm talking about that's where they did their test to get their record deal and where they recorded the last song they ever did together in that room. So it's just like all these books. So and I always walk up and I walk in and I try to be my most pleasant and my most friendly and my least scary and go, hey is it you know, it would it be possible just to kind of pop my head into the studio two and just maybe lick the floor for a minute or whatever, and you know,
and they'd be like, I'm so sorry. I say, it is a working studio. We do a lot of tools, and we do get ask client off and kind loud, and I'm like, okay. And one day she says to me, she goes, what if it's a wedding studio, why don't you rent it? And I went, wow, there you go. Yeah, see you wait a minute and I went, I see
where you're going. Yeah, And I'm like, I have a check book to right, So booked it, booked it a year out, okay, and you know when it might have been yeah, And you know, when you when you have an event like that where they go wedding or some big trip or whatever, it's very far off. You don't really think about it too much. But I knew it was there. I knew I wanted him there. I knew I wanted Pauls in there, my our buddy Rob Paulson, who was also there with us. But I was like, okay, well,
it's far off enough. I don't think about it. But then as it started getting closer. Right now, it's three months out, and I'm like, oh, why should probably think about what songs I want to do because they have a whole lot of songs. So I made my list. My list had over one hundred on them. I thought, well, it's a busy day. Those were says. Those were just my favorites out of the two hundred and ninety two or whatever it is that they So I'm like, okay,
I've got to cut that down. And as I cut it down, one of my real criteria to Cuttage Gym, I think I told you this was I wanted to focus on the fact of not so much just the big hits, but how diverse their songwriting was. And a good way to point that out, a really good way to point that out to you is they they did I Want to Hold Your Hand, okay, which is like one of the best pop songs of all time. Right,
Oh yeah, tell you something. They clap in hands, right, and it's just as happy and poppy as can be. Three years later, they were doing let Me Take You Down, because it's like a totally different freaking man in three years. So I thought, well, I want to focus on that. So I picked credible growth, right, just amazing, I said, I want to shine the spotlight on how much these guys grew and how almost unrecognizable they were to the
former iteration of themselves. So put these song lists together, right, get the tracks together, because I knew I couldn't track stuff over in there. I only had ten hours to sing on this, and we rent the room. We show up there at ten in the morning, meet the engineer, really really nice guy named Paul Pritchard, had everything so
nice for us. But walking into the room and I'll get to my friend's experience in a moment, was such a trip, you guys, because it's like, it's not just the room where they were my favorite band of all time, and again music has been the driving force of my life from my entire life, recorded everything. It's basically unchained, it's changed. It's also the room where the writer of
the song. It doesn't work like it like it does now because now you know, if I write a song, I can put it together on my computer, send it to you, say, hey, Jim, put some drums on this. You send it back and I go, you know what, give me more of a fill there and okay, change the backing goes. When the Beatles worked the Beatles worked exactly like this, and I'm not even kidney. They'd be like, all right, fellas, we need a song for the movie tomorrow,
so you've got to come up with something. We're thinking, you know, and Ringo say, well, it's been on Holidays night today, and John goes, Holiday's nine. That's a good idea. And he went back, literally went home, picked up an acoustic came in the next day. I went great, goes like this, Mom is man a houndays, and he's teaching the guys the song in this room. Then they're recording
it in this room. That room, right, Okay. So I walk in there and I know it real real well, Chris, It's like I've never been in it, but I've been in it my whole life. I know exactly where they used to set up. Ringo's drums were there. I mean then as years went by they would move keyboards and things to different places. I knew where they recorded that. I knew where Paul sat when he did Blackbird. I knew everything. I'm like ray Man in that room. I
know everything, every detail. So here I am in this room and I'm going to sing these songs, right, and the engineer comes down. He goes, right, well, how many songs are you thinking of doing? And I said, I'm shooting for twenty one and he goes, well, no, you'd have to be Superman what. And I'm like, I'm like, no, we're gonna do it, dude, We're gonna do it. And
we did. We did do it. And what was amazing is midway through the day, Jimmy shows up and you know, I've known Jim and loved Jim for years and years and years, shows up and he got choked up. He started, he got like tears in his yes, and he was he had to take a second just because of the history. And they haven't changed the gym, you know that, it's just like.
It was exactly.
And I was there for like twenty minutes and and and it just slowly washed over me. You know, I'm walking down the steps and I go, oh, those are the steps, Yeah, stupid stuff, you know.
And that look, oh wait.
That that's oh oh the door, those doors to the echo chamber, the echo chamber, and John was sitting right there there there and then I'm going, yeah, me too, again.
And I just welled up.
But I just started tearing up, and I said I'm looking overcome.
Yeah, I don't know what to do with myself. I know, And there was there was a moment and do you want to show him? You want to show him?
Are you?
Yeah? There was a moment. This this is one of my favorite moments. So now this is not this is not a sales pace. This is just a I made a CD and a DVD and you can find it at rocksugar band dot com. We were not playing on selling a ton of them. But if you if you want to check it out, I guarantee you the songs will give you some great memories of both then and now. There are some amazing moments, isn't it on the rock it's a digital download. Yeah, but you can get the
video as well on the download. And the best part my wife here, who I never knew was such a good documentarian, you neither. She filmed a making of video and you basically get to go through the whole day with us.
You see us arrived, getting literally in the hotel room.
Yeah, but don't get any ideas it starts. It starts the day off.
Going into the lift downstairs elevator, Yeah, the elevator, and then yeah, getting into the cab getting there and shows Jimmy arriving. Captures a really sweet moment. Actually I won't give it away, but it's between these two when Jesse's singing and Jimmy's watching.
It's really cool.
There's a lot of money. It's but one of my favorite things is there's a song. Okay, it's a it's an old Beatles songs from like nineteen sixty four, and it's called No Reply, and I always loved it because it has these amazing two part harmonies that are deceptively simple, but that's what makes them not simple. And jim walk in and he's looking around. He's literally it's on the video. You'll see this. He's he's looking around, and I go, hey, man,
let's sing this. And I start singing it and he turns to the mic and he sings it with me and Chris, I kid you not. We never We never, straight up man. We didn't rehearse it, we didn't go on and and it was like, I've finished the rehearsal and I'm like, we didn't. We should have recorded that. There was not even any music.
It was amazing.
Yeah. Yeah, So that's it's on the DVD. So that said, we're gonna sing it to you. Yeah, he had that'll serenade you. The only way this could be more romantic is if we were standing underneath your window at night, but then your neighbors.
I just want to insert a little personal anecdote speaking of documentaries and music studios. I'm a big fan of the rapper The Game, and he recorded his platinum selling album the documentary right next door in this in this build, in this building, right next door. I have not been there. I knowed right next door.
No, you gotta go.
Yeah, because and you'll see it when you're walking out. On the wall they have the platinum plaque addressed to the studio.
See. I love that. And we both have had the experience, I know, Jim has I mean, I've recorded in Capital studios, were recorded, you know, we recorded all these places. I recorded in the room where they did, you know, Hotel California, where the egos did. It's a cool feeling. It's cool for me, dude. This this was like, okay, this was like this is Mecca, a devout Cathy getting the sleep in the pope's bedroom without the obvious we're going to keep you appropriate, but it's like it was like. It
was like we're in the headquarters. Man. Oh yeah, okay, zero serenade. You want to hear this grind zero?
Everybody does?
All right? I got to put on our beetle hats. Are you ready? I got on that killing me because he bought me that hat and I almost wore it today and I should have, but I'm I'm wearing at other times we got cutie.
Looks all right, here we go?
You ready, bro? Here we go? All right, here we go.
This happened was before when I give to your told no reply, They.
Said it wasn't you. But I saw you picked through your window.
I saw the lad. I saw the lad.
I know that sees on me because it's up to see your face.
M I tried to telephone, they sent you one. Not home.
That's a lie, yeah, buddy, because out of the where you've been and I saw you walk in.
You won't do.
Honeyly died.
Honeyly died.
Because you walked hand in hand with another man in my place.
My favorite part right here. If I were you, I'd realize that I love you more than.
Any other God, and I forgive the lie said.
Heard before? Will you gave me no reply.
Wow, I try to telephone. They said you were at home, but that's a longe because I know where you've been and I saw you walk.
In your dord. Honey, it died, honiy died.
Because you are tanding hands with another man in my place. No reply, no reply?
Come on, DN, you see what I'm saying. You're seeing that show solo. Come up. That's how it's done, ladies and gentlemen only right. But we were an abbey road then I gotta tell you.
Just it's so good you guys. You took me right back.
Good good, well, I mean, doing that with you, it's just it's just it's like my It warms my heart in so many ways because the song has been a part of my life forever. Doing it with you, hearing you sing so good, it's just like, man, life is good, bro.
And it's always good when you have the right words. I'm a big fan of actual lyrics. I didn't sneak one Yellow submarine and they're just to screw you up, right, But how cool was that?
See what I'm saying.
That was so cool.
And that's just like a microcosmic example.
When you sing, what's it like singing with your natural voice versus imitating or playing a character.
Wow, that's a good question. I am okay. That harkens back to when I did this record. I didn't set out to do like Beatle impressions, you know what I mean. It's like, but I did keep very faithful again because I'm like, well, you can't really improve on profess. Yeah, I can't fight it. Yeah, right, you know you'll do John Spot All right, I'll do Jones. That's a great idea. Great, it's good, but it's part of your DNA. And it's like, I don't know. That's a really good question.
But the reason I asked is because we just had Hankazaria on the podcast, and right now he's doing a tour of singing, but as Bruce Springsteen, he's like doing like he's not singing, just cover. He's like covering in an imitation.
Yeah.
And he said he feels so much more comfortable and has throughout his whole career imitating even when he's acting, he feels like he has to put on a voice or you know, like imitate something because he feels so self conscious in his own skin.
Wow, that he feels weird.
Performing as himself and he wanted to challenge himself. He's turning sixty or he just turned sixty, and he wanted to challenge himself with something vocally, And so he spent months and months and months learning how to sing like Bruce Springsteen. And now he's doing two shows a month, two shows a month.
That's performing as around the country. Yeah. In answer, he's got that screen doors flaying, he's got all that.
That's sort of so, I guess I bring that up to bring context to the question that I just asked you, was how mentally, how does that feel for you singing a character versus singing in an impression versus singing in your true voice?
It's great?
What's what's the difference?
It's a great question. And man, you know, it's like I always tell people that we all become amalgams of the people who've influenced us.
Right, Yes, you have no problem in singing it's yourself.
Oh no, I'm not.
I'm not. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. But it's it's like, you know, when okay, it's it's like in my development as a singer, Chris, which I was long before I was a voiceover actor, I was like, well, you know my biggest influences. It's like, I really loved Steve Perry. I used to I used to practice all Steve Perry's stuff and all his runs and all his things and do that. I also loved Robert Plant of led Zeppelin, and I love To Henley of the Eagles.
So it's like when I sort of became myself vocally, I'm like cross between Steep Perry, rob and Don Henley of the Eagles. Right, it's a damn fine, it's a nice it's not a bad recip. That's not a bad resume, man. But you know what's cool is it's like we all kind of if we're really blessed, we all kind of find our lane and we get to drive in it, you know. And it's like the rock Sugar thing, which is the biggest six I mean my I had original bands here in l A. And we had major success
on a very local level. Like we had the Loud and Clear, We had the attendance record at the Whiskey for that year, we had the attendance record at the Palace in Hollywood for that year, more people. We drew a ton of people, but we never well and I think you invented mash up, well, live mashups kind of. I mean to anybody who it's you man, well and it's Chucky Durant. Yeah, but it's it's like, what's cool
is mash ups? You know DJ's have been doing those for years, and then we thought, well, we'll do live mashups. You know, we'll take we'll take a metal song like an anthem, usually with the you know, the top of the right now, but we do mashups of eighties metal with eighties pop, and we do them live, right, We don't. It's not records. It's not a guy spinning records. And then thank you man. Jimmy's been with us for some of those things. But it took off. And what's funny
is with rock Sugar. I reflected on it later and I thought, you know, this is such a great vehicle for me because before I became a singer, I think jim knows this, he might not, or before I became a voiceover actor, my primary income was being a session singer and my calling card, my secret weapon, if you will, that I had at that time was the ability to
imitate singers. And there was something that was very in Vogue at the time called sound Alikes, and I was interviewed like five times on Entertainments and I remember Entertainments on Night. Jim, I'm sure you've been on that about doing sounds because it was really cool because there was like a legal loophole, and what it was was, Okay, we got this TV show. The year is nineteen ninety two. When we got this TV show, we want to use
guns N' Roses song? Okay, guns N' Roses. If you're going to use that record once a quarter of a million dollars to license that record. Well wait, there's fine print here. If we record a new track and happen to hire a guy who sounds like actual Rose, we can do it for five thousand dollars. Let's do that.
Yeah.
Well I did more of those than anybody I did. I did like literally before I became a voice over actor, I did hundreds of these sellers.
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My biggest That one time when you've got to tell this, to tell this story, do you remember that one time when you told me that your dad called you up and said, can.
You sound like this guy? Yeah, well you had to run to the record store.
Well, my father, my father. I'll tell an abbreviated version of it because we don't want to have a mini series, but I'll give you a quick I'll give you the quick version of it. My dad was doing the music my first sound like job ever, Jim. He was doing the show for music for a show called Shadow Chasers, which was about guys chasing supernatural phenomena. And he had told me my father didn't like anybody's music unless he had something to do with it, Chris, unless he was involved. Yeah.
So one day he was in the car and he was bitching about something. He goes, do you know this little bastard, the Prince. I'm like the Prince all right, And I'm like the prince of what. He goes, there's a singer, the Prince. I go, I go, you mean prince?
He goes, god's it goes got this song. He wants to charge half a million to do the song. And that's even for a sound like an what's the sound like? He goes, you know, it's where you'll hire the guy. And he comes in and he sings like the visuals and I go, Dad, I can do that.
Yeah right, And he goes. He goes, you feeling. I been doing that since I was I've done great news. So he goes, he goes, this is this is Glen so yeah. Yeah, so he calls me up. He goes, he goes, he calls me up like a week later, and I answered the phone and I have music crank and this is my full rock and roll days. I was living bo like the other guy's in the band and in this terrible apartment and music's blaring and I pick up the phone. I'm like hello, and he goes,
turn the music down, So like, turn music down? Okay, Dad, what's up? He goes, can you sing the Heat song by Glenn Fries and sound exactly like Glenn Fries? So I'm doing mental calculations and I'm like, the heat is on by Glenn Fry. I go, I go, yeah, I can do that. He goes, don't say yeah. I go. He goes, have you tried, and I go no. When he goes, then don't say and I go no, But I think I know I can do it. It's easy, right, and he goes, he goes, here's what we're gonna do.
He goes, go to the go find out if you can sing that. I'm gonna call you back in thirty minutes, and they I'll want you to sing it to me. And I'm looking at the fact I don't have the record. This is before YouTube. I'm thinking, Okay, the record store is ten minutes up the street. Maybe I can go buy the forty five forty five get home. And so I did this. I'm racing because I know my father if I could, if he.
Was he was on and he said he meant.
He met thirty minutes. Okay, So I get it. I'm listening to it. I'm writing down frantically the first verse of the song. He calls me that the phone rings right, hello, let me hear it right, And I'm like, okay. So I start, I put the record and it's no. I hear him again. He goes, turn the music up. I go to because he goes, I don't want to hear the record. I've heard the record. I want to hear you. I said, well, like a cappella. He goes, yes, acapella, right,
and I go. I go okay, so I sing it to him same the first verse, total silence, and one chorus total silence. Then because it's my dad, and he goes, hm hmm right, He goes, all right, can you be at Warner Brothers tomorrow morning sharp eight? And I go eight o'clock. Go dad, that's really early, he goes. He goes, don't give me that. He goes, this isn't you jumping around and spends at the roxy. He goes this, He goes, this is real shop. He goes, can I say, yeah,
I can do that. I can do. He goes, all right, he goes, be there at eight o'clock. I said, okay. So he had to get up at five. Of course, work on the whole song, write it all out, Jim. I got all my little notes, man, I got to figure. I go there. Now there's a big the Clint Eastwood scoring stage, which is still the big as far as I know, the big scoring stage there on Warner Brothers. He told me that's where it is. I get in, I get my little pass. I'm walking up on the
movie lot of figure. Wow, he made all these movies. It's so cool. Turn the corner. My dad is waiting around the corner, like pacing from the Clint Eastwood thing, right from the scoring stage, and I go, hey, Dad. He goes, and he pulls me around the corner right and he goes. He goes, listen, I've been thinking because I've been thinking about this, and I said, okay, what's up.
He goes, I feel like it's a bad idea for them to know you, my son, right, And I go okay, and he goes, So we haven't done any paperwork yet. He goes, here's how it's gonna work. He goes, you come in and we don't know each other, right, this is for real, for real, and I go I go okay, and he goes, then if you screw up, I can fire you, right, And I'm like, okay, all right, confidence dude.
It's very funny. And I told this story to like psychology, not in therapy sessions, but like it's a funny story and psychologists will hear this and go, oh my gosh, that must have really affected And I go, I thought it was hilarious because I knew my dad, right. So so he's like he's like, he's like, here's what we'll do. I'm gonna go in that booth. And when I do, he goes, there's a little window in the glass. I'm gonna signal you. And when I gave you the signal,
you come in. And I go, okay, what's the what's what's the signal? Right? And he goes like this, he goes, he goes, this is the signal. Oh, Jimmy, looks me. He goes this gools So I go, okay. So when you go like that, I come in. He goes, that's right. And I remember we don't know each other. I said, okay, But so o he goes and he goes in and I can see him because there's a little thing, right, and he's patting people on the back and he's smiling and he's gonna you know, by the way, the session
doesn't start till nine. Okay, he just wanted me there at eight, all right, so just to show that he I could get there at it. So I walk up. No, no, I don't walk up. I'm looking in there and I see him and you're me and he looks at me and he goes like this. He goes, right, now, I like mess with my dad. I always love messing with my dad. I miss your dad, and I was like messing with So I go like this. I go like,
I can't. I can't quite make it out right. So he looks at me again and he goes right, and I go like this right, and he goes he's that yeah, yeah right. So I go, oh yeah, So I walk up. I walk up and I pushed the door to the room open and I go excuse me, and he goes, hell yeah. He goes, this is a closed session. You can't just come in here. And I go. I go, well, I'm here to sing. The heat is on for the Shadow Chasers show. And he goes, oh, here, you're the singer.
And he goes, I don't know who he is. I've never seen him before in my life for this exactly yeah right, yeah, he goes. He goes, well, I don't know who hired you. He goes, but just sit over there and wait because we got a lot of work to do. Don't make any noise. And I'm like and I'm like, okay, thank you, sir. So I sit down to the corner. I brought a book orchestra, like eighty piece orchestra. This room, the record room was probably a little bigger Jim than Abbey Road. I mean it was.
It's just huge in there, and and there's eighty guys with violins and cellos. My dad goes out on the conductor stand. They start at nine. The down beats at nine eleven forty five. Okay. I start hearing the engineer going wow, we're way abut, oh my gosh, and there's like this buzz in the room. And finally somebody said, well, hey, Bubby, maybe if you know, if you wouldn't mind standing through lunch.
He was the engineer, maybe we could get the vocal done over lunch and we can catch up on some time. And he goes, oh my gosh, oh you know, okay, whatever, right, so everybody they have to break. It's union orchestra breaks and uh my dad comes back in the room and they go, hey, Joe, they said we're gonna we're gonna try to cut the vocal now and get that done
because we're running so behind. He goes, oh girl, right right, So all these guys leave and Jim, this was my first ever professional recording session for anything other than my bands ever. Oh yeah, and they roll out a microphone in the middle of this airplane hangar. I mean, it's
this gigantic, So there's one mic. I'm the only guy in there, and I walk out right and I'm like, and all these people because this was the pilot episode of this show, Chris, all these people are in the control room, the producer and the writer, and then this guy and then that guy. There's like fifteen people and they're all standing there looking at me like that right good? No pressure, yeah, no pressure. Yeah, that's nobody knows that
I'm Joe Hartell's son. So so I go in there and the engineered Bobby goes okay, and he wasn't happy and he because he had to stay for lunch, and he goes, he goes, all right, man, he goes, he goes, let's check the level. Can you give me a little bit? I said, yeah, So I sing the first few lines and he stops it and he goes okay, man, he goes, let's le let's go for one. He goes. It was only doing the first like sixty seconds of the song.
So they roll it and I sing it right, and I could hear I remember this so well, you guys. I could hear my heart beating in my headphones, like before they turn on the track, I hear boom boom, because it was very intimidating. And I don't really get intimidated, but I was aware of my surroundings and that was a little guy. So I was like, what, likew So, so I sing a thing and I look in and nobody says anything, but they're smiling. They're like that's a
good that's good. So the guy goes, So Bobby, much friendlier, goes, okay man, He goes, you want to do the first harmony? And I go, yeah, sure, So I sing the first harmony right now. They look even how up here and he goes, okay, let's do the second harmony, and I go, okay, right, so I sing the second harmony. I've been singing now for about three minutes maybe four. They pausitive. They stopped the thing and they're clapping, and Bobby goes all right man,
that's a wrap. Right. So I'm like, wow, wow, I was. I'm like, this is good, this is this is this beats spandex at the Roxy any day. So I go walking in to the record room and they're all they were applauding God bless him, and my father idiotized. He stands up and he goes.
Here's my sons wonderful And I was so happy about it.
But this is again, it's a true story. I can I've never told you that. So that that was my beginning in show business and an answer to your question, I've always been able. I've always been I've always had like my own voice. We talked about developing that as an amalgam of my favorite singers who I aspired to be like. And I always tell kids, take the people
you love. If you want to be a voiceover actor, listen to Jim Cummings and listen to Billy West, and listen to Rob Paulson and put together your own version of those guys and make it uniquely you. Those can be your foundational points, right, But then eventually you want to find your own voice. And I always had my
own voice. But the rock Sugar thing hitting like it did with such a trip because in that band, what I really tried to do was try to personify Brian Adams when I was doing the Brian Adams thing, and Axel Rose and Joe Elliott from def Leppard and Steve Perry from Journey and this person from that band in
that person. So I got to use in the law in the end, in the circle of my rock vocal career, I got to go from singing in my original bands just as me, this amalgam kind of thing, to in Rock Sugar, where we actually got to be on stages with Aerosmith and ACDC in front of forty fifty thousand people. Sometimes I got to sing that a hell of a tour we did, man, and I got to sing like in tribute to the guys who shaped me in the first place. So it was just like this, this beautiful circle.
My first demo, Chris, that I ever made. I don't even know if Jim's ever heard this to be a session singer, was I did we are the World? Remember we are the World? Of course I imitated everybody. I knew what you were going to say. That was my demo. It's the cool thing, is brother, even if it sucked. You guys, it would have stood out, well, you're very sweet, but it didn't. But people when I got it, when people'd hire me from that demo because I was like the new guy, I'd go, they go, hey, man, it's
really nice to meet you. I'd say, well, thanks for hiring me, and they say, dude, even if we hated your demo, just the fact that you had the gonads to try to do that, but it was actually really good. But we called people and we don't remember the last time we called people in the office to hear a demo. But this was so different. So kids, when you're looking for a way in, if you can find something that's a little bit different, even if it's a little bit weird, it might just.
Well, since we're on the topic of singing, that's great. Do you happen to remember Wacko's Capital State song?
Sure?
Man, you do.
I mean I don't remember. Here's the thing, see, yeah, I know I don't know women high Waters. By that, I mean I work with Rob Paulson on a Nimniacs. That was That was my introduction to a lot of these guys I met. Jim. Jim is the first, like Mount Rushmore voice guy that I met. And what's really weird is that before I even met Jim, I sang the theme song to Jim's show Tasmania as a session singer.
I wasn't even doing voice. You know, I'm from this way down on the scholars, always yellow and right, you know, Sean, And then she would go, we didn't even know each other. But the first big guy that was saying now coming back. Rob Paulson plays Jaco on Animaniacs. And the funny thing is with an maniac is that me, him and Tress basically are those characters.
So he so Rob did his United make up and you know that that that went so that was so popular on social media that people animated it. I bet people animated it. There was independent artists and they animated it and you can see it on YouTube and it has like one hundred thousand likes.
Well, here's the thing, Rob Robbie, Yeah, he's a song and dance man and he'll he'll get up on the table at a restaurant and saying Diaco's Wago's we now me. I know the words to every Journey song ever created, including all the well all the lad libs and stuff like that. But I don't know anything like Sam Cooks all the Sam Cooks stuff. I don't know any of the things I did. But I will give you this, all right, all right, this is just for you because I love you, man, than I don't. I don't know
the whole thing. If I had the thing in front of me, I could do it. But matt In Measuisiana, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Columbus, tell Ohio. That's Montgomery, Hadadama south of Halla and Montana. Then the Colorado London bus Yadaho, Texas hes Alston. Then we go to Massachusets, Bustin, Albanie, New York, Tannahsee, Florida, Washington, d C. Santa Fe, New Mexico. And that's for Tennessee. Elvis used to hang out there a lot, you know,
And I made up the last see. So there's a little something, a little blast from the past this week. That's as far as I get because after that, I don't. OK. Yeah, although if I'm in a yeah, yeah, if I'm in a bar and somebody goes, hey, but you don't know the capital of Delaware, I make it comes up like that, but it's not. It's it's not second to the rest. Do you remember I mean, do you remember your greatest
hits in in in the cartoon thing? I mean, can you can you go through like Rob Can kind of yeah? You know, he's that day I'm telling.
You, and you.
Are looking for.
When I auditioned for the California Raisins, they said, oh, man, dude.
Which who do you want to go for?
And I go, I would love to be the lead singer and they go okay, okay, and so then then and then this was the recording engineer. And this is a really interesting, kind of interesting story. Uh, I got the job.
Yeah, yeah. And I showed up and I was sitting on the couch and uh, and the.
The people were sitting there and it was over at I think it was at Waves anyway, and I'm sitting there and I'm sitting there and I look in the room.
There's nobody there.
There's nobody there, and you know, the engineers there, and I don't know.
And so I said, is this your audition or is this no? This is the first session, first session? Got it?
And I show up and there was this lady down here from San Francisco and she says, uh.
And and we were talking, what are you doing? Well, I'm here to do the reason.
Oh really, what are you going to do?
And I said, well, I guess I'm the singer.
And she goes, you're not Jim Cummings, right, and I said, oh, yeah, yeah, that's right, you're.
The nice black man on the tape. I said, well.
No, but yeah, excuse you take out the black partape. They she called and they U they kind of asked me to go home.
And really, yeah, they yeah, we all went home and I didn't know that, and yeah, and they said that, well, you know, they have the impression that, you know, the Raisins are purple, but they they're black purple. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I said, oh, okay, well they're an R and B. I can't fight that, you know, you know, okay, not a problem. And I'm not here to take somebody's job. Whoever the hell had it first, you know, because there wasn't anybody, so they said. And then my agent called
up about four days later. I said, well, you would you like to audition for the California Raisins And I said again and and she said yeah, And I said, but you can't say your name.
You're not allowed to. They're giving you.
Numbers, and I said, oh wow, because they already saw me and I ruined it. Wow, the shocking pink up you see, and yeah, it works against pigmentation. So I auditioned and uh and and and I decided I would do I can't get next to you by the temptation that together all the all the yeah, I remember that
because they each temptation sang yeah. So I figured out, oh, that's cracked and the guy blue getting way whatever I want to do, so yeah, So I did them all and uh and uh, and I figured, wow, they gotta hire one of me.
They got to hire one.
Oh that was genius, so they so yeah, and then I got the job again.
So it was cool. Wow, well, you know, it's fantastic. And this just occurred to me. And I know I've never told you this, but before I even thought of doing voiceovers, the California raisins were very prevalent, like you couldn't really get away from them. Yeah, like they were. You guys were everywhere. And I remember I actually said to chucked around our mutual great friend. We were watching TV in my little apartment on Violand Avenue in Studio
City and a California Raisins thing came on. I don't know if it was a commercial or a special, might have been like a TV special. And I said to him, I said, you know what's fun You know it's funny, man, you know it's interesting. He said what I said, the guy they got to sing it sounds a lot like the guy who's talking it. They did a really good job. And he goes, well, how do you know it's not the same guy who goes the guy singing. It's a real singer. He's not like a cartoon guy. And I
that's no offense. Obviously, I've learned since then. A lot of the a lot of my cartoon friends are fantastic singers. But you like you well, I was going to say a lot of mine are too. There's one. Now, there's one, God bless you. But it's it's like, no, I was like, because you you know, you can really sing, man. I mean, it's like what we alluded to a moment ago is that we had boy one of the one of the
most fun things. We might have mentioned it the other time we sat down here with Chris, but we did a charity thing. It was mainly for charity where Me, Jimmy Cummings, Kevin, Michael Richardson, Billy West got together and the guy named Joe Lala was there and we got together and we did all old motown songs.
Yeah.
I remember you guys talking about this.
Oh my god, I just when I wasn't singing, I was just sitting there grooving on these guys.
You bring that back, you guys.
Yeah, we should do that again.
That was really fun, like a one off special.
And we did that Temptations thing and as I recall, because you do such a you do such a great David Ruffin, who was like the main guy in the in the in the Temptations and you sing you singing too Proud to beg That's one of my favorite is you do. But on that one you just talked about you you sang the first thing and then Kevin Yah. Yeah, but I mean you could have done the whole thing, but it's it was just I remember standing there grooving
and that reminds me when we're at Abbey Road. Another moment on the DVD that's so precious to me is we were singing this three part harmony. One we sang two three part harmony ones, because which is unbelievably intricate and it's probably the most beautiful thing on the record when you hear it, remember that one, Chris, I think you'll dig it. But what we also remember all of
them fantastic. Yeah, when we did, we did I'll Be Back, which is this beautiful you know, if you break my Heart ago And it's this beautiful, beautiful song and we're singing it, all three of us together, Me, Jim and Rob, and you can just see Jimmy glowing and he just this smile comes up and he's kind of looking around and then Rob starts kind of dancing as he's singing, and it's like, man, ain't nothing better than capture enjoy it? So yeah, me too, man at any any chance.
And that's at least for me hearing these things, you know, it's it's inspiring to like keep pursuing, you know, creative endeavors because a lot of people go stagnant. You know, a lot of people just don't indulge. They kind of get caught up in the in the michelieu of life and kind of just you know, let that fade away.
And that's something so inspiring to hear, and you know how you guys went to Abbey Road, Hanks Area doing his thing, and just so many people we talked to, you know, just always looking for that creative outlet, this.
Whole thing that you guys are doing here. Yeah, for sure, you know this didn't exist in your universe two years ago, where did it?
I mean no, No, we just had our one year anniversary like a month ago, you.
Know, and now and look at it. It's growing and it.
And honestly, the most inspiring thing for the podcast to me is just like when we're on the road and people are talking about it and people come up and be like, I want to be on the podcast, and you know, and like.
And it's great.
Christopher gets recognized now at the time.
Yeah, and it's just really cool, like like travel, I mean I could have never you know, you asked me what like two years ago, you know, am I going to be on the road with my childhood, you know, the voice of my child the voice going around and then meeting all these other voices of my childhood and all these inspirational people and like getting to sit face to face with them. I mean, like this podcast has been a dream opportunity for me and it's been great.
That's so kind man.
But saying that, I have to now switch the gears because we have to play a game, and you've played this game before. Okay, yes, it's called the Old Voice Swap game. Oh yeah, yes, yes, do you remember the rules?
Yeah? What is it? He does line as one of his characters, and then I have to repeat it and then by.
One of your characters.
Okay, then you do it? Yeah, yeah, I got it. So you want to set it up, Chris, or how does it work? Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Everybody you played along with us before, Come on, Chris, this is as close as so. I want to enjoy this.
These are two crazy characters.
They have a little bit of they have a little bit.
Of similarity as I feel like Crash Bandicoo and Taz.
Yeah.
They both spind, they spend.
They both spend, and there both sort of unintelligible. By the way, what a great challenge you met, Segu when you did Tasmania and you managed to maintain I've never told you this. You managed to maintain what he does with that d look at that that stuff and talk at this. I'm like, how's he going to do it? That's how he's going to do it. Yeah, amazing spoke occasional. Yeah yeah, yeah, well for you, that's what I mean. But it's perfect, it's perfect. It's like, wow, that's how
he would talk. All right. So yeah, I think that's a fantastic match.
All right, So we do?
What do we do?
How do do I? You start off with a crush line? What's a line?
Okay? The closest thing we get to a line? Okay?
All right, are you ready?
Try to write this down because it's great. Okay, here we go by pancake. You got that? Got it? Yeah? That's it? Okay, so.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
That didn't sound like task we're doing. It was they had to do it.
I had.
I wanted to hear say that okay here, but no, meanwhile, back at it more appropriate.
Okay, and that's why he's coming you see. All right?
I just need to interject because I think that's so cool. I think that's so cool. And we've talked about this so many times. You've mentioned so many times how music just helps you with voice acting.
And the first thing you do is just mate the notes, rhythm, breaking down the beat exactly. Yeah.
I thought that was so cool. That's the first time I've ever seen you do that.
Man. Yeah, he's gonna throw one at me to do. Okay, okay, yes, oh god, are you picking? So I got to listen to this free will? This is free will?
Okay, Well, let's drag out dark wing. He can't can't go too wrong?
Okay. I am the terror that flaps in the night. Who am I doing? Man? Who should I do? When you use your choice? Okay, Okay, I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do Ironhide of the Transformers. Yeah, okay, that's that's because that's that's really good read.
I am the terror that flaps in the night.
About take that off? I love that.
I love that. Did you do them in the movies?
Yeah? Oh yeah, somebody had to, man, somebody had And I remember when I went to do the second or third one, Chris, I don't remember which one was, Michael Bay said to me, he goes, Okay, now this is where you die, and I'm like what wait? Wait wait, yeah, yeah, I didn't tell you. No, I didn't tell me, and I got a mortgage, so wait a minute. I come back in the next one. Dream sequence, Michael, my dream sequence, right, Michael begas so much flak at least online. And that
guy is such a good director. He does his thing.
You watch on Michael Bay movie.
I don't think people realize how hard directing is. You know what.
He actually watched a Michael Bay movie. And tell me that's not the most cinematic movie you've ever seen. Light He's very every single one.
You know what.
He actually the most cinematic movie you've ever seen. This this comes from his mouth. Man, this is this is very true.
Michael Bay once said to me, because we actually had some nice, nice interactions and conversations. And he goes, Jess, this is his words, not mine. He goes, it may not be the best director that ever lived, but I can make stuff blow up better than anybody. That's exactly exactly what he said. And a quick, quick anecdote, Chris, you'll get a kick out of this if you like Transformers. And this is one I don't often tell, but it's very,
very funny. Is for some reason, I'm always fascinated by how many Brits are in out of space, like Obi wan Kenobi who was on the planet. Who he's British? Ye see three po British. Okay, you guys really get him colonized more than anything. But I have a theory about that. I want to hear this. This is a little mini theory God.
And what it is is we, you know, certainly Americans, we always liked the idea of somebody being from somewhere else, somewhere else, and and and England with its myriad accents.
Supplies that. But you can tell what the hell they're saying. Okay, yeah, good point. And so that's pretty good.
Yeah, to an extent, may not even like Game of Thrones, like they're imaginary lands, snow British.
This was you got to tell thou no, no, no, I got it.
Let me, Michael Bay, go back to get side trecked. There's a lot of stories this, this is, this is really this is pretty funny. So so Michael Bay. We did the first Transformers and I auditioned. It was very funny because when I when I did audition, I basically it was this horrible rundown building in North Hollywood that you're like, you feel like you're gonna get mugged on your way in. And my agents are like, I'm like,
what's this for? And they go it's top secret and I'm like, because they didn't want to say it was Transformers for some reason. And I said, okay, So I get in there. The guy filming me is filming me on like a cheap like flip phone, like for the and I'm thinking this the cheapest stupidest thing ever, right, So I basically threw it away. And they're like, you're playing this robot and you're, you know, a weapon specialist
and all this kind of stuff. And I thought, well, you know, if he's all making very big and I'll put him down to here, you know. And for some reason, my mind went to doing in bridging. So I didn't know why, but I just did. So I recorded it and I get the phone call and they say, okay, you got it, dude, it's Transformers. It's the movie. It's a big deal. I'm like, wow, I had no I would have thought it was like a bad tackle bell commercial for like Northwold, California.
Wow.
I mean it was so so I going to do it, and I recorded and Bay is there was very very friendly, got through, it was fine, came back for the second movie. Now, Michael Bay makes a lot of money, okay, and has made a lot of money and has made a lot of very very big movies, so he has a lot of people around him, and let's just say, his word goes okay, it's like he's the guy.
Yeah right.
So I'm in there and he shows my goodness, I'm got to see it too, and yeah, let's like we got to make this pick. I got to get back. I'm like, okay, okay, okay. So I start recording the dialogue for the second movie. Right, I'm like, you know, we must retrieve the cube of whatever it is I'm talking about. I get a couple of lines into it, and he goes, hey, wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, and he goes, why are you doing
a British accent? This is true? And I'm like, I'm like, oh, because I did it in the first movie, right, And he goes, no, I don't think you did, right, Oh boy, this is it gets I don't think you did. I don't think you did, right. It gets Chris, Chris, you'll love this. I go, no, I don't think I did. He was I don't think you did, and I said I'm pretty sure, pretty sure, Michael, and he goes, you know what, let's not do it. He goes do it
without the accent, right. So I'm like, and because I'm a business man in my head, then I don't do and then I'll have to bring me back. I'll get paid again and I'll do the British acment. Right. So I start doing. I'm like, you know, we we have to retrieve the cube. And I'm doing it, you know American. Now I turned my head and I'm facing the screen I wanted. It's like a soundstage thing, and he Michael bays in there with me, and I'm looking in the
control room and people are like melting down. They know they can't use any of this, and then they're and they're all fringing out. But I know what's happening. Was just like, are you gonna tell them? I'm not gonna tell them. Yeah, right, somebody, but it ain't gonna be me.
Michael listened to the first movie. You wouldn't think you'd seen it made. Yeah, so I mean it better while I've been a minute. But anyway, so so after like I did like seven or eight.
Lines and he's going, yeah, yeah, good, Okay, give me more on that, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was very hands on. Somebody kind of there's the talk back and this guy goes, I'm Michael. Yeah he's just fu. He goes, me, you know we have we actually called up some footage from the first movie, and he he he was doing a British accent, right. Megan goes right, and then let me see it, right, So he he looks at it and he goes, huh, and he goes, I guess who worked So I did it again. But it's like, I
just loved Jim become man. Listen. I don't claim to have seen everything that I've worked on over the years, but you would think if you're direct in a movie, you have to see it a.
Lot, right, I mean what you would think, right, when do you think in the editing room?
You know, seeing a couple takes a couple of a couple of times. But yeah, he legit. I almost recorded the second movie without the same he had. He had a lot of robots, he had a lot of Yeah, he sure did.
He had a lot of other takes that were very attractive in those movies.
Yes, yeah he did.
Maybe his attention was focused.
Yeah, you know, I think I can't blame him. I think that movie, I think that made Megan Fox Yeah, well that that was a big break man, That was it. Why shouldn't that car or something like that?
You have like a supermodel in all those movies?
Sure he did. Coincidence? I get out everybody and Carol. When will you be starring in one? That's exactly Michael debut?
Yes, now no comment Transgressors twelve.
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Do you know what? You know what fascinates me, Curts is how many Fast and Furious movies there there are?
You know what?
How many? I love them?
I love them?
Really.
Fast and the Furious is one of the best movies you can go see in the theaters because it's like an amusement. It's like an amusement park ride. I get that it's not serious. You see the most ridiculous stunts you've ever seen in your life. Yeah, a car parachuting from space, a car riding a rope swing across a cliff, A Dodge Challenger rides a rope swing across a cliff. If that's not the coolest thing, you're literally sitting in a movie theater. And that's what you were doing playing
with hot wheels. That's what you were doing, playing with hot wheels. And now it's two billion dollar movie exploding everywhere with the cheesiest with the cheesiest lions ever and just pure testostero.
Yeah it is Jason Mulla. Shut up again.
People just say all over the place, but sweat on the pecks.
But you know what's funny though, Actually I actually love The Fastes the Furious.
I love all of those movies.
I think you just made a good case for it because my line has always been, like somebody once asked me, and I just thought this was a great response from anybody. But they go, they go, hey, man, are you are you gonna go see? Are you? What do you think of them making Fast and Furious twelve? And I said, well, they had to. There were so many unanswered questions in the first eleven yea, they got so many loose you know,
a cartoon Fast and Furious. I'd watched that because, you know, seeing Winnie the Pooh in a souped up Ferrari jumping over for the fall. You know.
One of my favorite, speaking of amusement parks, one of my favorite attractions ever at Universal Studios was the Fast and the Furious attraction. It's long gone, We've been gone for like a decade, but they had these two They had these two cars and they were on big robotic arms and you would go through the attraction and then they would make the cars do these flips and twist all around on these big robotic arms. They would have water effects, fire everything, and I guess it was too
expensive for them to keep doing it. So now you just drive by and this is on the the tram tour the Universal Studios when you do the backlot. Yeah, and you would drive through it, but now you just drive by and it's like production vehicles and they're all just lined up from like Jurassic par Fast and the Furious. Yes, right, they it's gone, and I love is on the back Law tour. Still you can still see the area where it is, like, you can still see it's still stage there. You just don't go in.
Let me take some of my personal credo. Okay. I don't want to hear theme parks complaining about not making money when they're charging me fifteen dollars for a bottle of water, So shut up. Yeah, put the Fast and Furious back, then.
Theme park are the We We just were in Walt Disney World. Yeah, and for some reason for appearance, it finally clicked. No, it was for what were you there for? It was for the princess and.
The front Yeah, the debut of the ride. Yeah, you are you doing good?
Yeah? They re themed the Splash Mountains.
Yes, if somebody was going to replace than anybody else.
But we're just there and it finally like clicked to me. I don't know, it just clicked. And I was looking around and I'm like, theme parks make so much money. It's that the movies Avengers, Star Wars, all these movies, you know, the the Avatar, they're just advertisements for people to go to the parks. They're literally just advertisements. A billion dollars on a movie is nothing for Disney and amazing. You know how much money they make at the parks. I know, just like oh these kids see oh we
went and saw Avatar. It doesn't matter if the movie was good or not. Now I get to go on Avatar in Disneyland. You know, I want to go there. I want to go there.
Yeah.
I just saw Star Wars. It doesn't matter if Star Wars Rogue one. It doesn't matter if a TV series sucked, no, what the Acolyte just got canceled. It doesn't matter because people are talking about Star Wars. You go to Disneyland, there's a Star Wars. There's a there's a live action Hondo.
Yeah, you like Wars.
There's a live action Hondo. That's you're living the world. And they do such a good job.
No, it is man like.
It's like these movies are like one hundred million dollars billboards for people to go to theme parks by merchandise. I can only imagine what merchandise sales if.
You I once did I you know, as Jimmy has, you know you do voices for theme parks. Yeah, and I went at one of the one of the sessions. And this is going back. You guys is like fifteen years ago. And I happen to say to one of the guys who has invaulted building the attraction, I said, so the cost basis, man, it's got to be unbelievably. He goes, We'll think of it this way. He said, the average person who walks in drops three hundred dollars. And I said, I said, this was fifteen years ago,
before the admission was two hundred. Okay, So I'm like, I'm like, really, goes, yeah, one hundred and fifty admission, they're gonna get a T shirt, they're gonna buy food, blah blah, blah blah blah. So for a family of five, okay, that's fifteen hundred dollars for the day, right, And I said, twenty dollars churo, a twenty dollars turo, and a ten dollars bottle of water. Right, So if you do the math and he goes, he goes, So do the math.
He goes at three hundred dollars eighty thousand times eighty thousand times three hundred dollars every day, Okay, in eighty thousand, it's just kind of mid level number. I think the capacity is like fifteen Yeah, you know. So it's like I'm talking about the Disneyland park, but it's just like, oh my god, it's like it takes him a month to make.
And then take it to another level based off based off those numbers. To take it to another level, Michael Jackson used to rent out the park to himself for the day. I know, you know, and you know what everybody is, everybody stay at home. I'm gonna I'm gonna take Disney today.
Yeah, so what did you do this afternoon? I took him a Disney there. That's say, Yeah, that's pretty good man. That's not a bad way to.
Yeah, can you imagine the whole place?
Do you get the tour guides when you go there?
Sure? Yeah, But you know what, you know, it was a cool memory that we had one time, Cara and me we went to Disney World and we were the last two people other than employees in the park. That was so we took Yeah, we took a picture laying down on the ground with the Sleeping Beauty Castle. Bag was like, huh and there's nobody there. Yeah, I quite know how it came out. How that's nice? Yeah, what
that means? You know, it's cool those places. Man. You know, it's it's like, the great thing about it is that. For I think the reason Disney in particular, the reason that they do as well as they do, is because it's an escape patch from the real world. And it's it's things that are sweet and things that are happy and things that make you feel good inside. Which is sort of described as your whole career.
Well you know, well, you know, and Walt said he had a famous quote that he said, no, I'm not worried about you know. They were doing this and that, and they go, you know, you're you're spending money. You're spending a you know, forty thousand dollars on this curbstone here and that's going And he goes, no, no, no, you don't understand if if you spend money on the people, and that's what we're doing, they will give it back to you.
They will give it back to you and much much more. Wow.
Man, you know that person knows that it's special for them.
For them, that's their day.
They're here with their kids, with their loved ones, with their with themselves.
Wow, that's nice.
You know, they will say, well he wow, he really did took a lot of extra time he didn't have to do this or that, but he did. And I just think it's much better now and that kicks it up, and that chicks it up a not.
Yeah, well, and that's something, man, that's very beautiful. I like that a lot. Yeah, that's why he's Walt Disney Disney exactly, man.
Yeah, I mean what a what a you know imagination?
Is Trump's education? Yeah? Oh of course, man, I think you know. And also, you know what's funny about that is is it hearkening back to that that little quote I said earlier about wanted to be the person that people are happier to see walking in the room than
out of the room. I've always said that. I think one of the reason, one of the key things to success, you guys, for whatever you know, endeavors you might want to take on in your life is kindness, you know, because if we could all like be cool to each other and be nice to each other and be easy to have around. I have heard a lot of casting directors, et cetera, people say, man, given a choice between hiring this guy or this guy for the job, and this
guy's it just amount a little bit with talent. Yeah, but this guy's a lot more fun and a lot easier to hang with.
We literally the other day, Hankasaria just told us a story about that where he was not the original voice of I don't know a poo or something a poo on Simpsons and he was like, oh, like didn't find out until like fifteen years later, And was it because Graining was like, oh yeah, that guy was just we didn't like. He was good for the job, but we just didn't like him as a person.
See what I'm saying, Well, my whole, my whole. You know, one of my introductions to show business, and I'm not going to mention any name, was you know, I had I had been a singer, as we've talked about and saying lots and lots of commercials and sounded likes. And a guy that I sang for was doing the music for Splash Mountain. I didn't have a voice over age and I didn't have anything like that. And he just knew because I'd be on the MiCT session screwing around
doing impressions and things like that. You don't know, Mike go whatever. You know, I'm just doing stuff right, And he'd be like, hey, you know those those stupid voices you do. I said yeah. He said, I need you an audition to be on this theme park ride if you want to give it a shot. And I said, oh my gosh, and Jim, honestly my mind, this is good. And it still kind of goes there. Wasn't like wow, what is that? Pay My mind was so if I go there, I'm going to hear my voice coming out
of one of those That was it. That's all I want. So I auditioned and I got it. My second big job well in the Lexicon. It was among my first big jobs was replacing somebody who was difficult to work with. And and uh, I bother right, and what was funny? Is this? This?
This?
I always come back to this. I always share this with people that are trying to get somewhere or whatever. His words when they they warned him, they said, listen, you know you keep doing this, We're going to replace you. And his words were, you won't be able to find anybody who can do it. So the lesson is there's always somebody do it, not necessarily me or you kiss death right there. There's always somebody. And in Los Angeles
he's probably next to you with the store. So there's probably ten of you, right, you got you got to keep your humility man. Gratitude for sure, and you got it. Gratitude is key.
Amen to that every day man. All right, before we finish, I want to try something new on this podcast.
There we go.
Let me know. If you guys are down, Jim, this is for you as well.
I'm down.
I'm very curious on the process of developing a voice for a character. So I'm going to show you a picture of a completely original cartoon character. Nobody knows him, and I want to hear what voice comes out. Do you guys want to try that? Do you want to try That's for both of you. Okay, So here's here's the care It's just a picture. Here's the character. It's just just a picture.
Did you know that I did? That's cool, it's really cool. Can I show the Can I show the folks.
We'll put a little okay so that they have a clear visual on the screen. But I'm really curious about the development.
Okay, Well, my first thing, see when I look at this is he's got a lot of girth. So my first thought is that he'd probably be down here someplace and have like a lot of bottom end in his voice. But then I'd say, but he also he looks kind of nervous and like nebshy, so he's got some of the Oh my gosh, I'm very nervous right now. I don't like the way this is shaping up. So we kind of combine them. Oh my gosh, I don't like the way this is shaping up. Your very nervous right now.
This could be anything bad. What's gonna happen to me? Oh boy, okay, I love it. It's like that. I love it.
I love it. And then in that voice, you say, you're watching tuned in with Jim Cummings.
You're watching tuned in with Jim commies. It scares me, but hopefully you're gonna like it.
I love it, I love it. Let's hear your take. No, same guy, same guys.
Do your do your spin? Okay? Yeah, but not the same guy.
Yeah, yeah, I'm a guest. Oh jesus, let's okay.
Well he's got a nose and has has everybody seen this guy yet?
Well?
Okay, okay, I don't know it. Cheaps, he could please tell me you have a Klee deck, But my nose is about to never mind, you don't want to.
Know because he's scared looking.
Yeah that's what I too.
Yeah, I mean he sounds like a worried Jewish father.
Yeah, yes, he's cal Rubinstein. Yeah yeah.
What's the Hefferstein Hefersteign? Yeah, something with Heffer anyway.
Yes, So now you're in that voice you're watching with Jim Cummings.
Okay, do what you who did with Kim coming?
Dude, I gotta tell you that was so much fun. What a great what a great thing. You've never done that before.
Done that before?
You gotta do that. Yeah, you gotta do that all the time.
And you're a good autist.
That's really you are a good artist. Yes, we got great here, and you smell good. Listen stop being so good at everything because you're making people uncomfortable. It's not cool. And now listen there's before we Go. I got it.
Yeah, that's another character that you as another character reminds me of someone.
Good. That's a character about that.
That's a cartoon.
How about you try you want you want to do a voice? Yeah that's a good one. Yeah yeah, yeah, you're just yeah, yeah, do it to it to a voice? Anything that happened on tuned in all right.
What okay, Well, because it's like we're in America.
Yeah, and she looks.
Kind of can we show them this one?
Yeah? Yeah, okay, this will never have a four folks.
She looks a little dizzy, like a little ditsy.
Yeah, I can see that.
So, like, I think she's totally going to be like.
That.
She's going to be like this, and she's not gonna eat much. She goes out for dinner, she's going to like totally just suck on an ice cube because there's no carbs in there.
Ladies and gentleman. Her name is Karadashian. Alright, now look before we go, three things I want to hit on and use them as you will. A really great anecdote about my brother Jim over there that I don't know that i've shared if I have to forgive the redundancy, but I have to say it because it's such a great story. We mentioned chucked arand a couple of times. Chucky is my musical partner in rock. Sugares makes the greatest voice over demos in the world. Demosrock dot Com
is his website. If you're inclined to make a demo, I can't recommend anybody more highly. But there was a day early in his voiceover career, Chris, this was so cool, and I've never forgotten and I've told this story a million times and he told me. I said, what are you doing tomorrow? And he goes, Oh my god, man,
I'm so bummed out. I gotta get up at like seven thirty in the morning because from eight thirty in the morning until six o'clock at night, I'm running auditions for this cartoon movie and They're bringing in forty five people to read. And I'm gonna be sitting there all day, over and over and over here in the same thing. And I go, no, dude, wow. I go, that's that's
not how to look at it. Because I'm a big believer in perception, and you can change when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change, right. So I said to him, I go, dude, that's a good one, right. I go, dude, this is amazing. I said, I'm going in on that. I said, this is a big project. I'm sure they're calling in like the best voiceover people in the world. You're gonna hear an all star lineup of the greatest voiceover people in
the whole world reading the same characters. You're gonna be able to compare and contrast and go, Wow, that I did that and that guy did that, and it's a really high level. I wish I could be a fly level. And he goes, yeah, that's kind of cool to look at it that way. So he goes in, this was kind of the beginning of my career. I think I
was three or four years into it. So he comes home that night, right and we actually went out and got a bite and I said, well, dude, how was it, And this is the true story that he told me. He said, dude, it was unbelievable. Man. He said, like you said, the level of talent. These were all like
the biggest guys in the industry whatever. He said. Now, I remember the first guy came in and he was great, and the second guy came in and he was great, and the third, and the fourth and the fifth, and I'm not just saying this, he goes, And then Jim Cummings came in, and he goes, and I forgot what I was doing. Wow, he goes, I forgot to run the faders. I got so into what he was saying. And it's not that the other guys weren't terrific. It's that Jim brought magic to it.
Yeah right.
And that's not only my way of paying a quick tribute to you, bro, but it's also my way of saying to you guys out there, I just want to leave you something positive, because I'm all about being positive. And it's like anything that you have inside of you that you do that you love to do, Like we meet all these kids on the road who do art or who sing, or who do voices, or who want to be a veterinarian or whatever it is that's in your heart to do it. It's there for a reason,
and the reason is that you can do it. It's inside of you to do it. That's why it exists. So don't deny it. Don't like say, well, you know it's a small group of people that do voice over, or I could never be a rock star or a pop star because I don't look like this, or you know, well, there's so many people trying to do art for Disney. I could never do that. Listen, I got in. He got in. People get in all the time, and you
can look for us right exactly. And if it's in your heart and you've got skills, use those skills because they're there for a reason.
Beautiful.
And finally, if you guys are bored, go to rocksugar band dot com check out this beatles things. It's it's so much fun, I promise you. If I had nothing to do with it, I would say, just dig it the most. And and the video documentary is almost better than the record because you get you get, you get to be there and you get to see there and share the day with us. So if you're inclined, please check it out. Love to hear if you dig it, and I hope that you do.
That's great.
That's it.
Thank you so much you.
Want to enjoy? Man, I swear I could have kept talking with you guys for like another month and a half. So thanks a lot. Yeah, well you're gonna have to come back then. I would love to anytime. And Jimmy, you know, man, you know, just what can I say? Go us bro rocked it? How about that?
I think people are gonna love it if you love it?
Hell?
Now there she goes back some more voices and yeah, war come up.
With more stuff, man, that's right? Does she come with the soundtrack? She walks in the room. Yeah, because it's I think, why shouldn't it be because Suiciah? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, what I said. Well, we love you.
Thanks everybody, Thank you, yes, thank you everybody for watching another episode of Tuned In with Jim Cummings. Today we had Jess and Cara Harnell. Thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Great discussion and as always, don't forget to like and subscribe. We are so close to one hundred thousand. Can we just have this episode? Can we make this episode more subs and then we're there? Eighty two of you are not subscribed. Yeah, yeah, we're looking.
We're looking and talking to you so much. To all of our patrons on Patreon. If you don't know, you can find bonus content on Patreon. You get early releases, you got to see these episodes early, you get a whole bunch of additional content. So subscribe to Patreon if you like to support, and of course, as always, Jim, thank you so much. God blessed and we will see you in the next one show next time.
Mm hmm.