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Speaker 1: tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the show
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Speaker 1: slash Jim Cummings Podcast. Do it now? How you doing
Speaker 1: out there? It's me Tigger, I am Duc Wayne Duck.
Speaker 1: It's me Bunkers Deep Bobcat. All right, y'all? Did it great?
Speaker 2: Your favorite firefly you desire?
Speaker 1: Hold the old knock guy. My name is Jim Cummings
Speaker 1: and welcome to tuned In.
Speaker 3: Welcome back everybody to another episode of Tuned In with
Speaker 3: Jim Cummings. I'm producer Chris. How are you doing today,
Speaker 3: mister legends Jim Cummings.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's what I feel. I'm having a very legendary day.
Speaker 1: Thank you for asking.
Speaker 4: That is a great day.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely and you're all invited.
Speaker 4: We have a great episode coming up for you guys. Today.
Speaker 3: We are sitting down with Jim meskam In. You know
Speaker 3: if you love him. It was a great conversation that
Speaker 3: we had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, him, and when Jim shows up, you've got like
Speaker 1: a cast of thousands that you can talk to. And
Speaker 1: they also and he's got the greatest impressions in the world.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we think you guys are gonna really w They're
Speaker 4: really granny. We had a good time.
Speaker 3: We want to give another thanks to Borisa LaMarsh for
Speaker 3: last week's episode. That was a great episode too. And
Speaker 3: we've been having a lot of fun on this show lately.
Speaker 4: Absolutely a lot of good conversations.
Speaker 1: Well, Moe's one of my oldest pals into business, and
Speaker 1: he played my dad sixty five plus times because he
Speaker 1: was Tasmanian Devil's dad and I was Taz and he
Speaker 1: was dad and Lola Dad, so tas like that day
Speaker 1: and so we had a good time. You got to
Speaker 1: tune it, you got to be there.
Speaker 3: Well, we hope you guys enjoy the episode today. But
Speaker 3: before we get to that, we just want to remind
Speaker 3: you guys to like and subscribe if you like this
Speaker 3: content and you want to see more. Plenty of interviews,
Speaker 3: great great content coming your way. And thank you so
Speaker 3: much all of our Patreon subscribers. We love you. Guys,
Speaker 3: and you don't know. Patreon subscribers get early access.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: They're watching episodes that you haven't watched yet right here
Speaker 3: on YouTube. And much much more. They get episodes that
Speaker 3: don't even release here on YouTube.
Speaker 4: And there's a whole lot of other stuff.
Speaker 3: So don't forget about Patreon and check us out there.
Speaker 3: And Jim, you also have some merchandise that you sell,
Speaker 3: don't you.
Speaker 1: Why funny you should mention it. I just so happened
Speaker 1: to be wearing Look at this guys hop on say
Speaker 1: Jim Comings Shopify.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, Jim Commings closet on Shopify if you want
Speaker 3: to get some of this sweet and merchant.
Speaker 1: Not in the closet, but I'm out now and I'm
Speaker 1: wearing this. You can see what is that? The Karate Kid? No,
Speaker 1: it's the Honey Kid. And anyway, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: cool stuff in there and a little something for everybody,
Speaker 1: I think, right, yeah, it comes in all sizes and colors,
Speaker 1: especially yours, and tune in and spend too much.
Speaker 3: Lastly, I think you're going to be at a convention
Speaker 3: this weekend, aren't you.
Speaker 1: Yes, For those of you who are in the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and who are and would like to be in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Do it in Las Vegas and it's called anime Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge star in the world of anime anyway. Uh,
Speaker 1: so be there, come by and say hi, and we'll
Speaker 1: have a grin.
Speaker 3: Please absolutely, absolutely, Okay, let's get into it. Then here's
Speaker 3: our episode interview with Jim Meskuman. We hope you guys
Speaker 3: enjoy it. We'll see you in the next one. All right,
Speaker 3: welcome back, everybody to another episode of Tuned In with
Speaker 3: Jim Cummings as always and joined by Jim Cummings of course.
Speaker 1: Oh everybody, Thank you, Producer Chris.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm producer Chris. And today we have our special guest,
Speaker 3: Jim Meskaman. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 5: Hey, double Jim show. We're here at the gym together and.
Speaker 1: The crowd right. Wow, yes, fantastic, Thanks for being here,
Speaker 1: my pleasure.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Thanks great to sit and talk to you. I mean
Speaker 2: we've spoken very little.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, careers so far. True enough. And we uh
Speaker 1: were on the way in, we were cheating and we
Speaker 1: listened to a podcast you did on a infinitely less
Speaker 1: interesting podcast. I don't even know the guy's name. I
Speaker 1: made that last part up, but it was very interesting.
Speaker 1: It was very cool.
Speaker 5: Oh cool, cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'll try not to tell those stories or
Speaker 2: to tell them in a different way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And I always think it's nice when
Speaker 1: you know there's there's a legacy aspect, because I remember
Speaker 1: that Mel Blank tried to pull his son Noel into
Speaker 1: his footsteps and it kind of didn't work very well,
Speaker 1: because I mean, Mel's Mel and everybody else, even his
Speaker 1: son isn't.
Speaker 2: And Paul freesees has a son who's also very good,
Speaker 2: but just sounds totally different.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know I did not know that, Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: And Paul Freese, can you tell everybody who may not? Never,
Speaker 1: but I think everybody knows Mel Blank. Yeah, well Paul
Speaker 1: free I don't know Paul Freese.
Speaker 2: He sounds like surrender, foolish mortals.
Speaker 1: Is this that?
Speaker 2: Yes, something like that in the voice of the Hunting Mansion. Yes,
Speaker 2: And he had always had a kind of an orson Wells.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I heard that we're mistaken for each other a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure they were vocally, and I'm sure he
Speaker 2: worked hard at that to make that illusion complete. And
Speaker 2: you just had Maurice LaMarsh in here not long ago,
Speaker 2: and yes, it's one of those people that's specialized in
Speaker 2: evoking that wells in delivery. But Paul Frees also you
Speaker 2: may or may not know this. It's very trivial, but
Speaker 2: it surprised me.
Speaker 5: He is also the voice of.
Speaker 1: The Pillsbury dough Boy. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: And Tony Curtis's female voice in some like It Hot
Speaker 2: did you know that?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 5: So in some like an Billy Wilder.
Speaker 2: Film where he Jack Lemon are pretending to be women and.
Speaker 1: Hotel Dell and what was that, Hotel del Coronado.
Speaker 5: Oh exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: And anyway, when Tony Curtis was either unable or unsatisfactorily
Speaker 2: able to do the his female voice, Paul Freese is
Speaker 2: doing that voice.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's increating. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Paul Frees's son, whose name escapes me at the moment
Speaker 2: because it's a name, wrote a book about his dad
Speaker 2: and there's all kinds of interesting trivia. But he was
Speaker 2: just multi multifaceted, and he was kind of the guy
Speaker 2: to go to for everything. I mean, he's like one
Speaker 2: of these legendary characters in the day of voice over
Speaker 2: where you have fifteen sessions a day, and you'd around
Speaker 2: in an ambulance just to make.
Speaker 1: All the books and uh.
Speaker 2: And he also he also worked as like an undercover cop.
Speaker 2: Somebody did you work with the police undercover towards the
Speaker 2: end of his life.
Speaker 5: Anyway, a lot of fascinating.
Speaker 2: Stories about the Great Paul Freeze, but mostly known to
Speaker 2: people that Disneyland and that's spooky, spooky, haunted mansion.
Speaker 1: Feels very dofent. And was he somewhere somewhere along the
Speaker 1: line the Green Giant very likely? Yeah, yeah, a little
Speaker 1: bit of everything. I think he was the Horus battern Off.
Speaker 1: I think he was too. Was John Moss and Squirrel,
Speaker 1: Gid the Moose and Squareal, Yeah, I think that was him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it goes on and on. I've heard him.
Speaker 2: He did some a d R for the original Godzilla
Speaker 2: with Raymond Burr.
Speaker 1: You can hear him.
Speaker 2: He just pops up all over the phone. You're just
Speaker 2: never not in front of a microphone. I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1: A little bit of well he did what was his
Speaker 1: one The thing he was in the Thing, the original
Speaker 1: Thing with Cara on camera with James ar Nest was
Speaker 1: the thing. And yeah, the one that Kurt Russell was
Speaker 1: not in, you know that one and uh yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think he looked like a carrot James arnested, but
Speaker 1: he was on camera in that. And it's so funny
Speaker 1: because you're you're you're seeing that this this group scene,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, he.
Speaker 7: Goes, well, now where should we go? He He's got
Speaker 7: to be somewhere, you know, and you're going, oh wow,
Speaker 7: because it's so distinct.
Speaker 2: He's also one of these guys. This is turning into
Speaker 2: a show about Paul Freeze. But the other thing I'll
Speaker 2: say is that he's one of these guys that got
Speaker 2: out of the army. Was in New York City, was
Speaker 2: walking down the street and someone said, and he's looking
Speaker 2: for work and someone said, hey, they're hiring people at
Speaker 2: CBS to do some some things. That was wow, just
Speaker 2: very simple route into a major career.
Speaker 1: Geez.
Speaker 2: One of the stories you just voiceover guys. We love
Speaker 2: all that trivia. We love all those stories about people
Speaker 2: and how they got started stories. And you know, now
Speaker 2: I'm unacquainted with how you got started. Now, what was
Speaker 2: your first big break?
Speaker 1: Uh? Well, it's really atypical. But for what it's worth,
Speaker 1: I wanted to do this since I was five. I've
Speaker 1: said that before. All the greats, by the way, are
Speaker 1: like that. Oh oh well, they want to know from
Speaker 1: they wanted from an early age. They got it.
Speaker 2: Their eye on the goal, and that is tremendously potent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think so. But I
Speaker 1: didn't have an agent, but had I worked at a
Speaker 1: video depot when you didn't have an agent. I was
Speaker 1: a video game when I was hired. What's that? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: when I was fine, But no, I think there's more
Speaker 1: like when I was twenty nine something like that. But
Speaker 1: I worked at a place at Anaheim Hills video depot
Speaker 1: and one of our customers was Bob Starr. He was
Speaker 1: the voice of the Angels. And another one was another
Speaker 1: fellow who he ran a recording studio or whatever. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, I've got this tape I
Speaker 1: made an audio and it was a cassette, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't know, And I gave it to him and
Speaker 1: he said, well, you know, I'm not doing anything right now.
Speaker 1: He did Dragon's Layer, which is a video game you
Speaker 1: put in a quarter back then a stand up video game,
Speaker 1: and he said, well okay, And he said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not doing anything. I'll hold on to it. And two
Speaker 1: weeks later I get a call from this guy, Frank
Speaker 1: Brandt got rest his Soul, and he said, well, hey kid, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got this tape from my buddy over there and
Speaker 1: I listened to it and you don't you know, you
Speaker 1: don't stink. So would you like to come up an
Speaker 1: audition for something? And I said audition, you mean shops,
Speaker 1: Jimminy crickets. So I did and I lucked. I thank
Speaker 1: you lord, I got that job.
Speaker 2: You came up from Anaheim Hills and I'm.
Speaker 1: To yeah, to Hollywood and I auditioned for it, and
Speaker 1: he was very gracious and I got the job.
Speaker 2: What did the audition consistent? Did they give you a script.
Speaker 1: Or yeah, they gave me a script and they and
Speaker 1: they said to send a demo to them in advance,
Speaker 1: which I did and they said, okay, you're at least
Speaker 1: good enough to get an audition, and I got and
Speaker 1: I had the audition. It was Dumbo's Circus and it
Speaker 1: was people in costume. It was a continuation of like
Speaker 1: the end of the Dumbo the movie, and it moved
Speaker 1: on well. I ended up playing basically Timothy the mouse.
Speaker 1: But the problem was it was live action and it
Speaker 1: was some little people in costume and some you know,
Speaker 1: like Dumbo was two people. One was the butt, one
Speaker 1: was the head and yeah, and uh so I they
Speaker 1: changed it to a lion and I was lionl the
Speaker 1: lion and I was Dumbo's best pal. And so that
Speaker 1: was my first job. Wow.
Speaker 5: And was it looping? Did you like have to lip flat?
Speaker 1: No? No, that's that was a great That was a
Speaker 1: fortune fortunate thing. We would record it and then they
Speaker 1: would take it over to the set and they had
Speaker 1: a green screen. Everything was green screen back then, and
Speaker 1: Dumbo's circus that they walked inside of, and it was
Speaker 1: about this big you know, and they do the magic
Speaker 1: of you know. And that was my first job. And
Speaker 1: it lasted a year and a half. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: So a weekly show. Yeah, and I went from making
Speaker 1: four hundred something a week to double that. Hey see,
Speaker 1: a week a week even. And so I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this. I'm never going to move. I wanted
Speaker 1: to anyway. I mean, it was my goal. And by
Speaker 1: the time Dumble Circus was over and we're dumb recording,
Speaker 1: I did have an agent and I was doing jobs
Speaker 1: and and I didn't know that it was impossible to
Speaker 1: break into. In fact, the first, the first audition I
Speaker 1: ever had, they used the audition, I said. They called
Speaker 1: me up and they go, well you got the job,
Speaker 1: And I go, oh, that's great. When do we record it? No, no,
Speaker 1: don't worry about We're using the audition. I went, Okay,
Speaker 1: I really love this business. I'm so going to do
Speaker 1: this home run. Now where do I sign up for
Speaker 1: my next job? Can you just hire me again? Then
Speaker 1: something else? And it kind of did work that way,
Speaker 1: but I, like I say, I ran into Frank Brant
Speaker 1: Caroline Hay and I got the job as a linel
Speaker 1: and by the end of that that, like I said,
Speaker 1: sixty five episodes. Then I did have an agent, Sandi
Speaker 1: Stalk for sure.
Speaker 2: And then I worked to turn into a union job
Speaker 2: or did you join right?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, it was yeah, it was alas yeah and
Speaker 1: uh and then the rest is mystery.
Speaker 2: When was the last time you saw a residual check
Speaker 2: for that show?
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Years, Yeah, decades, I've never heard.
Speaker 1: I don't know that it was this century. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think it was. Yeah, what a great first opportunity.
Speaker 2: And after you've done sixty five episodes or something, you
Speaker 2: must have a tremendous amount of confidence and ease a
Speaker 2: microphone and.
Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, well nobody told me it was impossible
Speaker 1: to break into so I, you know, and I just
Speaker 1: walked in and can I have another job?
Speaker 8: Sure?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I thought that's how it worked. It did
Speaker 1: for you apparently, Yeah, yeah I did, and I and
Speaker 1: I you know, I thank you lord. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just very grateful. Yeah, yeah, well that's a big thing.
Speaker 1: It's to that point.
Speaker 2: I think it's extremely important that people do understand if
Speaker 2: they want to get into this business that, you know,
Speaker 2: the the tropes about it being a small, closed, difficult
Speaker 2: to enter field. Obviously there's nuggets of truth in there.
Speaker 2: But I think that those those nuggets become boulders if
Speaker 2: you concentrate on them, you know, and if I in
Speaker 2: my own experience, I made it a point when I
Speaker 2: did hear that, and I heard it in New York
Speaker 2: when I first came to New York and to get
Speaker 2: into show business, and people would say, oh, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: always the same ten people do everything. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: would hear that, I'd go, I've heard that so many times.
Speaker 2: I just know that's a lie. Yeah, it's a prevalent
Speaker 2: held opinion. I'm going to completely disregard it. And it
Speaker 2: helped to do that, Yes, because I always tried. Yeah
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't use it as an excuse.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well that that was wise.
Speaker 9: That was That's a spot like I did, Jim, I
Speaker 9: did a lot of stupid things toopid.
Speaker 1: That was spot. And you know, I have to ask you,
Speaker 1: do people when they think of you do they think
Speaker 1: of course they think actor, but do they think comedian?
Speaker 1: Do they think impressionist? Or do they go yeah, that's
Speaker 1: they're all him.
Speaker 2: I'm not a mind reader, Jim. I don't know what
Speaker 2: I can't tell you.
Speaker 1: Or mind reader? I forgot that. What about mind reader?
Speaker 2: Yes, I knew you were going to say that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's great.
Speaker 2: I think I'm sort of buttered all over the industry,
Speaker 2: so I think people do mostly I've made. I think
Speaker 2: if people think of me at all, I think they
Speaker 2: mostly think of me as an impressionist.
Speaker 1: And that's because you're incredible. That helps. Thank you. I've
Speaker 1: certainly worked on it a lot. That helps. I've worked
Speaker 1: on a lot, and.
Speaker 2: You're a wonderful impression is too. I must say it
Speaker 2: took me a long time to realize that that was
Speaker 2: the tip of the spirit in my career, was impressions,
Speaker 2: because I it's just so much a part of me.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's anything particularly special. In fact, for
Speaker 2: years I thought, well, this is in every guide to this.
Speaker 2: This is what guys do, right, Yeah, imitate people. Yeah
Speaker 2: it's not we teachers and friends and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you do that too? Because my aunt Grace
Speaker 1: has been God lover. She's been in a lot of cartoons,
Speaker 1: and so is my uncle Sam. My uncle Sam's always
Speaker 1: a dragon or the troll. And my aunt Grace, what
Speaker 1: does your uncle Sam sound like? Just? Oh, Jesus. And
Speaker 1: he used to call me James eye Goal and that
Speaker 1: was some kid he went to school with. And then
Speaker 1: my head Grace. This is the way that she sounded
Speaker 1: to me when I was five, And I'm sure God
Speaker 1: love her. My cousins are going you know, my mother
Speaker 1: didn't sound like that, but she said anyway. She ended
Speaker 1: up being Lieutenant Spinelli on Chipendale's Rescue Ranger. It's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so yeah, this is what we do. We
Speaker 2: extract interesting personas and try to sell them. You know,
Speaker 2: I've got lots of people in my life that I've
Speaker 2: tried to sell and they haven't been sold yet, so
Speaker 2: there's still out there. But some I have definitely instituted.
Speaker 2: But mainly I've been doing you know, well known celebrities
Speaker 2: and people on TV and movies and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But so if people think of me, I think they
Speaker 2: think of me as that. It took me a long
Speaker 2: time to focus on that and go, oh, this is
Speaker 2: what this is what people kind of want to hear
Speaker 2: from me. So maybe I better specialize in that a
Speaker 2: little more mark myself that way.
Speaker 5: But I was in my I was fifty before I
Speaker 5: figured that out.
Speaker 2: So maybe it will all would have gone differently. But
Speaker 2: I've had different kinds of careers, very very different that
Speaker 2: didn't involve impressions and didn't even really involve voiceover very much,
Speaker 2: character very much.
Speaker 1: That was your impression of missus c that's what I
Speaker 1: don't have that.
Speaker 2: Well, I yes, my mother, Yes, that's your mother. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my dear dear mom. I just saw a couple of
Speaker 2: days ago and she's ninety six.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, from happy days of you that don't
Speaker 1: know tell the world.
Speaker 5: Mary and Ross have happy days.
Speaker 2: Missus C, the beautiful missus C, who I admire more
Speaker 2: every day the more I learned about what she's done.
Speaker 2: I mean, she was a single mom, raised two kids,
Speaker 2: very determined to be uh, to make it in show business.
Speaker 2: And I just recently learned I'm listening to we We
Speaker 2: put her together with a ghostwriter a few years ago,
Speaker 2: and she penned her memoir and did an audiobook of it,
Speaker 2: and did you know, narrated her own audiobook, And so
Speaker 2: I'm listening. I never, I never, I never listened to
Speaker 2: it until recently because I was like, I.
Speaker 1: Was, you knew it, I knew everything.
Speaker 4: Yah.
Speaker 2: Know what point was my wife, Tamma and I were
Speaker 2: trying to get her together with someone to record these
Speaker 2: stories because we knew she had these stories. She would
Speaker 2: tell us these stories are like, oh my god, I
Speaker 2: don't remember all the ins and outs of this.
Speaker 5: We got to go get her together with someone.
Speaker 1: So she did.
Speaker 5: It's called my Days Happy and otherwise.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And one thing I learned recently about my mom which
Speaker 2: I didn't know, was that she always did theater. Her
Speaker 2: goal was not to be a movie star. Her goal
Speaker 2: was not to be I mean, she was born in
Speaker 2: twenty eight, so she didn't have the goal to be
Speaker 2: a TV star because it hadn't been a minute. Her
Speaker 2: goal was to be a Broadway actress and to do
Speaker 2: big plays and to be and she got into TV
Speaker 2: and film because she thought, that'll help me get on stage.
Speaker 5: I'll get better roles on stage.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. And I think the whole world thinks differently,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. I mean, sure, you know, I think, well,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll do a couple of play you know, fine, fine, you.
Speaker 2: Know, because it's a lot of work to do a play, yeah,
Speaker 2: and rather unrewarding in a lot of ways. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's maximum labor, and you know, you really run the
Speaker 2: risk of people not showing up, especially in this town.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's almost a joke.
Speaker 2: But she eventually, at an early age, did make it
Speaker 2: to Broadway and Wow in a play that didn't last
Speaker 2: very long, but she had that experience. And then later on,
Speaker 2: after she'd become a star and a known celebrity, she
Speaker 2: toured with Jeane Stapleton and Arsenic and Old Lace, which
Speaker 2: started on Broadway all over the country. And but she
Speaker 2: would even in the hiatus of Happy Days, she would
Speaker 2: do plays and it was just like I never questioned it,
Speaker 2: I ever thought about it.
Speaker 5: Then as I got to be an adultter was like,
Speaker 5: it has a lot of trouble.
Speaker 2: She wasn't getting paid tremendous amounts of money, you know,
Speaker 2: eight shows a week and she was in her sixties.
Speaker 1: And oh that's true. Yeah wow.
Speaker 2: And she'd go to Seattle and do Long Day's journeying
Speaker 2: the night and go somewhere and do go to Toronto and
Speaker 2: do one of the Neil Simon plays and.
Speaker 4: It's like, this just work.
Speaker 2: But that was what she really wanted to do. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty crazy about her.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well everybody is everybody. Did you work with her? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That I could say.
Speaker 5: So she's SpongeBob's grandmother.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, episodes that she knows Tom Kenny and those
Speaker 2: guys and Fred Yeah yeah, oh that's yeah.
Speaker 1: I can see that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the last couple of jobs she did, I record her.
Speaker 1: At my house in my in my studio. Wow, I
Speaker 1: bet you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've been working worked
Speaker 1: at home COVID.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, luckily I was waist set up for that.
Speaker 1: I do audio books.
Speaker 2: So ten years ago, twelve years ago an audiobook company
Speaker 2: sent me up with a booth, and I I spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time here.
Speaker 1: If you're a fan of everything we do here at
Speaker 1: tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the show
Speaker 1: on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as early
Speaker 1: in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
Speaker 1: and more. You'll feel the difference, so go ahead and
Speaker 1: join the tuned In family today at patreon dot com.
Speaker 1: Slash Jimming's podcast do It Now. That's really cool. Do
Speaker 1: you do any books? No, you really don't need to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, but I wouldn't advise it.
Speaker 1: You know the book you really love, well, I would
Speaker 1: do a Confederacy of Duncis, you know, And I just
Speaker 1: I'm really really fond of that book. It's it's probably
Speaker 1: the book i've read reread the most out of uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a pretty decent reader. And uh, good
Speaker 1: old what's his name?
Speaker 5: That guy?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, no, John o'tool? Yeah anyway, call in folks please, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's Queah. But uh, I can't I actually heard that.
Speaker 1: I haven't read it myself. Yeah, ignacious O'Reilly was the protagonist,
Speaker 1: and it's just a delicious character. And you know, and personally, I.
Speaker 4: You know, I I'm John Kennedy.
Speaker 1: John Kennedy Tool. Yeah, I had the wrong Kennedy. But
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's set in New Orleans, and I
Speaker 1: have a great fondness for New Orleans. I moved there
Speaker 1: out of high school. I was a deckhand and oh
Speaker 1: really yeah, I designed Martin groffloads for a few years. Yeah. Wow,
Speaker 1: a typical career path. You know, are you a visual
Speaker 1: artist is a sort of I was. Yeah. They paid me, yeah,
Speaker 1: which was astonishing. Wait, I I do this stuff for free. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I worked for Comas Momis and Proteus for about two years.
Speaker 1: Two and a half years. Those are the names of
Speaker 1: the cruise k R E W E S. And that
Speaker 1: means parade group in New Orleans. And uh yeah for
Speaker 1: and I not Bacchus, Comas Moments, Proteus Olympia. They were
Speaker 1: over in Slide Dell. Everybody yes, well yeah, there you
Speaker 1: go on dasher On. No, but but that was me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, wow, it's how long were you in New
Speaker 2: Orleans area?
Speaker 1: Oh? Maybe ten years?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you probably got a good Cajun accent
Speaker 2: and all that suff Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've that's good I've been designated Cajun a lot
Speaker 1: like a Hanna Barbara.
Speaker 2: Oh that's good to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because nothing pisses me off. And I'll get this
Speaker 1: off my chest again. I probably have you know, Lety'll say, Okay,
Speaker 1: now we need a Cagun. That ain't gonna be no problem.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. I'm a cage and I'm thinking, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really good. No you're not, how about that? You know?
Speaker 1: But I did get that cage of letterhead. He was
Speaker 1: from them teenaged newtant Ninja turtle and they dog like
Speaker 1: that and that's and that was, for what it's worth,
Speaker 1: that was literally my uh, the voice of my first
Speaker 1: because I'm sure you do this too. He was my
Speaker 1: first captain on a tugboat. He was on the old Dutch.
Speaker 2: I never forget your first captain.
Speaker 1: You never forget your first captain. And he hated my guts.
Speaker 1: What I got some Yankee college board. This is my
Speaker 1: last time on the river. I got to put up
Speaker 1: with your little pickass at you and I'm sorry. I'm
Speaker 1: from Youngstown a while and uh, but I picked up
Speaker 1: on the Cajun accent and I've, like I say, I've
Speaker 1: used it oh for sure, for sure.
Speaker 5: Now it's so great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And when Ray the Firefly, Princess and the Frog,
Speaker 1: you know, he from down there.
Speaker 10: Yeah, will you come on, we pass a good dome,
Speaker 10: make me like my butt and uh so yeah that's me.
Speaker 1: I love the dynamics, so that that's fantastic. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you're quite a sponge too, I mean I am.
Speaker 2: I am a total sponge. I mean, uh and I
Speaker 2: find it's the best way to learn an accent that
Speaker 2: I've ever encountered is actually make friends with somebody from
Speaker 2: that place and just kind of be them, you know,
Speaker 2: because they'll give you. First of all, you're in the
Speaker 2: room with them. You're right with them, you know, living
Speaker 2: life in some respect, and so you know about their
Speaker 2: viewpoint and their background and how they hold themselves, and
Speaker 2: you know so much. So much data comes from just
Speaker 2: a direct thing, far better than just checking on YouTube
Speaker 2: and looking at some little interview with someone who is
Speaker 2: you know too. But if you can actually be with
Speaker 2: someone and that's your buddy, And that's how I learned
Speaker 2: the Australian accent. Knowing a lot of people down in Australia,
Speaker 2: people down in Sydney, lovely people that you know, delightful
Speaker 2: to spake with, and it would be hard to learn it.
Speaker 2: Other ways, I think it easier my first boss. You
Speaker 2: made me think of my boss who I worked at
Speaker 2: an art supply store. I'm also an artist, and I
Speaker 2: worked at an art supplies store in high school and
Speaker 2: ran deliveries.
Speaker 1: Nice and my.
Speaker 2: Boss, mister Alfhauser, was German who had been in the
Speaker 2: Second World War. I moved to England and was so
Speaker 2: he had sort of a hybrid accent. It was German,
Speaker 2: but he would say, young man, we've got to get
Speaker 2: you the road, and it was a sort of British
Speaker 2: German thing, and I was like, yeah, cool the way
Speaker 2: he sounds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interested in a part. But I can't believe
Speaker 1: and I heard both of them. That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just me being him so's yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: all those little indicators are there.
Speaker 4: Do you play any instruments or have a musical background.
Speaker 2: I love to sing. I never have learned an instrument.
Speaker 2: I started to learn. I got interested in the piano,
Speaker 2: but never really because I drew cartoons and I drew constantly.
Speaker 5: That was kind of my little artistic flow, and.
Speaker 2: I I just focused on that, and I regret not
Speaker 2: knowing how to play keyboard.
Speaker 5: But my father my parents were divorced, so I go
Speaker 5: to my.
Speaker 1: Father's house on the weekends. And he was.
Speaker 5: A guitar player and a folk singer.
Speaker 2: Oh and we would not professionally, but that was his
Speaker 2: kind of hobby and we should add it.
Speaker 5: And he would sing Jimmy Rodgers songs.
Speaker 2: He would introduce me to a lot of music, and
Speaker 2: he would play guitar, and he and my sister and I,
Speaker 2: my younger sister, would sing every weekend for an hour
Speaker 2: and a half.
Speaker 1: Wow, you know before dinner. Well, let's see grant his
Speaker 1: guitar and smoke a cigarette and no kids.
Speaker 2: We'd sing the fox lie down on chili and I
Speaker 2: pray to the moon.
Speaker 1: Dude, give him my you know.
Speaker 2: We'd sing these old texts of songs or whatever the
Speaker 2: little kids.
Speaker 1: It was so sweet.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I don't think anything of it, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't when you're a kid, just like, no, this
Speaker 2: is what we do every weekend.
Speaker 1: We do this.
Speaker 2: And but later on I realized, well I learned that
Speaker 2: there's singing is fairly simple activity. It's nothing. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you want to be a professional. I guess you
Speaker 2: can get training. Then it's like a thing you can
Speaker 2: you can go down that road. You can you know,
Speaker 2: dig that row.
Speaker 1: You get trained for training for singing and little here
Speaker 1: and there, here and there.
Speaker 2: But I I, since that wasn't really where my heart
Speaker 2: so much lay. I was already like I can sing,
Speaker 2: I can sing out, and I've sung for Disney a
Speaker 2: bunch of times, and I'm good.
Speaker 5: Enough to with help muscle through something.
Speaker 1: I just quickly. I worked on a game.
Speaker 5: Called Epic Mickey hm oh, which you probably were on too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I was in there something. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you were, with a lot of characters black blots
Speaker 1: on the screen or whatever.
Speaker 2: I remember that exactly. So Epic Mickey won. There was
Speaker 2: a character and it was all these kind of backwater
Speaker 2: that's not the right word, but the ancillary characters of
Speaker 2: Disney that they had in the in the store room
Speaker 2: somewhere that they still owned and they wanted to kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, revivify. And there was a character of a
Speaker 2: mad doctor, this big slavic looking guy with rubber gloves
Speaker 2: in a white lab called which was that was it
Speaker 2: for Mickey still has a shop and on labra.
Speaker 1: Brain transplants.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, hair.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so that was like in Epic Mickey one,
Speaker 2: that was all he did. He may have said a
Speaker 2: couple of things, but he just kind of laughed niacically.
Speaker 2: A couple of years later, they said, hey, they're doing
Speaker 2: Epic Mickey two. Did you were you on that one?
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 2: So they said, well, well the Mad Doctor's back in
Speaker 2: that big Mickey too, and I'm like, oh, that's good.
Speaker 2: I show up and it's like five ballads, ballads, ballads,
Speaker 2: song you just did singing oh and complex like Sondheim
Speaker 2: ishu you know.
Speaker 5: So he went from to rather big orchestral numbers some.
Speaker 1: Yeah like that.
Speaker 4: Like so, how did you tackle that?
Speaker 2: Well a bar at a time. I mean, I'm pretty
Speaker 2: good at remembering.
Speaker 4: They want yeah still yeah yeah, singing like that.
Speaker 2: But singing yeah, so, which, you know, that's something we
Speaker 2: have to do. We have to stress out our voices sometimes.
Speaker 2: But they had a piano track and Ben Hoppey at
Speaker 2: Disney character voices helped me because I don't read music,
Speaker 2: but I would have the music there and I go, oh,
Speaker 2: I see it is that same note that all goes
Speaker 2: down a little bit. Okay, I kind of understand that,
Speaker 2: and I was like clinging to it like a barnacle
Speaker 2: aside the bar vessel, you know. And we got through
Speaker 2: it and they were happy, and the game did not
Speaker 2: do well. But later on they sent me a CD.
Speaker 2: They said, hey, do you want to hear the soundtrack
Speaker 2: of the thing, And then they had laid the orchestra
Speaker 2: behind me, and when I played it, it was this
Speaker 2: weird disconnect of like, when did I do this Broadway show?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, because it's now everything.
Speaker 1: Because you probably just were going with the melody a
Speaker 1: very pane.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So I came out to say, and I loved
Speaker 2: to sing, but I don't play these instruments.
Speaker 3: To answer your question, yeah, the reason I asked was
Speaker 3: just because with impressions and from the people that we've
Speaker 3: talked to and had on this show, it seems like
Speaker 3: you all have a really good ear and really good
Speaker 3: at hearing your own voice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're interested in that.
Speaker 2: You're interested in the vibrations and in the pacing, and
Speaker 2: then how much air is in it and the speed
Speaker 2: and the velocity and all of the things that make
Speaker 2: up an impression. You know, I think a lot I'm
Speaker 2: sure you do this instinctively, Jims as an impressionist yourself, well,
Speaker 2: like Sterling.
Speaker 1: Holloway, a lot of air sure.
Speaker 2: And also also there's a factor that I haven't heard
Speaker 2: anyone talk about before, which is kind of like pressure,
Speaker 2: how much pressure is it contained? And being you know,
Speaker 2: modulated by the voice, you know, because we kind of
Speaker 2: like we're kind of relaxed and we kind of let
Speaker 2: things come out with.
Speaker 6: Other people have I'm thinking of like Steven Spielberg kind
Speaker 6: of seems to have just a little bit of it's
Speaker 6: a little bit under pressure a little bit and the
Speaker 6: sound kind of comes out little little gusts.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's just something I listened for other people
Speaker 5: are you know.
Speaker 1: Like almost its like a big loose balloon. Yeah. Pat
Speaker 1: Freeley pointed that out a long long time ago, and
Speaker 1: it was he was quoting Dale Robertson, and Dale Robertson
Speaker 1: was a fifties sixties cowboy actor and he would always
Speaker 1: let me tell you it's another Western deal, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of like, Okay, what's exactly that
Speaker 1: get this guy at Tom's.
Speaker 2: It's like it's a particular factor of the instrument. I mean,
Speaker 2: we play this instrument. Yeah, that's right, our lungs in
Speaker 2: our throat and the cavern of our mouth and changing
Speaker 2: you know, the depth of it, and making the shalloon
Speaker 2: and all of those things and pitch and rhythm, and.
Speaker 1: It's just obviously we're interested.
Speaker 5: You were interested since you were five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was just basically just doing
Speaker 1: impressions of everybody that I could. So that's what got
Speaker 1: me going. And like I said I would, I would
Speaker 1: do impressions of people that nobody knew, so new character.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you've done the.
Speaker 5: Same, yeah, and hybridizing them yeah together.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. What was your first gig in show business?
Speaker 1: Did we touch on that? I mean, oh, like number.
Speaker 2: One first paying gig was really nepotism perfect. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was on an episode of Happy Days and.
Speaker 1: I don't remember all that must have been awful.
Speaker 2: I don't remember auditioning. I don't think. I think it
Speaker 2: just got handed to me. Sure, And it's now all
Speaker 2: these years later, it is. It is a famous episode
Speaker 2: referred to on a daily basis. It is the jump
Speaker 2: to shark episode, and I am a young man on
Speaker 2: the beach that announces that there is, in fact sharks
Speaker 2: and I say, I think Ralph or Potzy comes out
Speaker 2: of the surf and says, what's going on?
Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 2: And I say, they got a shark out there. They
Speaker 2: got to pend up until marine Land can come and
Speaker 2: pick it up.
Speaker 1: Exposition wow. And then if you unpack that, you sound
Speaker 1: just like you. Yeah, actually not much more like this.
Speaker 2: I have much tighter but still look I'm in great
Speaker 2: shape back then, seventeen years old on the beach with
Speaker 2: Jerry Parris's son, the director's son is also in.
Speaker 1: That scene with me.
Speaker 2: A lot of nepotism on that one, but that The
Speaker 2: funny thing about that is funny or weird is that
Speaker 2: people think, jump the shark. It's come to mean something.
Speaker 2: What does it mean to you? Jump the shark? When
Speaker 2: a show is jumped the shark.
Speaker 1: Jump the shark? It means to me, I've always understood
Speaker 1: it is we gotta do something. We gotta do something.
Speaker 1: We're losing we're losing viewership here.
Speaker 4: We gotta.
Speaker 1: Got to jump the shark. Exactly exactly? Is that? Is that?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That's that's definitely. I think one of the definitions of
Speaker 2: it are one of the ways it's used. Another one
Speaker 2: is like, Wow, this show has outlived It's it's welcome,
Speaker 2: it's over state, it's welcome, and they're resorting to stunt
Speaker 2: casting and bizarre things and we'll it's.
Speaker 5: Do a musical version of the show of.
Speaker 2: Swat and so that's the way I think of it.
Speaker 2: But weird thing is Happy Days a round eleven seasons.
Speaker 2: That was the fifth season the jumped the Shark episode. Wow,
Speaker 2: had it really jumped to Shark?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: They still had a lot of mile lege ahead and
Speaker 2: Ron was still on the show. He didn't leave until
Speaker 2: season seven.
Speaker 1: I think when did When did he he left? I
Speaker 1: don't even Yeah, yeah, that's direct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he always wanted to direct from a young age.
Speaker 2: I mean he had it as an actor by the
Speaker 2: time he was probably yeah, Ron Howard by about eight nine,
Speaker 2: he was like a lot other jobs I have here,
Speaker 2: that looks interesting.
Speaker 5: Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2: I've worked for Ron a few times, five of his
Speaker 2: films and yeah, very remarkable guy.
Speaker 1: As it happens, I watched three Andy Griffiths yesterday. I
Speaker 1: just you know tvlan Oh, I watch this great show.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, done knuts? Oh God, did you ever work
Speaker 1: with him? You must have no wood that I did.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you haven't done nuts and I met him
Speaker 1: one time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not when I specialized, I need to I
Speaker 2: need to dig deep.
Speaker 3: And how long how long does it take you, like
Speaker 3: when you hear a voice that you want to impersonate,
Speaker 3: or how long does it take you to develop that sound?
Speaker 2: You know, it's no set time. I mean everyone someone
Speaker 2: some I'm still struggling with, you know, people like Alan
Speaker 2: Rickman left a sort of back off myself. Really, it
Speaker 2: takes a lot of practice.
Speaker 1: It's really really good. Some I listened to.
Speaker 2: I mean because my agent every day or every couple
Speaker 2: of days sends me something, can you sound like this person?
Speaker 2: It's not always someone famous. It's often someone they're just
Speaker 2: replacing in a little bit of a movie or a
Speaker 2: TV show because there was some grinding sound or you
Speaker 2: know or yeah, yeah where he had flam or something
Speaker 2: he had a cold. Yeah, And so I'll listen to
Speaker 2: this person and usually within a few seconds I can go, Okay,
Speaker 2: good age range. Yeah, you know, it's like a ven
Speaker 2: diagram instantly forms of my mind.
Speaker 1: Good age range.
Speaker 2: I know that accent and I see what he's doing, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, Or it's like oh no, he's twenty five.
Speaker 1: Forget it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what are you even asking me for?
Speaker 1: It? Is human about that one?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't even try that. Someone under forty.
Speaker 2: I'm like, give me someone eighty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm all over there. I can do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and good show.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 4: Do you have favorites? Do you have favorite ones that
Speaker 4: you enjoyed?
Speaker 10: But I lately I really enjoy some pat because there's
Speaker 10: something about the whole persona. See, it's very very I mean,
Speaker 10: if I could spend all day acting like this, I
Speaker 10: think it would drive people in my family and saying,
Speaker 10: but it would be very pleasant.
Speaker 1: I just saw Beauty and the Beast yesterday, really, so
Speaker 1: I just you know, it's one of those things comes
Speaker 1: on and go, I'm not in the damn thing, mind you,
Speaker 1: but it was really good. Is he in it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's the I think he's it's the clock, the
Speaker 1: live version, the live.
Speaker 2: Live the did I see I don't think I've seen
Speaker 2: the live version.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So it's a live version of the animated version.
Speaker 4: Of the live Yes, yeah, yes, I think they have
Speaker 4: a musical of it.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh one.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I met David Ogden Steers one time and
Speaker 2: he did the Cogsworth Yeah, I did too, and also yeah,
Speaker 2: and I met him one time and I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I really admire what you do. You did
Speaker 2: the narration in the beginning of The Beauty of the Beast,
Speaker 2: and right in the beginning of the show, it says,
Speaker 2: and I said, you had this orchestral kind of delivery
Speaker 2: because it went places, and he went, oh, that's very
Speaker 2: nice of you.
Speaker 5: Actually I'm an orchestra conductor.
Speaker 1: No kidding. Yeah. Well, so he was in and I
Speaker 1: think I ran into him a couple of times, you know,
Speaker 1: I was in it, but yeah, the hell of a guy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, you remember very well the times when you and
Speaker 2: your cohorts and the big stars would all get together
Speaker 2: in a big recording studio and do the show.
Speaker 1: That happens very infrequently. Now, yes it does. It's too good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't like I never really did like it.
Speaker 1: And I don't even know I remember when that happened.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like Chippendale Rescue Rangers, all the Disney Afternoon
Speaker 1: I was in all of the Disney Afternoon TV shows
Speaker 1: and it started breaking up. Well when they got movie
Speaker 1: stars and you know, they can't what time is it?
Speaker 1: You know, can't you can't get there, you know, so
Speaker 1: pick me up separately and then you know, but but
Speaker 1: I did. Oh, I can tell you this story. I
Speaker 1: hope I'm not boring because I've said it before. But
Speaker 1: in Aladdin, I was in the Aladdins and Robin came
Speaker 1: back for the third one because the second one made money,
Speaker 1: and it was Dan Castlenetta doing the genie right, and
Speaker 1: he didn't want to do a directive video, so he said,
Speaker 1: oh no, not fantastic, and so he did first one,
Speaker 1: not the second one, but he came back for the
Speaker 1: third one. And there's this scene in which my charactersul I.
Speaker 11: Was the big guard who you know, pred says, you
Speaker 11: will have to take it up with you far I
Speaker 11: was that guy, and and he decides he snaps his
Speaker 11: fingers and he's a prosecuting attorney and I'm the witness
Speaker 11: in the in the standard, he's going, so where were
Speaker 11: you on the night?
Speaker 1: You know this? And that? And and I had lived
Speaker 1: something and they kept it and but then his line
Speaker 1: didn't work, so he had to come back in and
Speaker 1: do it again, and then we redid it again, and
Speaker 1: then something happened something He goes, well, I'm sorry, but
Speaker 1: I will not be upstaged by a tertiary character. And
Speaker 1: he reached down and grabbed my toes and rolled me
Speaker 1: up like a blind poofed me off into oblivion and
Speaker 1: was never to be heard from again.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So I get to say that I was personally dissed.
Speaker 1: You are evaporated, You were vaporized? Yes, yes, feel free
Speaker 1: to applaud. Yeah. Not everyone can say that Robin Williams
Speaker 1: gave them the finger.
Speaker 2: Generally has a pretty good reputation. I've been doing the
Speaker 2: Blue Genie for a long time, after Dan, after after Dan,
Speaker 2: and after Robin, but before Robin passed, but after Robin started.
Speaker 1: Doing Yes, yes, yes, Oh man, have you ever done
Speaker 1: a Simpsons? Just curious?
Speaker 2: No, never done a Simpsons? Yeah, never done a Star
Speaker 2: Wars thing? Hm, not that, not that I notice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, not that I would have. Yeah, okay, if
Speaker 1: they call it, I don't know if I have taby.
Speaker 1: I really am kind of busy. If you're a fan
Speaker 1: of everything we do here at tuned in with Jim Cummings,
Speaker 1: you could support the show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts,
Speaker 1: as well as early in ad free access to the show. Itself,
Speaker 1: prize drawings and more. You'll feel the difference. So go
Speaker 1: ahead and join the tuned in family today at Patreon
Speaker 1: dot com, slash Jim Cummings podcast Do it Now, it's
Speaker 1: QUI impression impressions.
Speaker 4: You want to tell us about that?
Speaker 1: Oh sure, well let's see every now.
Speaker 2: And then I put up a one man show because uh,
Speaker 2: it's been a successful thing for me.
Speaker 1: To just freaking thousands, why not cast.
Speaker 2: A freaking thousands and people like it, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: can do it cheaply, and my wife has a theater,
Speaker 2: I can put it up there. And I did it
Speaker 2: at the Gary Marshall Theater last September in honor partially
Speaker 2: of the fiftieth anniversary of Happy Days. So it was
Speaker 2: a good mixture, and I kind of leaned into my
Speaker 2: Happy Days experience. I told the story of you know,
Speaker 2: jumping the shop in the show and being around that
Speaker 2: show and being around that set and those people from
Speaker 2: a very early age, and kind of it was an
Speaker 2: unusual time and so I.
Speaker 5: Had a unique perspective.
Speaker 2: And then I also, yeah, sing I do musical numbers,
Speaker 2: which I've created with my keyboardist, Noah Sunday Lefkowitz and
Speaker 2: did some audience interactive stuff. And you know, I've been
Speaker 2: doing one man shows here and there since the early eighties,
Speaker 2: and I like the challenge. It's super fun. People seem
Speaker 2: to like it. It's not hugely lucrative or popular. I've
Speaker 2: never done a tour.
Speaker 4: But it sounds like you really enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I do, and it kind of gets it kind of
Speaker 2: you know, actors, especially ones that aren't maybe as fabulously successful,
Speaker 2: and congratulations him on your career.
Speaker 1: It's just inspirational.
Speaker 2: But for the workaday actor who's still trying to struggling
Speaker 2: to break in, I really count myself among you need
Speaker 2: to sometimes convince yourself of what it is you do
Speaker 2: that's good and can be appreciated. And I find that
Speaker 2: if I can, if I do a one man show,
Speaker 2: I kind of get it. I go, Okay, I see
Speaker 2: I see the reaction. I see that people like this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: Part of what I'm here to do, and I can always.
Speaker 2: There's really no excuse to not do it every now
Speaker 2: and then. So yeah, I put it up and I've
Speaker 2: got a fairly nice video of it now too. If
Speaker 2: anybody's interested, they can go to Jimskimon dot com contact
Speaker 2: me there and I will send you the private.
Speaker 1: Link absolutely free. Oh there you watch it.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's like I said, I've done a lot
Speaker 2: of different things. I am very just didn't being a
Speaker 2: TV and film actor, and I continue to pursue that
Speaker 2: very avidly. Uh, but I am aware that I have
Speaker 2: this skill. I worked on a Landman with Billy Bob Thornton,
Speaker 2: uh the season finale of that show, and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 5: Went, I was like, God, what's Billy Bob Thorny gonna
Speaker 5: be like?
Speaker 1: And ye what was he like? Well? He was he
Speaker 1: was cool.
Speaker 2: I actually had a really good time with him. So
Speaker 2: he as the star of that show obviously, and we
Speaker 2: were filming in a hospital, a real hospital in fort Worth,
Speaker 2: and his his sort of assistant guy who's not bodyguard,
Speaker 2: but you know, his major domo who is also used
Speaker 2: to be Axel Rose's assistant, uh, taking care of him.
Speaker 2: And he said, Bill Bob said, yeah, same same kind
Speaker 2: of group of rocker.
Speaker 1: Uh. He said, Uh.
Speaker 2: Billy Bob said you can hang out with him if
Speaker 2: you want, in his room and I'm like, okay, so
Speaker 2: I go in and Billy Webb says, so, uh, I'll
Speaker 2: hear you do impressions.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna get along. We're gonna get exactly
Speaker 1: what he said.
Speaker 2: So I dragged out all my funny, weird, kind of
Speaker 2: old movie impressions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Burgess Murders. You know, I feel like that.
Speaker 2: I told you to my body, the body.
Speaker 1: And it was great.
Speaker 5: And he's I respect him as an actor a lot.
Speaker 1: I really like his.
Speaker 2: Genuineness and authenticity, reality and subtlety and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: You know. It was interesting because his first big splash
Speaker 1: was sling Blade, right, and he he and he successfully
Speaker 1: avoided the James Woods syndrome because James Wood's first big
Speaker 1: movie was what was it? The movie where he played
Speaker 1: a horrible, incredible, murdering killer type person. Yeah, and people
Speaker 1: didn't want him. And I remember Cisco and Eber going, well,
Speaker 1: this guy is incredible. He's blah blah blah blah. But
Speaker 1: he's I understand he's struggling a bit together next role
Speaker 1: because people are going, nobody wants him in my office.
Speaker 1: I don't want I don't want him in my office.
Speaker 1: And you know, and so you know, I think he
Speaker 1: successfully avoid that quick aside. Billy Bob Thornton was my
Speaker 1: dad in a cartoon.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, cat Dog.
Speaker 1: He was cat Dog and I'm kidding. Yeah, now you
Speaker 1: can see the resemblance.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's in the Caroline.
Speaker 1: I think who else would it have been? Yeah? That
Speaker 1: was that was my one little He's quite a singer too.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: He's got a band, the box Masters. Yeah, they tour around.
Speaker 2: He thinks, he told me that he thinks of himself
Speaker 2: more as a musician who acts, no kid, but he's
Speaker 2: really good at both.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're not worried about him. Not worried about
Speaker 1: Billy Bob.
Speaker 2: They call him Bud, the group does anyway, calls him Bud,
Speaker 2: Bud Bud.
Speaker 4: So next time you see him, folks, you're in the
Speaker 4: inner circle.
Speaker 1: That's right, Hey, Bud. Yeah, Why who the hell are you?
Speaker 1: I get that a lot. Who the hell are you?
Speaker 1: Who do you think you are? I think I'm mister lucky.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you about growing up with a
Speaker 3: parent that's on TV and a celebrity. What what was
Speaker 3: that experience like growing up because I had a similar experience,
Speaker 3: not to the same degree, but my dad was an
Speaker 3: actor and on TV and me personally, and we've had
Speaker 3: a few other other actors on this podcast who have had,
Speaker 3: you know, famous parents or whatnot, can continued on their legacy,
Speaker 3: so to speak. But I want to ask you did
Speaker 3: you feel pressure at all? Was there pressure to be
Speaker 3: an artist?
Speaker 4: Was there?
Speaker 3: I know your I heard you say that your mom
Speaker 3: encouraged you to be artistic, But did you feel any
Speaker 3: pressure did you feel just what was that upbringing?
Speaker 4: Like with that dynamics?
Speaker 2: As you know from your own experience, there's something special
Speaker 2: about having a parent who's on TV, even if they're
Speaker 2: just the guy you know, sure make Tag repairman. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's there's an ascension that seems to happen. It is
Speaker 2: almost as if this person who you know we see
Speaker 2: every day has entered a new universe and they've somehow
Speaker 2: made it into through this membrane.
Speaker 5: Of into this other world. And you're like, oh, you
Speaker 5: must be. You're a little immortal. You've got some immortality.
Speaker 1: You know that you've you've achieved.
Speaker 2: So before she was a famous person, she was always
Speaker 2: a working actress in my youth. And uh, but for
Speaker 2: grown up shows that I didn't watch, you know, like
Speaker 2: Mission Impossible Side and yeah, yeah, you know, occasionally I
Speaker 2: think she did an episode of the Brady Bunch and uh,
Speaker 2: but so I felt a little bit special there, but
Speaker 2: we were pretty broke, so I didn't feel tremendously entitled.
Speaker 2: But when Happy Days was a situation where the show
Speaker 2: had a very very slow ramp to fame. Really yeah,
Speaker 2: very very slow, in fact, bizarrely slow, almost so slow.
Speaker 5: That wouldn't have happened because they did the pilot.
Speaker 2: Gary Marshall writes about this in his book He's Got
Speaker 2: a wonderful book called Wake Me when It's Funny, and
Speaker 2: he wrote that they.
Speaker 1: Did the pilot.
Speaker 9: We did the pilot for Happy Days, and it didn't sell.
Speaker 9: ABC didn't buy it, so they put it on the
Speaker 9: shelf at Paramount and they let it sit there. Then
Speaker 9: at the same time, George Lucas, the filmmaker named George Lucas,
Speaker 9: asks the casting director, you know, do you have any
Speaker 9: footage of Ron Howard in a kind.
Speaker 2: Of a fifties look for this movie? And they sent
Speaker 2: him the Happy Days pilot and he looked at that
Speaker 2: and he went, oh, I'll put Ron Howard in American graffiti.
Speaker 1: American graffiti.
Speaker 2: Then, I mean there's a lot of time involved, right,
Speaker 2: So it's the casting American Graffiti shooting American graffiti, releasing
Speaker 2: American Graffiti, it becomes a hit. Then Michael Eisner at
Speaker 2: the time went, don't we have a pilot with Ron
Speaker 2: Howard in the fifties sitting on the shelf, And they
Speaker 2: dragged it out and they put it on the air,
Speaker 2: and then it became popular, but not crazy popular. It
Speaker 2: was still one camera.
Speaker 1: And Phonsie had a great coat.
Speaker 2: Fonzie had like a wind breaker, a wind breaker. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't have a didn't have a leather jacket. There
Speaker 2: was a lot of talk about that. Yeah, and like
Speaker 2: should he be a hoodlum? Is that's the point he hoodlum?
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And so and then when they went a multiicam in
Speaker 2: about season three, then it became a hit.
Speaker 5: So it was this slow ramp up.
Speaker 2: So my mom was like, from my viewpoint, it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: mom has a job, she got a pilot. No, it
Speaker 2: didn't sell. Oh well, uh, now she's looking for it.
Speaker 2: Now she's doing commercials and she's doing whatever, and you know,
Speaker 2: we don't we don't have a lot of dough and uh.
Speaker 1: And then then oh, well they're going to put it
Speaker 1: back on the air. Oh they are.
Speaker 2: And then it's a little series like, oh, oh, that's nice,
Speaker 2: but she's not making the money. First of all, the
Speaker 2: women didn't make what the men were making anyway, she
Speaker 2: didn't make.
Speaker 1: What Tom was making.
Speaker 2: Tom Bosley he was making three times what Marian made.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then it built and she began to actually
Speaker 2: be popular.
Speaker 1: It was a hit.
Speaker 2: And then then we started being able to go. I
Speaker 2: think she could relax as a parent and as a breadwinner.
Speaker 2: And I think there was a certain point five or
Speaker 2: six years in where her accountant said, you should spend
Speaker 2: some money. Yeah, yeah, you're losing the money in the
Speaker 2: bank and you're losing opportunity to And then and then
Speaker 2: she started adopting. I noticed this kind of not avariciousness
Speaker 2: or anything, but but she got a little looser, and
Speaker 2: she would buy things just because she liked them, you know,
Speaker 2: she would. And then she would buy things that she
Speaker 2: really should have like shopped on a little bit more,
Speaker 2: but she could have got a better deal, but you
Speaker 2: know what, she liked them.
Speaker 5: She would go in and buy.
Speaker 2: A car off the showroom floor, for example, Oh boy, things.
Speaker 1: Like that, because she could, because she could, and there
Speaker 1: was absolutely no negative effect at all. Yep. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be tough one to find a negative in that.
Speaker 2: But for me, you're asking about mymy was it weird
Speaker 2: where their pressures? I was confused by it all because
Speaker 2: it messed with me a bit because once the show
Speaker 2: got really popular, there was just tremendous attention on those
Speaker 2: people that show My Mom and it had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, didn't make you want to do the same thing
Speaker 4: I want?
Speaker 1: Who would not want that attention? Were so close by?
Speaker 2: It was like, sure, it would be like there's a
Speaker 2: there's a conveyor belt full of gold coins going by.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so close. I can I go get something?
Speaker 1: You didn't want to be Pete Best?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't want to be the best Pete Worst.
Speaker 1: I wanted to Yeah.
Speaker 2: But and but I didn't understand my own attraction to
Speaker 2: it either. It was a little bit suspicious, a little
Speaker 2: bit insecure about I was like, is it because I
Speaker 2: love acting or is it because I want the attention?
Speaker 5: And it took me a long time to resolve that.
Speaker 1: Well, it's kind of a little both, huh. And it's
Speaker 1: a little both for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But it took me a lot to get to
Speaker 2: make my peace with it. And actually pursue acting took
Speaker 2: a long time because I also really wanted to draw paint,
Speaker 2: and I went to school for that, and I studied
Speaker 2: and went to Spain and studied painting.
Speaker 4: And about your time in Spain, what was the what was.
Speaker 5: The Yeah, I was studying.
Speaker 2: I went to Santa Cruz University, California University, and I
Speaker 2: met a Spanish artist was a visiting artist there, and
Speaker 2: he was he was a real really stood out he
Speaker 2: was at that school at that time, and probably a
Speaker 2: lot of the schools.
Speaker 1: They were painting.
Speaker 2: If you wanted to learn how to be a painter,
Speaker 2: you wanted to be and they wanted to teach you
Speaker 2: how to be an abstract expressionist.
Speaker 5: You splash paint.
Speaker 2: You technique was nothing, you know, it's all about talking
Speaker 2: about it was much more important than doing anything.
Speaker 1: It was like if you could talk.
Speaker 2: For an hour about a painting, you were you were
Speaker 2: cock of the walk. But my friend Gel, who later
Speaker 2: became my mentor, was a guy whose class I got
Speaker 2: stuck into. Because I couldn't get into this popular guy's class.
Speaker 2: They said, you're going to go to Michael's class.
Speaker 1: And I went, okay, And I.
Speaker 5: Go to Micgel's class.
Speaker 2: And he is a classically trained Spanish beis Arte's painter.
Speaker 2: The guy had been looking for all my life. Mmm,
Speaker 2: so it was a lucky break.
Speaker 1: Wow he started talking. I went, holy crap, I'm in
Speaker 1: the right place. Yeah.
Speaker 5: And I studied with him for three years. He invited
Speaker 5: me to go to Spain.
Speaker 2: I went a couple of times in Spain, studied old
Speaker 2: master techniques, learned everything really well, a lot of the fundamentals.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a lifetime thing, really. But I learned
Speaker 2: enough to be a painter. I did not learn how
Speaker 2: to make a living as a painter. I did not learn,
Speaker 2: but I was interested.
Speaker 1: I tried to. But were you the guy with the palette?
Speaker 1: You had the.
Speaker 2: Whole palette, the beard, Yeah, there you go, the stains
Speaker 2: on the sho you almost have a beret on now,
Speaker 2: So that's a guy. I wear a beret when I can. Yeah,
Speaker 2: absolutely still wear a beret.
Speaker 1: And they wore them in Spain.
Speaker 2: It's a very European thing, and I'm so grateful for
Speaker 2: that time.
Speaker 1: It was very arduous. You know.
Speaker 2: Anytime you studied anything to a classical degree, singing, musical instruments, painting,
Speaker 2: freaking ballet, whatever you learn so much about existence.
Speaker 5: How to make this do that.
Speaker 2: You know, how to make your hand do something, how
Speaker 2: to make your voice do something, your diaphragm do something
Speaker 2: it's not natural.
Speaker 1: You know, your ankles dance in a way.
Speaker 2: You know your toes do shit that it shouldn't be doing,
Speaker 2: and that that you carry with you your whole life.
Speaker 2: I think, and it informs everything.
Speaker 5: Whether you actually do it. Very few people do, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: I mean, all the people I knew that were studying painting,
Speaker 2: very few of them actually do it, but they learned
Speaker 2: no kidding, yeah, wow, because it's it's like voice over.
Speaker 2: I mean, how many people I was thinking about this
Speaker 2: on the way over. I'm sure you get this all
Speaker 2: the time too, at comic cons and things, and people
Speaker 2: saying I'm really interested in being voice actor. Oh oh,
Speaker 2: And they ask you questions and you give them advice
Speaker 2: and stuff. Thousands of people because they look at it
Speaker 2: and they go, I have an affinity for that. I
Speaker 2: think that activity is beautiful. I like that language, I
Speaker 2: like those images. I like you know, there's all these
Speaker 2: things I like about it, and I like that part
Speaker 2: of the culture. It's sort of safe and kind of
Speaker 2: fun and kind of everybody wins and it's colorful. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I remember it for my childhood and they got
Speaker 2: all these reasons why they love it, and they think
Speaker 2: and I can kind of do some funny voices.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, will you pursue it?
Speaker 5: You know, that's the question.
Speaker 2: And how many people actually do you know of the
Speaker 2: people that we've talked to just casually at comic cons,
Speaker 2: A very small percentage of people actually, And you're surprised,
Speaker 2: aren't you when someone says, well, you know what, I
Speaker 2: got a job and now I'm on this show. You're
Speaker 2: like you are, Yeah, you actually followed my advice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a gosh about eight ten months ago,
Speaker 1: I was at a comic con you met remember this?
Speaker 4: I remember this?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah and those yeah yeah, and uh a young
Speaker 1: man and he had a table next to mine, and hey,
Speaker 1: it's had a pretty nice crowd of folks that came up.
Speaker 1: Anime is a big deal, you know. Yeah, I'm it's
Speaker 1: it's not my thing. You're in that world a little bit, though, right,
Speaker 1: But I am that Yeah. Well I think I did
Speaker 1: like two enough things. But but I'm milk. I'll get
Speaker 1: under that cow and milk it. Believe me. You know,
Speaker 1: halfway through the day or like from Friday Saturday. He goes,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, and he was so shy. It
Speaker 1: was such a sweet kid, you know. I say, kiddy,
Speaker 1: you know twice and he said, I just can't believe
Speaker 1: that I'm getting to be here with like next to you,
Speaker 1: and I go, hey, man, I'm happy to be here
Speaker 1: next to you too. He goes, well, yeah, and I anyway,
Speaker 1: you told me what to do and I said, what's that?
Speaker 1: He goes, do, Yeah, you know you would never remember this,
Speaker 1: but but you told me that you know, it doesn't anything,
Speaker 1: you don't nothing to it, but to do it, and
Speaker 1: that you did impressions of your aunts and uncles and
Speaker 1: the guy who ran the corner store and everything. And anyway,
Speaker 1: I kind of did that, you know. And then I
Speaker 1: got this anime job and everybody likes it, and he's
Speaker 1: showing me this character I don't know who the hell is,
Speaker 1: and it was so gratifying. It was so sweet because
Speaker 1: he said that that I helped him get into the business.
Speaker 3: Didn't you have like a sign picture from you back
Speaker 3: in the day too? I swear he brought like the
Speaker 3: autograph from the conversation and he was like, you signed
Speaker 3: this for me and I did it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then he went off and and and did it,
Speaker 1: you know, and I gave him here's my little advice.
Speaker 1: I don't think we covered this, but you know, if
Speaker 1: you do a perfect impression of somebody, that's gold. I mean,
Speaker 1: because you never know when you can use that I'm
Speaker 1: famous person. And if you do a terrible impression I'm
Speaker 1: a famous person that nobody knows who the hell you're doing.
Speaker 1: You know, you think it's the greatest job Wayne in
Speaker 1: the world, and they think it's you know, Fred Flint's.
Speaker 1: They don't even that's a new character. And then if
Speaker 1: you do a perfect compression of someone nobody knows, like
Speaker 1: my aunt Grace and uncle, say God bless them. Those
Speaker 1: are new characters. And so there's a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: a lot of things you a lot of they're free
Speaker 1: arrows in your quiver. Yeah, you know, yeah, and you
Speaker 1: never know when you get to fire them. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: I totally agree. And and but that's an example.
Speaker 2: Of the you know, the the outlier, the guy that
Speaker 2: actually had the gumption to to do what you recommend it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and doing it helps you know, saying you're going
Speaker 1: to do it, and and how many times have you
Speaker 1: been signing an autograph or doing this or that? And
Speaker 1: they go, you know, I I'm going to get into that.
Speaker 4: I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1: Yes too. Oh yeah yeah, I said, so what are
Speaker 1: you doing? Have been in place? What do you mean?
Speaker 12: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I want to do I go, okay,
Speaker 1: well I was in a freaking hundred plays as a kid.
Speaker 1: He goes, ooh, do you have to do that? And
Speaker 1: I go, can't hurt you know? Yeah? Yeah? And I
Speaker 1: and Jess are now. I give him credit every time
Speaker 1: he says, if you want to be a voice actor,
Speaker 1: what you have to remember that it's a small V
Speaker 1: but a capital A.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Great, great, So that's just knows. Yeah, just he knows
Speaker 1: and he would know. Yeah, and uh so you guys
Speaker 1: should be carving that into stone by the way out there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's it's a curious thing. It's a
Speaker 1: curious thing. If you're a fan of everything we do
Speaker 1: here at tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support
Speaker 1: the show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well
Speaker 1: as early in ad free access to the show itself,
Speaker 1: prize drawings, and more. You'll feel the difference. So go
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Speaker 1: dot com, Slash Jim Cummings podcast Do It Now. And
Speaker 1: I think the younger you are that you, because I'm
Speaker 1: sure you had this bug at an early age. The
Speaker 1: younger you are when you decide, you know, the longer
Speaker 1: you have to aim at the target, the more true
Speaker 1: your arrow shall be. I think I.
Speaker 2: Rarely right, Okay, But when you first started to say that,
Speaker 2: similarly though, I thought about, you know, if you draw
Speaker 2: the long bow and you don't release, it's not fewer
Speaker 2: times it's going to hit the target, but it could
Speaker 2: shoot a lot of arrows.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think you you just you learn about you, learn
Speaker 2: about you, You learn about the art form, you learn
Speaker 2: about people's reaction.
Speaker 1: What you're doing is just learning, learning, learning.
Speaker 3: I think it's fair to say that with your career
Speaker 3: you shot a lot of arrows. I mean, just doing
Speaker 3: my research on you, I couldn't believe how many different
Speaker 3: projects you've been on and so many different meetings, you know,
Speaker 3: voiceover on screen, all these different ventures. And one thing
Speaker 3: that I was thinking about just I played sports my
Speaker 3: whole life. I played football up until a professional level.
Speaker 3: And it just kind of reminded me, seeing your career
Speaker 3: and your credits of like how most people don't know
Speaker 3: ninety nine percent of the players in the NFL. You know,
Speaker 3: you know, you're Tom Brady's you know, you know Reggie Bush,
Speaker 3: you know, like these big celebrity names. But I mean
Speaker 3: there's sixty five players on every team and some of
Speaker 3: these players have fifteen twenty year careers. You know, It's
Speaker 3: it's rare, but they exist and nobody knows their name,
Speaker 3: and it's just it brought a question up into my mind,
Speaker 3: and like what keeps you I'm not please don't take
Speaker 3: this like I'm trying to like say like.
Speaker 4: You know, dare you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, But I want to know what because as an
Speaker 3: actor myself, you know who has like little day player
Speaker 3: credits here and there? Like what keeps you going? Like
Speaker 3: what keeps you coming back and keep pursuing and keep
Speaker 3: pursuing and going and going debt? Actually, but there's got
Speaker 3: to be some there's got to be like a more
Speaker 3: serious like drive to it, because it's it's hard.
Speaker 4: I mean, I know it's hard.
Speaker 2: You know, to generate interests, you have to have you
Speaker 2: have to be interested. And it's true that after decades
Speaker 2: and decades and sometimes bang your head against the wall,
Speaker 2: your interest wanes and you go, what else is there
Speaker 2: to do? And I'm guilty of doing that a few times.
Speaker 2: But I find that you that interest is within our control.
Speaker 2: We can get interested, we can develop interest, and I
Speaker 2: try to do that is part of the reason why
Speaker 2: I do the Impression show.
Speaker 4: I have to.
Speaker 2: I have to forces me to get interested in like
Speaker 2: what will audiences?
Speaker 12: Like?
Speaker 1: What should I do?
Speaker 5: What can I do?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: What are my resources? And usually your mind starts to
Speaker 2: work on it. And when I watch TV, I watched
Speaker 2: TV TV.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: My wife and I watch TV together mostly uh, And
Speaker 2: it's mostly what she wants to watch because that's marriage
Speaker 2: happy write, which is fine, she likes, she has good tastes.
Speaker 2: But when I watch TV, I realized I watched TV
Speaker 2: somewhat differently than she does. I am dissecting it and
Speaker 2: I am looking at the actor and I'm watching what
Speaker 2: the actor does, and I'm.
Speaker 1: Very rarely carried away and like, well, what a great
Speaker 1: story that was?
Speaker 2: You know, I've just seen so much TV in so
Speaker 2: many films that I'm looking at, Wow, how he held
Speaker 2: his hands, and my wife is just kind of absorbing
Speaker 2: it and enjoying it and having a great time doing
Speaker 2: it the right way, and I'm doing it the bullshit
Speaker 2: way of just like kind of like studying and thinking,
Speaker 2: thinking about the voice, thinking about all kinds of stuff
Speaker 2: that doesn't.
Speaker 1: Really have much.
Speaker 2: And if you ask me, the restory was, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: research it for me. It's like my excuse is that
Speaker 2: I'm researching things.
Speaker 1: Do you enjoy the housewives of fill in the blank
Speaker 1: as much as I don't will anything about any one
Speaker 1: of them? And unfortunately I know about all of them.
Speaker 2: My wife likes to watch British you know, detective shows
Speaker 2: where it's a small town and the Vickers involved somehow
Speaker 2: and oh yes, all things.
Speaker 1: And there's one.
Speaker 2: That Anne, there's a there's an there's one called called
Speaker 2: the Midwife, which is all about babies and being born
Speaker 2: and nuns. And you know, I think my wife really
Speaker 2: wants to live in England, and so she'll go there,
Speaker 2: you know, every couple of nights. And I like the
Speaker 2: British show and like little bit I don't know that
Speaker 2: kind of yeah, yeah, but uh, you know, but I'll
Speaker 2: watch We've been lately watching the films of Mike Lee.
Speaker 2: If you watched Mike Lee films, British film director, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, he's fantastic director. He's a director and he
Speaker 2: creates movies in a completely bizarre way. Uh, they are fantastic.
Speaker 2: The best British actors all are dying to get into
Speaker 2: Mike Lee. He's like a Woody Allen without the comedy. Uh.
Speaker 2: In terms of out who wants to be in his
Speaker 2: movies and who will work for scale and and you
Speaker 2: know a great personal risk. They will be in Mike
Speaker 2: lead films and I we like those a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll have to send my real to him and
Speaker 1: then not get hired. I can't wait to not get
Speaker 1: hired by this day. Mike Lee.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, we talked about it briefly before the podcast,
Speaker 3: but I want the viewers to hear your story about
Speaker 3: becoming the Colonel.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, well I did Colonel Shanders for about you
Speaker 6: have Years for Okay, Outfit and mighty nine bunch of people.
Speaker 2: I love the Colonel characters so much because he's just
Speaker 2: so full of beans and so such a throwback.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and so this was a I'm getting one
Speaker 1: of those things some reason I really want something.
Speaker 2: So I was doing what I do when I want
Speaker 2: to get work, and I was just looking through my
Speaker 2: U I used to look through a Rollodex. Now I
Speaker 2: looked through my emails from two years ago, three years ago.
Speaker 2: Who haven't I talked to for a while? And I've
Speaker 2: came across this guy who was a copywriter. I'd done
Speaker 2: a ill fated voiceover campaign for Sony. I'd say ill
Speaker 2: fated because I did like three big voiceovers for a
Speaker 2: TV campaign and then like the week that it was released,
Speaker 2: Sony had some sort of huge debacle and suddenly went, oh,
Speaker 2: we don't want to talk about ourselves anymore, so we
Speaker 2: took it all off the air.
Speaker 4: It was the hack.
Speaker 1: It was the hack. It was the Sony hack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think, And anyway, so that went away.
Speaker 2: But I had met this copywriter who wrote the copy
Speaker 2: and so I wrote him. I said, how are you, Devin,
Speaker 2: And he said I'm good. By the way, how's your
Speaker 2: Colonel Sanders? And I went, well, it's pretty often good, yeah,
Speaker 2: because I can hear Colonel Sanders. I mean I was
Speaker 2: a child.
Speaker 1: I remember that. You know, don't forget your grandfather's overcoat.
Speaker 1: That was in the recipe. Remember that.
Speaker 5: I don't remember that. That's so funny.
Speaker 1: They were trying to get him give us the secret recipe,
Speaker 1: and he said, well it is, Oh forget your grandfather's overcoat.
Speaker 1: He really put it one over on them, you Randy Chap, Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. So I sent him.
Speaker 2: I sent him a demo and then he liked that,
Speaker 2: and I sent him another demo. I had auditioned for
Speaker 2: the colonel physically for an earlier campaign, like a year prior,
Speaker 2: and I'd done the voice and that was yeah for
Speaker 2: on camera.
Speaker 1: They were looking for it.
Speaker 2: They were looking for a colonel at that point, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't even know why, why should
Speaker 2: bother go on? This not really the right type. But
Speaker 2: I went and they were like, you know, there may
Speaker 2: be a world where we use your voice. And so
Speaker 2: I knew then that like, wow, okay, I think I
Speaker 2: sound like him, and they think, more importantly, they think
Speaker 2: I say like him.
Speaker 5: So that was established in my mind.
Speaker 2: So when my friend Devin said, how's your colonel Sanators,
Speaker 2: I went, you know, it's it's surveyed out rather well,
Speaker 2: So I sent him a demo.
Speaker 1: You sent him another demo.
Speaker 2: They hired me to do a demo, so now now
Speaker 2: the flow is reversed and I'm making money. And then
Speaker 2: they hired me to do a voiceover, and then another
Speaker 2: and another for seven years, and I had a lot
Speaker 2: of fun because I took that character and made my
Speaker 2: own content with the colonel quite a bit. I would
Speaker 2: do these because they didn't care. They didn't care at all,
Speaker 2: nobody I have a YouTube channel and I need content.
Speaker 6: So I would do a conversation between a Colonel Sanders
Speaker 6: and other notable figures they would call up on the telephone.
Speaker 6: And one thing, I think, I like to pride myself
Speaker 6: for the thing I have noticed about Colonel Sanders. You
Speaker 6: much like him. I want you always to hear as
Speaker 6: much ash. Oh, yeah, she's rather important for the time,
Speaker 6: you see.
Speaker 1: So I would do these.
Speaker 2: I've got tons of videos online of him talking to
Speaker 2: Robert Oppenheimer and talking to Humphy Bullguards and talking to
Speaker 2: Marlon Brando and talking to whoever I felt like I
Speaker 2: could imitate that day. I would go in the booth
Speaker 2: and I used to script them and I went, I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna improvise them, and I'll do one the other
Speaker 2: and one and the other and then I'll go back
Speaker 2: and edit it and kind of overlap them and editing,
Speaker 2: so the illusion of them, of him talking to these
Speaker 2: famous people and he's always just on another channel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, bring a lot of joy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you make some really good content. I just saw
Speaker 3: your YouTube channel and your Instagram is really funny too.
Speaker 3: You do a lot of funny skits on there.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 2: My daughter and I we it's it's her job to
Speaker 2: help me load up a lot of Instagram stuff. So
Speaker 2: she does he hey dad, Hey dad, what do and
Speaker 2: we don't contrive it. She actually pounces on me and
Speaker 2: you know, do Joe Biden and he's explaining.
Speaker 1: That so good.
Speaker 2: The one that went viral was Joe Biden explaining that
Speaker 2: the plot to Star Wars, so there's a galaxy parked
Speaker 2: on the you know, it's not that kind of galaxy.
Speaker 5: It's just the robots and.
Speaker 1: They're not the droid. You're looking for.
Speaker 2: Any of them, George, anybody's nobody's looking for joys. Come on,
Speaker 2: never mind, come on, come.
Speaker 4: On, man, come.
Speaker 1: On man, you dog face pony Soldier.
Speaker 3: So funny, so funny, that's delicious. Yeah, you do all
Speaker 3: the presidents so well. I saw a little video and
Speaker 3: you're doing all the president. I was like, how do
Speaker 3: you like? It's just like you don't even have to
Speaker 3: introduce yourself. You're so good at it. It's just you know,
Speaker 3: most people say their impressions and like turn around, well
Speaker 3: the naga. You know, it's like, okay, we I.
Speaker 5: Do a fair amount of that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the presidents are so ubiquitous. You know, we
Speaker 2: hear them. Oh, whether we like it or not.
Speaker 1: You know, it is Donald Trump with us by any time,
Speaker 1: Trump for shure.
Speaker 12: You know, I noticed recently I don't do a lot
Speaker 12: of Trump because there's so many guys that do fantastic job.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic, I don't you know. I think I'm but
Speaker 2: one thing.
Speaker 5: I really listening to him recently, and.
Speaker 12: Like it always sounds a little mournful. There's a kind
Speaker 12: of a mindful thing, and we're going to do a
Speaker 12: great job.
Speaker 1: Everything's going to be terrific.
Speaker 5: It's a little bit of this is kind of on
Speaker 5: we do.
Speaker 1: You hear the music because whenever I have to do
Speaker 1: music of it, yeah, I think there's music in that.
Speaker 1: You know, I for what it's worth it when I
Speaker 1: don't do impression, and I'm damned if I'm going to
Speaker 1: do it in front of this guy. But but when
Speaker 1: when I do, uh, there's always you know, like John
Speaker 1: Wayne would be, well, I could tell you one thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's there's music.
Speaker 2: In it, right, because there's rhythm and there's yeah, tonality
Speaker 2: and pitch and how how you know, Like, uh, this
Speaker 2: is another thing I've noticed about human beings. We all
Speaker 2: have voices, and we actors tend to really modulate a
Speaker 2: lot more than normal people. And and us in our
Speaker 2: normal lives, we don't modulate quite so much. You know,
Speaker 2: we don't go down to talk to the guy at
Speaker 2: the CBS or something like, yeah, I have an appointment
Speaker 2: at five o'clock. We kind of everything's kind of floating
Speaker 2: along this level and we don't most people they kind
Speaker 2: of it's almost as if there's a governor on it
Speaker 2: and the wavelength and they don't want.
Speaker 5: Unless it's like, hey, dude, don't do that.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't really vary from that, But everybody
Speaker 2: has their own kind of vocal signatures. You can actually
Speaker 2: see it when you're looking at a piece of software
Speaker 2: that's recording and uh, it's beautiful, it is music. It's
Speaker 2: it's exactly like music. Yeah, and yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 2: beautiful it's it's like birds all have birds song, you know,
Speaker 2: they don't think about his song.
Speaker 5: They're just yapping, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people like that.
Speaker 2: We're like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And and always whenever a bad guy, it's like
Speaker 1: soundtracks because it's always reflected like on the rifle Man,
Speaker 1: Down Down Down, But when the bad guy sneaking around
Speaker 1: the back of the barn in the night, boom boom boom,
Speaker 1: boom boom boom. Got to slow it song, slow it down.
Speaker 1: Minor key, minor key, got a in a minor key.
Speaker 1: That's how you know shit's gonna hit the fan. Minor key.
Speaker 8: Oh.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a big trend now that's happening with
Speaker 2: trailers and soundtracks is they'll take some sweet song from
Speaker 2: from our past and they'll give it a minor key.
Speaker 5: And have some plaintive kind.
Speaker 2: Of vocalist singing it. And you're like, oh, that's a
Speaker 2: scary song and it's like a sippity doodar or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's so true.
Speaker 1: Oh god, you know this one, there is someone walking
Speaker 1: behind you, turn around, look at me. I can't think
Speaker 1: of the movie that used that, and I thought, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that was this romantic song from when I
Speaker 1: was like five or whatever. You and then you hear
Speaker 1: it now and it scares the crap out of you.
Speaker 1: It's been Tim Burton turning around. You know. It's we
Speaker 1: just are manipulated by it, and it's it's a beautiful
Speaker 1: thing to notice and capture, and you do that so well. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank goodness, Thanks Jim. You're very kind.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to ask you when you first started working,
Speaker 2: who was the first big, kind of stellar voiceover person
Speaker 2: that you interacted with.
Speaker 1: Well, jeez, for me, well, the first JOW I ever
Speaker 1: did was Dumbo Circus and a live action.
Speaker 2: Sure, I'm a fan, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: But uh but Hal Smith was on there, the great
Speaker 1: Hal Smith, who was Otis Campbell the Andy Griffith Show.
Speaker 1: He is the town drunk. And I walked in and
Speaker 1: my younger brother, he his friend Dave from from Youngstown,
Speaker 1: callous sophisticate that he is, came out and he said,
Speaker 1: I'll never get He goes up to Hal Smith and
Speaker 1: he goes, Okay, it's nice to meet you.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Don't take this the wrong way, because I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to insult you you know who you look like, you
Speaker 1: look like the drunk on Andy Grafft and he goes,
Speaker 1: I had a drunk and I went, you know, so
Speaker 1: yeah he was. But he was my first, my first biggie.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been Have you ever met somebody that's
Speaker 1: kind of intimidated, intimidated you knocked you back a little bit,
Speaker 1: like somebody big, big super.
Speaker 5: Star or you know, yeah, yeah, sure, mostly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mostly, yeah. I get that with my mailman. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I've worked with a lot of on camera and behind
Speaker 2: the mic too, with a lot of big guys and
Speaker 2: Oscar winners and you know, but I worked with Daniel
Speaker 2: day Lewis on There Will Be Blood that for a
Speaker 2: couple of days, and.
Speaker 1: That was that was interesting. You know, he's a pretty
Speaker 1: good voice guy. Oh yeah, I mean the gangs. Yes,
Speaker 1: oh yeah.
Speaker 2: To me, it sounds like he's doing Robert than There
Speaker 2: on that movie. I'm just yea like a little bit,
Speaker 2: a little bit, a little bit. But he in the
Speaker 2: we didn't had such a small part. I wasn't allowed
Speaker 2: to look at the script of There Will Be Blood,
Speaker 2: but I could see my pages and uh it was
Speaker 2: the scene where he comes in and the very start
Speaker 2: of the movie where he comes and gives an appeal
Speaker 2: to a bunch of townspeople to buy their land, and
Speaker 2: he gets you know, they shout him down and he
Speaker 2: goes off in a huff.
Speaker 1: And he's there with his son.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know much about the story, but i'd
Speaker 2: heard from the casting person that it was based on
Speaker 2: a book called Oil by Upton Sin So I read
Speaker 2: that book because I had a lot of downtime and
Speaker 2: it's a great book. And I discovered later that at
Speaker 2: about page seventy in this five hundred page book, the
Speaker 2: movie in the book all like that, Oh doesn't become
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: It's psychotic. They are no longer.
Speaker 5: It's like a whole other book.
Speaker 2: But it's very cleaves, very much to the original up
Speaker 2: till about page seventy. So I was in that early
Speaker 2: page seventy period, so I had no idea.
Speaker 5: That he was going to you know, that the character
Speaker 5: was going to go the way he went.
Speaker 2: But when watching him, because I watched him do that speech,
Speaker 2: it's a long speech. It's his first long speech in
Speaker 2: the maybe the first utterances that you actually hear, because
Speaker 2: there's awful lot of silent stuff in the beginning of it,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm watching him and you know, he's
Speaker 2: just a believable I believe he's the guy. I believe
Speaker 2: we're here. We did it over and over again. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the way to do that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's very sensible.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like there wasn't a lot of history on
Speaker 2: or fireworks or technique or it was just like, no,
Speaker 2: that's simple. Just that's that's really good. Yeah, like that's
Speaker 2: a good actor.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Of course he does other magnificent things in that film.
Speaker 2: But yes, and I met him and he was his
Speaker 2: character name was Daniel, and his name is Daniel. So
Speaker 2: there wasn't a lot of like, oh, now he's being Daniel. Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's arrived as Daniel. He's so I shook his hand
Speaker 2: and he said, nice to meet you.
Speaker 4: You know, was he in character? He was, Yeah, he
Speaker 4: stays in character.
Speaker 2: He was doing that John Houston kind of voice. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so he stays in character the whole time. But that
Speaker 2: makes sense. It's a sensible thing to do, you see.
Speaker 1: So like Jim Carrey with the what was it one
Speaker 1: about Andy Kaufman, Yeah, man, the Man in the Moon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I work with Jim too work on the Wrench.
Speaker 4: On the Grinch. What was that set like?
Speaker 1: Oh, it's great.
Speaker 4: What was that set like? What an amazing sets, such
Speaker 4: a work of art.
Speaker 2: It was like being inside a huge work of art.
Speaker 2: So and then all the characters were all decorated, you know, basically,
Speaker 2: And that's in a sound stage, and that was on
Speaker 2: a massive sound stage.
Speaker 5: Yehiverse, I was there four months.
Speaker 4: That's right, four months. How long is that makeup?
Speaker 3: Three hours a day? Three hours? It's like total or
Speaker 3: putting on?
Speaker 2: Uh no, another hour to take it off, dang hour
Speaker 2: and plus to take it off.
Speaker 1: Always felt good to take it off. But I loved
Speaker 1: I loved having the makeup on. It was fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do someone to hide behind, Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: I could manipulate.
Speaker 5: I learned how to like moving around because my nose
Speaker 5: was up here.
Speaker 1: We could do you know.
Speaker 2: It was kind of puppeteering with your nose and amazing
Speaker 2: actors and.
Speaker 1: There's a skill that.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Were you around Jim on site?
Speaker 5: Yeah, fair amount. But he was not having a good time.
Speaker 1: No, no, unfortunately that makeup alone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had these full scleral eye caps.
Speaker 5: Oh, because his eyes were yellow.
Speaker 2: Yes, two sets of child offers and yack for and
Speaker 2: and prosthetics, and he was just in pain. It's well
Speaker 2: known and he talks about a lot, so you know,
Speaker 2: I understand why we.
Speaker 1: Didn't all pal around.
Speaker 2: Yeah he was because in between takes he was kind
Speaker 2: of seething, trying.
Speaker 1: To trying to get through the day, get off.
Speaker 2: And one day, one day I came to work and
Speaker 2: early in the morning, always because we had to do
Speaker 2: three hours of makeup. I came to work on Universal
Speaker 2: lot and I saw the Grynch walk by and I
Speaker 2: could tell, well, that's not Jim. It's Jim's taller. That's
Speaker 2: probably his stunt double Pat Banta. So I go, hey, Pat,
Speaker 2: and the guy says, oh, no, no, it's not Pat,
Speaker 2: it's Ron.
Speaker 1: And this is the day that Ron Howard uh was.
Speaker 2: You know, Jim had been complaining.
Speaker 5: About the makeup and stuff.
Speaker 2: So I said, I decided one day I'm going to
Speaker 2: come in do the full makeup and spend.
Speaker 5: The day and see what that's like.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 1: He did it all day long and he had the
Speaker 1: end of the day went see, I see what you mean.
Speaker 5: That's pretty awful.
Speaker 1: Sitting there going yeah, yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2: Agony, yeah, yeah, but again, that's roun an hour. I
Speaker 2: don't know another director in the world that would do
Speaker 2: such a thing.
Speaker 4: Is that so funny? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh my god?
Speaker 3: Do people know that story? Do you guys know that story?
Speaker 3: I've never heard that story never. That's hilarious.
Speaker 1: That's in your book, man, that's good, it's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's a it's been an interesting career. It hasn't
Speaker 2: gone at all the way I.
Speaker 5: Thought it would.
Speaker 2: I never have thought that I would be like mainly
Speaker 2: being an impressionist, and these days I don't even know
Speaker 2: how long it's going to last with AI. I know
Speaker 2: a lot of my work is going to go away,
Speaker 2: like soundlike stuff in ad R quick spot things.
Speaker 1: And be able to really you think so absolutely, I
Speaker 1: mean I would.
Speaker 2: I mean if I was a producer and like we
Speaker 2: need Colin Firth to say, come on in, you know, okay,
Speaker 2: well I think we can.
Speaker 1: You know that's oh yeah, that we're not too crazy
Speaker 1: about all that stuff. No, of course not.
Speaker 2: But it's a but it's a tool and I think
Speaker 2: about it all the time. I think about it every day,
Speaker 2: and it does put pressure on actors to be more,
Speaker 2: more better, uh, you know, more original, more to be more,
Speaker 2: you know, because an AI doesn't have your replaceable irreplaceable, Yeah,
Speaker 2: to be creative.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, and hopefully they don't add lib. Hopefully
Speaker 1: the AI doesn't add LIB. I live and I think.
Speaker 4: I watched a I watched a twenty minute video on
Speaker 4: YouTube yesterday about how AI cannot draw a full glass
Speaker 4: of wine.
Speaker 5: Oh I saw that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, can just cannot do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has draw a full glass.
Speaker 3: You can ask AI to draw a full glass of
Speaker 3: wine filled to the brim. It will never do it. It
Speaker 3: cannot do it. What kind of weird the weirdest this
Speaker 3: guy like goes into like this whole explanation for twenty minutes,
Speaker 3: like deep bunking.
Speaker 1: Like why who and who found that out?
Speaker 3: This is just random YouTube? Yeah, you're not a random YouTuber.
Speaker 3: I'm going to link your video actually in this video
Speaker 3: because you deserve some credit.
Speaker 4: That was a good video.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's fascinating. It's like it
Speaker 3: seems like it's so capable and then so deficient at
Speaker 3: the same time. Right, Yeah, but yeah, it'll be interesting
Speaker 3: to see how all that plays out. But I'm not
Speaker 3: a big believer. I think it's vastly overstated what it
Speaker 3: can actually do, but only time will tell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for certain effects it's very good, and for other
Speaker 2: things it just will always be inferior.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we this is what I was thinking
Speaker 1: about earlier.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, people have talked about, well, photoshop
Speaker 2: came along and it didn't destroy photography. It didn't well
Speaker 2: and and you know it go back further. You know
Speaker 2: this never happened, but you wouldn't say, well, ventriloquism is
Speaker 2: just going to destroy it entertainment.
Speaker 5: Just look at that. This is a guy.
Speaker 2: You can put a voice into a non living thing
Speaker 2: and it makes it look like a living thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's it.
Speaker 2: We're done because now you'll just we'll just always have
Speaker 2: been able to have dummies and people providing voices for it,
Speaker 2: not really because nobody really we get a little bit
Speaker 2: of entrilogaism.
Speaker 5: We're fine. That's I'm gooding out for a year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, two minutes, I'm done.
Speaker 5: But because it's all drawing.
Speaker 2: So with the AI, we're drawing and scrubbing from things,
Speaker 2: and it's not really original, and it's a lot of
Speaker 2: plagiarism and it's stuff we've seen before.
Speaker 5: That's why it's there, and so.
Speaker 2: It has that me meditation and I you know, when
Speaker 2: I see the things on Instagram pop up and it's like, wow,
Speaker 2: look at this. It's Star Wars but nineteen fifties, and
Speaker 2: you're like, wow, that's really interesting. I'm you know, I'll
Speaker 2: take forty seconds of this, but it's not going to
Speaker 2: change the world.
Speaker 4: Shirt. Yeah, completely compelling. That reminds me of this line
Speaker 4: in I Robot with Smith and he's sitting down interrogating,
Speaker 4: you know, the android, and he's like, can you make a.
Speaker 3: Work of art? Can you write a symphony? And the
Speaker 3: android looks at him, he's like can you.
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you better wise guy, Yeah yeah I could.
Speaker 2: If I could, I know a guy who knows a guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. If you're a fan of everything we
Speaker 1: do here at tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could
Speaker 1: support the show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as
Speaker 1: well as early in ad free access to the show itself,
Speaker 1: prize drawings, and more. You'll feel the difference, So go
Speaker 1: ahead and join the tuned In family today at Patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash Jim Cummings podcast. Do it now, Well.
Speaker 2: This is why we respect the great artists, the great composers,
Speaker 2: the great writers, They somehow find the time, find the interest.
Speaker 5: Level, develop their skill.
Speaker 2: It's a miracle. If a machine does that is not
Speaker 2: a miracle. It's it's plagiarism.
Speaker 1: Program and it's programming, and it's yeah, it's digits.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hard to be ampathetic with it something.
Speaker 2: But I can see a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: work disappearing because it would be just like you know,
Speaker 2: we we talk to robots all the time on the phone, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because it's like who.
Speaker 1: We all love it and we're like we'll put up.
Speaker 2: With it because he can't really imagine somebody doing it
Speaker 2: all day long saying yeah please hold and all that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, unless it's outsourced.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that with a lot of actual people.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm talking to robots.
Speaker 5: Well, that's true.
Speaker 2: We have to be we have to exert our humanity, right,
Speaker 2: And that's the key to any kind of success with
Speaker 2: anything is first be there, be present, and be willing
Speaker 2: to communicate with other people and to have that evolution,
Speaker 2: you know. And yeah, I think it puts a lot
Speaker 2: of us on notice. You know, how unautomatic can you be?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Because the more automatic, you know, like this is why
Speaker 2: marriages go bad, because the husband or the wife is
Speaker 2: kind of like, oh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm married, and it's it's just gonna run.
Speaker 1: And I've done my bit, you know.
Speaker 2: I I paid the bills and I bought the ring. No,
Speaker 2: that's just the entrance fee.
Speaker 4: You know, it's just Skynett letting us know they're listening.
Speaker 2: Oh, Skynet, I didn't mean it. I did not mean it. Hey,
Speaker 2: it's the best thing I ever hear them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the smart hub notification pops up on the TV
Speaker 3: for you guys confused at home.
Speaker 4: It's it's very suspicious.
Speaker 1: Say, no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Speaker 3: But did you have anything you wanted to advertise or
Speaker 3: plug upcoming that you got going on?
Speaker 1: Nah?
Speaker 2: Not really visit my website, jim Meskama dot com s.
Speaker 4: I mean email, don't you if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 5: Oh, it's not really set up yet.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: No, I did a bunch of online videos, but we
Speaker 2: haven't figured out how to host it properly yet. One
Speaker 2: of these days, though, stay in touch when they get
Speaker 2: on my man.
Speaker 5: Stay tuned, Yeah, stay tuned.
Speaker 3: To follow you on social media, of course. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: guys have to. It's actually really funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah at jimpressions on Instagram. I'm on TikTok and I
Speaker 2: had a lot of success there, not monetarily, but I'm
Speaker 2: told I've made like over eight.
Speaker 1: Dollars on Instagram.
Speaker 2: So I really don't know how to get it out
Speaker 2: of the See now you're talking though, Yeah, we're talking.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's great, And I'll.
Speaker 2: Do my my one man show again. And I'm working
Speaker 2: on a screenplay and I'm always just trying to.
Speaker 4: Well, do I have any co stars?
Speaker 1: That's my really funny joke. Well that's great, man. That
Speaker 1: takes a lot of guts. I've thought of that every
Speaker 1: every eight or so years. I think maybe I should
Speaker 1: do it one man show. No, that scares the crap
Speaker 1: out of me.
Speaker 5: Oh so cold A good reason to do it?
Speaker 3: Well, you got to take it sold. If you let
Speaker 3: me know, I'll be there for sure, because please.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can start off. I think start
Speaker 2: off modestly, you know, do something for friends.
Speaker 4: No, I mean I want to come watch you. I'm
Speaker 4: not going to do it. Yeah, I'm not bilt on stage.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just always enjoyed.
Speaker 5: You know, I didn't become a stamp. That's another lifestyle.
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of what I do.
Speaker 5: There's probably what you do too.
Speaker 2: There's a little overlap in that world, but that's a
Speaker 2: very specific trail and those guys, you know, you got
Speaker 2: to work it and you got to be willing to
Speaker 2: go through the agony of it.
Speaker 5: And apparently that's pretty agonizing. It looks like hell.
Speaker 2: But then if you surmounted and actually get established, you
Speaker 2: could make a Like I went one time to see
Speaker 2: Eddie Izzard at the Hollywood Bowl and I looked around
Speaker 2: and I looked on my phone. How many people fit
Speaker 2: in the Hollywood seventeen thousand people to see a stand
Speaker 2: up comic and they all had a great time.
Speaker 1: Jeez.
Speaker 2: I thought, if I could do that, I think I'd
Speaker 2: be pretty happy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, looking for start looking at working for a
Speaker 2: way to do that. But he started off just busting
Speaker 2: and doing all kinds of crazy nonsense, no kidd you
Speaker 2: know on the streets and England.
Speaker 1: The dress fits. Yeah, very brave, very brave. There's doing it.
Speaker 4: One more thing that we do on this show.
Speaker 3: It's a little game that we play if you're if
Speaker 3: you're game to play, and it's a little voice swap game. Sure,
Speaker 3: and since you do so many impressions. I thought it
Speaker 3: might be fun to do the voice swap with impressions.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about that? So Jim will say
Speaker 3: a character line of his, you know, say Winnie the
Speaker 3: Pooh or dark Wing or I.
Speaker 4: Need to I need to branch out more. I need
Speaker 4: to think of more characters. Maybe Ray.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just one of his quick characters will say a
Speaker 3: line and then if you repeat that same line but
Speaker 3: in an impression voice, just picked a voice, okay, and.
Speaker 4: Then we'll go.
Speaker 2: Now that's what it is, or be self evident or
Speaker 2: do you want to assign it to me or you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you just pick. I have confidence we'll be able
Speaker 4: to tell dealer's choice.
Speaker 1: Okay, there you go. So maybe Ray from Princess.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't know. Yeah, we don't do Ray very much. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we don't do Ray very much.
Speaker 8: Okay, where you know you know what they always say,
Speaker 8: do women love a man with a big back?
Speaker 1: Poach?
Speaker 2: Well you know what they say, wayman, I love a
Speaker 2: man with a big back porch.
Speaker 3: Matthew McCarty. Matthew McCatty. Yes, that'll be part two to
Speaker 3: the game.
Speaker 4: We'll guess. Yeah, So the pressures all.
Speaker 5: Right, so far we're tied.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Now do I feed him? So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you feed him alive and then okay, good, So oh,
Speaker 2: I wish for something outrageous.
Speaker 1: Oh, wish for something orageous.
Speaker 4: That has to be Robin Williams.
Speaker 1: That has to be Robin and Tiger. I don't know Tigger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Paul Winchell, the great Paul Winchell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, oh yeah, yeah. I know him well.
Speaker 1: I knew him well. I went out with his daughter
Speaker 1: for a while. Really yeah, oh sure, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: know her very well too. And I guess this is
Speaker 1: slightly uplifting, but uh but I feel like I should
Speaker 1: tell this. I don't think I've ever told this, but
Speaker 1: Paul was a buddy of my I mean I actually knew,
Speaker 1: you know, for years, and uh and I would do
Speaker 1: Tigger when we're very very very very first start late
Speaker 1: late dadies. He was still going back and forth to Africa.
Speaker 1: Took cure hunger, knucklehead smith Tigger cure hunger, obvious career
Speaker 1: path and artificial har yeah, artificial heart. Yeah that yeah,
Speaker 1: I forgot that one. But he came in and you
Speaker 1: never know when he's kidding around. But we were sitting
Speaker 1: there at score one doing something. I was doing pooh,
Speaker 1: he was doing Tigger. And he came in and he
Speaker 1: had a driver and he was helping him. And he
Speaker 1: was kind of tentatively coming up the steps and you're going, oh, oh, Jesus, man,
Speaker 1: what the heck? And he said to hey, how you doing, kid?
Speaker 1: And he sits down, and how you doing, Paul? And
Speaker 1: he goes, I've been better. I go, okay, what's what's happening?
Speaker 1: He said, well, I had another stroke? And I said,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, man, I can sympathize because and he and
Speaker 1: I said so so would I. And he goes, well,
Speaker 1: put it this way, go like this with your hands.
Speaker 1: I go okay. He goes, I could see the space
Speaker 1: pretty well between my palms. And I said, oh. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got a driver. I see you got a driver. Geez. Uh,
Speaker 1: well you know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, my
Speaker 1: whole my whole family really did we all have strokes?
Speaker 1: You know? And uh? And I told him that and
Speaker 1: I said, so, so what does this mean? And and
Speaker 1: he looks over me and put his hand on my
Speaker 1: shoulder and he says, it means.
Speaker 8: I want you to take care of my little buddy
Speaker 8: for me, tigger and I get cus pups telling that
Speaker 8: story and uh so yeah, so anyway, there you have
Speaker 8: a story man, Yeah yeah, but a bittersweet story and
Speaker 8: with not a not sad uplifting I would think.
Speaker 2: You know, well, I feel of hope beautiful that he
Speaker 2: knew who was going to take that over and he
Speaker 2: passed over the reins to you, and.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, that's that's actually good for you. That that's
Speaker 1: that's the way I've thought of it. Yeah, that's way
Speaker 1: I thought of it. Yeah. Well, and then you know
Speaker 1: that inspired my joke and said, when I finally pass on,
Speaker 1: I hope I, you know, have enough characters that there's
Speaker 1: five people to get again. Yeah that's not bad. That's
Speaker 1: not bad. That's right. But thank you so so so
Speaker 1: very much, and talk with you.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: That does it for another episode of Tuned In with
Speaker 3: Jim Cummings. Don't forget to like and subscribe. We appreciate
Speaker 3: all of you guys watching, and don't forget you can
Speaker 3: find bonus content on Patreon. We're really uploading a lot
Speaker 3: on Patreon, so go check us out. Thank you to
Speaker 3: all our patreons on there. And I think that just
Speaker 3: about does it.
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 3: We will see you in the next one, Jim ask men,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for being here and we'll see
Speaker 3: you later.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir, thank you, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4: That was fun
Speaker 2: Mhm.