October 3, 2022 • 56 mins
One of the busiest actresses in voice-overs today, Candi Milo joins Christy and Will!
She’s best known for voicing Dexter in Dexter’s Laboratory and The Flea in Mucha Lucha, along with literally thousands of other well-known characters. She’s now taken the mantle from the legendary late June Foray as the voice of Granny for all of Warner Brothers Animation projects and has written a book! (We told you she was busy!).
Candi shares the immense rollercoaster ride that has been her life and career. There’s a lot to learn from Candi regarding voice acting and overcoming adversity. Her voice is one you’ve definitely heard and need to hear again!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey Christy, Hey, Will, how are you. I'm so good.
I'm still recovering from our big night out at the
I Heart Radio Festival. How much fun was that? Though?
Sue is still dancing to Lionel Richie. Yeah, and my
feet are still hurting me, but it's okay. Yeah. Well, unfortunately,
I we were talking about this before. I have officially
(00:21):
hit the age where the music is too loud. I
get that, really loud. It was because they have the
most amazing stage setup I have ever seen. It was
not playing around. Well. Today we have an amazing guest
for everyone, who I'm a big fan of all too.
I can't wait. It's Candy Milo. Everybody, Candy's here, Hello,
(00:43):
folky folks, how are you? I am so old? It's
so old. I don't know. I feel like every day
I just keep getting older. Well I think that's probably accurate,
but that doesn't make you old. You don't know that Will.
She does played Ranny. She does play so I get that.
(01:09):
I want to tell you guys, honestly, so, I have
a daughter in her thirties. That was like, I am
so jealous that you are on the show with these kids.
And I was like, just so you know. She loves
you both, and I love you. She watched you and
I could get stuff done. Yes, I know how that is.
I have a five and a three year old so well,
(01:33):
I have a daughter in her thirties too, so it's
it's no big deal. I get it. So yeah, I do.
I just I actually will tell you I am in
awe of both of your talents immensely. We feel the
same way about you than you on cartoons, Are you kidding?
That's all I grew up on and watching your so
(01:53):
I obviously do a deep dive on whoever we have
on the show. I didn't have to dive that deep
with you, Candy, because I knew everything you've done. It's
that's why the amount of your work is insane. Thank you,
you know I and I'll tell you honestly, life will
take you where it takes you. I um my mom,
who who passed away last year at nineties six, so
(02:16):
a great life, long life. She used to tell me,
pick up your oars, you're in a canoe and follow
the flow. And it was one of those things when
life didn't kind of take me where I thought I
wanted to go. Um, you know, she would always say, well,
just follow the flow. You only use your oars to
push against the rocks. And I thought it was really fascinating.
(02:38):
And I remember going on this audition with Stephen for
Steven Spielberg for Tiny Toon Adventures, and I did not
want to do it. I thought voice over acting was
where actors went to die. I was like, I don't
want to do this. I wanted to be a singer.
I had come off the first national tour of dream Girls,
and I kept thinking, I'm going back into that someday.
(03:01):
And then I realized I was not used. I was
trying to row against rather than just using my oars
to push against the rocks. And that's how it really started,
was Tiny Toon Adventures way back when you were babies.
You're tiny, tiny babies? If so? Yeah, so I was
(03:23):
Your very first animated series was with Steven's It Gets Better. Well,
my very first audition was for Steven Spielder and I
was singing at um awake um, and of course, as
one does when they have no class, I started to
do like a little stand up and it was awake
(03:43):
for an agent. It was awake for an agent. It
was the eighties. What can I say so, Um, an
agent for cartoons, came up to me and said, you know,
I think Aaron would want me to represent you. And
that was how it gan. And I didn't return her call.
I just I wanted to be a singer so badly,
(04:05):
but more specifically, I wanted to be a singer, backup
singer for her Balbert. Who usually do you know who
it was that that came up to you? Who was
it that came It was my agent UM at the time,
Nina nissen Holtz at the William Morris Agency, and she
was that you were you were discovered at a week
(04:26):
and for an agent ian agent who I guess was
his assistant and now was going to be the real
And I just so you know, when I saw that
it said voice over in commercials, I tore it up.
I was like, I Am not doing this. You're like,
this is real? I know right. I was like, I
understand that you just heard me sing and thought that's
a voice for cartoons. I'm a little bit anyway. She
(04:50):
I guess she called me because she looked me up
in the wait for it, yellow I mean white page
and I walked down. I had been living in a
teeny tiny apartment in Beverly Hills. I walked down to
William Morris and she said, I'm just gonna throw you in,
which was a closet because then it was real to
real tape. And an auditioned for denting Gum Perkins Restaurant
(05:15):
and this show called Tiny Toon Adventures, Steven Spielberg's Tiny
Toon Adventures, and I got all three and I she said,
you should do this, and like that sound was my
heart breaking, knowing that this was my flow, this was
going to be the river I was gonna be on,
(05:37):
and um wow, I just I don't know. I fell
in love with the room. I fell in love with
the vibe. And then you guys know, because you've done
this type of work, Um, you also sing in these
sessions you do, so I was fine. I could do
my stand up and my singing. And you know, I
(05:57):
had big, big plans to be the bet next Midler,
but right now I'm just the next cartoon person. So
I have to say the next June four A is
not such a bad thing to be a young man. No,
it is not. In the world, especially in this business
of show that we you know, carving out any type
(06:18):
of a lasting a career is next to impossible. Where
it's you're working all the time and you're you're becoming
a legend in your field. That's that's almost never happened.
And I will tell you she was the most adorable
UM Tiny like TV Tiny, I'm little, I'm five ft two.
I really could have like not the crap out of
(06:41):
or I couldn't, which I would never do, but I
do say that, you know, she was so little, UM.
And she appeared once or twice on time the original
tinytoon Adventures and she worked until her nineties and when
we lost her. UM, I had been to being around
with the voice and the folks at at Warner Brothers,
(07:06):
who have been very, very good. You know, I am
back where I started, which was Brothers. Yeah, and I
will say, honestly, I'm not really good with the whole
corporate thing, but Warner Brothers has been amazing. They're the
least corporate they are. They've got Cartoon Network, they've got
edgier stuff, and I am so pleased. UM. Highlight, of course,
(07:28):
you know, was Space Jam two. UM. Working with Lebron
was kind of amazing and we recorded during COVID so
where I'm sitting now with my really bad lighting. Um,
that is sound amazing and you look good. It's like
I'm trying very hard. Um. But I said, um, you know,
(07:51):
we built this little thing myself, like this is a phone,
mattress pad from bed bath and beyond. Um, that's smart.
I never thought about for people. Well, I had done
a comic con and in Touca, Mississippi, and when it
was all kind of happening in the beginning of March,
and we said, you know, this is not your grandmother's
(08:13):
flu folks, this is going to be something different. So
everything online. I ordered everything online and just kind of
over the next two weeks built it. And then I
got I got the role of Granny in Space Jam
two and we ended up recording you know, over the
next year, off and on. You know. First it was
(08:34):
original dialogue. Then I was doing it to picture and
we were tightening and changing some stuff, and it was
all done in the world's smallest closet um where I
am now. It was wild and they and they did it.
Christie Zoom, we did it over that's what I'm hearing
Zoom and we were getting real time. Malcolm de Lee
(08:56):
was the director who's hilarious and really truly wonderful to
work with. And a lot of the funniest stuff that
I said was his ad libs, which was just great.
And I know that Lebron was on and watching um
and so it's kind of so cool. And did you
get to work with a friend of the show? Eric Bowser?
Stop your voices right now. I love that kid. That. Yeah,
(09:22):
he is a talentless hack. You hear it, You hear
it first here. Eric Bowsa is a talentless You know
Eric likes you everybody's talking about No one likes Eric.
He has no talent, no personality, the worst person ever.
I feel bad for his son. No, I know he was.
He was our first guest ever because it was one
(09:45):
of those things where it was I've I've now worked
with him on I don't know twenty cartoons and usually
and I've always said, the voice over actors are the
most talented actors I've ever worked within this industry, bar none.
There's no close second. Voice for actors are using with talent,
but you get used to that talent. You're with it
all the time. You're in the booth with the same
(10:06):
people all the time, and so you expect it, and
every once in a while somebody walks in that makes
you once again go, you've got to be kidding. I
feel that way. That was about Eric the first time.
I mean I knew of him and we would pass
in the night or I'd hear him doing silly things
like Nickelodeon and uh. And then I was lucky enough
(10:30):
to be with him on Put Some Boots where where
he does the perfect He's Antonio Banderis. You can't you
can't tell the different. That was a That was a
room that was directed by Andrea Romano, who knows how
to pick twn. You know, she just saw and one
of my closest friends. I adore her, and she she
(10:52):
directed Tiny Tunes. So we go go way back to
when I had a waist. It was just times and
so Drea was your first voice over director. Andrea was
mine to stop it. I don't mind too, Batman. Beyond
my very first animated Sery just kind of got each
other because we are both anti the big the big
(11:14):
room where they direct by committee and we're just kind
of we're just more indie folk. And I would say
before Eric, it is now hard with Eric bowsa um
Tress McNeil is possibly the most brilliant voice actress. If
we have to go to agree with you work. I
heard you mentioned her will many times. I was just
(11:36):
about to say that I had the same feeling the
first time I worked with Tress that you get when
you work with with Eric or Frank Welker or somebody
like that, where you just um, it's it is, it's
next level. But I mean, I guess it's like that
in any anything, when you're surrounded with talented people, there's
always one or two that just are so much better
than everyone else, right, And you know what I will
(11:58):
tell you, Like Frank, that room that I walked into
was like a third grade classroom. Everybody was voicing and
doing these weird things, and then you'd say something and
somebody would imitate your voice, and I thought, you know,
much like my book, it was like growing up in
a in a house with sort of like developmentally disabled.
(12:21):
I was like the noise and the quietest two people
in the room were Tress McNeil and Frank Welker. And
Tress was in the front. It was like a classroom
and I was way in the back and next to
me was Frank Welker, who showed me how to separate
my pages and how to be quiet and when to laugh,
and it was a great training ground. But to watch
(12:42):
Tress and Frank and then to see Eric, you get
that feeling like there's a Bob Bergen in the room.
You you just you get this vibe that there's so
much more that they can do, but they've sat in
their canoe and let let the current take them. And
(13:02):
for me, I was a single parent when my daughter
was very young, and cartoons allowed me to bring her
up and send her to college and do all that.
And am I super famous? No, except for like the
three ft and undercrowd, Am I you know? Super well?
They're the best fans. Like It's like I said, I
(13:23):
feel like I'm on an I might go on a
soap opera. You know, I got my crew and I
got my people who watch my show. Um, but I
you know, for my initial shock of this is where
I was going to be, I can now tell you
there's no place that I would rather be, honestly, And
that's not That's the thing. The other thing that I
(13:44):
love about our side of the industry is the if
you know you know factor, So you might not be
a superstar in the world. We might not be superstars
in the world, but we are to each other because
if you know, you know, and so Candy Milo, it's
like they're you know, I heart calls like, well, Candy's
gonna come on the show. We were like, you've got
to be kidding me. So that I mean to us,
(14:06):
you'll you'll always be a rotor. I just well, and
now with UM comic cons we've seen since COVID, so
many people were streaming animation UM and re re, you know,
investing themselves into all of the stuff that they could,
the content and things that were very you know, nostalgic
for them. I'm sure they did Kim Possible. And I'm
(14:27):
sure they did Tey because I I loved that. And
I have to tell you I I had only done
a couple of episodes of Kim Possible only because you
guys had it. Hold on a second, know, you guys
had it covered. Like when you have Nancy as your
mole rat, you you got it like you've got it covered.
She could do other things, but every once in a
(14:48):
while they needed me and I would be able to
go in. But as um you know, as you know
we were all done separately. What were you doing, Candy,
because I was not aware of this, so please inform me.
I did um extra voices that Nancy couldn't pick up.
I mean, another brilliant human being. But like if you had,
(15:12):
off the top of my head, a stewardness and then
you add a random mom, I would come in and
and for for your listeners and your your your people,
your crowd that don't know I was utility. I think
on three or four UM can possible episodes and I'm
I'm thinking, was it Lisa Shaefer directing? Yeah? And the
(15:38):
best people like ever in the history of awesomeness. Yeah,
just like a regular nice human being. But you find
I find that the best voice directors are like Lisa
in that when you're acting, they just let you go.
If they feel like you're dialed in, they are not.
They're not worried about every single line, every single beat.
(15:59):
They're not looking to have you match something. You know.
They just let you go. And yeah. And I think
one of the great things about Lisa's that she had
to do shows one character at a time because that's
the way it was scheduled so that they could get
it and she was so great at directing me in
(16:22):
that here's without playing the other people or saying, here's
how they're probably going to read this line. This is
what I'm trying to get, And so I could do
line by line five times in a row and then
what was cut together was great. So it was never
brain surgery when I worked with Lisa Shaeffer, you know,
and I say that just because that's how I felt
(16:42):
about Malcolm de Lee for for Space Jam two. It
was never brain surgery. Let's just let you go give
us five or ten things and we'll let you know
what works, and if not, we'll get another session and
come back and pick it up. So well, Kitty, I
have to have a couple of questions, follow up questions
to that. So when you do utility, as we know,
if we've mentioned before, sessions, UM can can basically contract
(17:06):
you to do up to is it up to three characters? Yes,
you get two for the price of one, and then
a third voice is a bump, a fourth fit voice
is a new session. So it's funny. I had very
little UM notoriety in a show called Fanboy and Chump
Chump on Nickelodeon, and I made more money doing that
(17:29):
show because I was so versatile or you know, nuts
if you want to say it personal, because I sing,
and I think that's it. I know how to manipulate
and control my voice that I could come on sometimes
and do six or seven characters along with Jeff Glenn Bennett,
Oh hi, an brilliant guy. Like we would just come
(17:52):
in and we would say back, clean up. We would
come in and I I had a character named share Leader,
Shall please do please do all your characters okay? So
here all day. She was a character on Fanboy Chump
Chump called Share and she was a shareleader like a cheerleader,
and all she said was her like share and then
(18:15):
they made her a triplet and so it was like hey, hey, hey,
and then three of them, and I was Um Loupe
on that show where I had a Buffy's in my
hair and I had like little braids like Princess leah
Um and then I mean it was one of those things.
(18:36):
And then I was um Marcia and somebody named Marcia
who had breaking and it was a main girl. And
then there was like the Christmas special where all of
those characters were in that episode, and I said, I
think they never run it because they just don't want
to pay me. Oh ends, It's Hillary, Joy and Sophia
(19:02):
and we are your Drama Queens. We are going on
tour and we are so excited to announce that we
will be live streaming our New York stop of the
tour on October at five pm. We have guests Barbara
Allen Woods, Daphne Zuniga, Tyler Hilton, and Matt Barr. That's right.
If you live stream the show, you will get to
see the guests from both New York City shows right
(19:24):
in your own home. Amazing. It's amazing. So get your
tickets now at Drama Queens o th H dot com
and we will see you on octobery. So, okay, I
have a I have a couple of questions myself here.
So first of all, we've got it. We're gonna get
into all the we gotta of course talk about Dexter
(19:44):
and all the great things uh from there. But you
mentioned briefly before your book, and your book is coming
out on the fourth correct and just reading about it
called Surviving the Odd and just reading about this was
so amazing. I mean, can you can you explain to
us what it's about because it is incredible and I
(20:05):
want to know how much this influenced the voices uh
that you ended up using in your career. Yeah, let
me just I will give you like the Quicken Down
and Dirty. My dad was a very successful nightclub performer,
singer or comic, depending on who the UM star was,
he would do like a nightclub show. He was Bett
Midler before there was Bett Midler, and he was extremely successful.
(20:29):
But with the advent of TV, nightclubs were closing. So
with five kids, he tried to figure out what he
would do in the late sixties, and he wanted to
give something back to society, which he decided should be
my childhood UM, and he opened one of California's very
first licensed halfway houses, board and care homes for the
(20:51):
developmentally disabled and emotionally disturbed and UM. He had very
little secondary education, I believe none. He was a comic
and he got twelve he got who was left and
so twelve adults lived in a fratern converted fraternity house
on Frat Row by the San Jose State Campus in
(21:12):
San Jose, California, and we lived in the house with them,
and then two years later we had enough money to
get the house next door. My dad cut a hole
in the fence so he could get to work quicker,
and um they became my family. And over the sixteen
years that my dad ran this home, UM, we cared
(21:33):
for close to three hundred and fifty adults with disabilities
UM mental disabilities, and nobody ever really got better, They
just became. So I have had a giant family. And
what this did to my cartoon and my acting abilities
(21:53):
is that I never judge a book by its cover.
And I learned very very very early on to watch
people very closely for safety as well as oddity, as
well as of a fascinating life study. But when I
get a character, I am now looking beyond the pale
(22:16):
for the similarities to me, because you would never see.
I mean, we had a reputation milow Arms Hi, the
name of the house Hi, that was on the side
of a van that I had to ride to school.
And when I was nine, I'm not damaged at all. Um,
I it was like judging a book by its cover.
(22:37):
You want to immediately dissociate yourself from anybody. I am
not like that. I am quote unquote normal, I am fine,
And I was the type of kid that said, Wow,
we both like the archies. That's weird. Wow, we both
like Abbas Abbas, that's weird. Wow. You love your mom
and dad and I love my mom and dad. Wow,
(22:57):
you take medication and I don't yet yet. So that's
how I think it informed me was um And I
learned later that was kind of a cool thing, you
guys that rather than looking distancing myself, which I did
in the beginning I was eight of nine years old,
I started to look for the similarities. So when I
(23:18):
see a way out their character, like a Dexter from
Dexter's laboratory, we that has a a laboratory in his
basement that his parents don't know about, right that, I
look at those similarities and what is he hiding? And
why does he consistently have to hide his genius um?
(23:39):
And what are the consequences that he does? And where
can he lose his temper and tell everybody that he
is a that he has dexter breaking? Yes, how could
he tell everybody he is? So I think that that
is how it did it. I'd like to tell people
it is not my book is not character funny. No
one is being made fun of. That's the the actual opposite.
(24:02):
It's situational funny. It's putting a bunch of uneducated people
in a home, uh with development. And our family was
a bunch of uneducated people in a home with people
who were struggling to belong to a family, and we
were the people teaching them how to tell a joke
so that they didn't become a joke and function in society.
(24:26):
And I think my dad did a really great thing, um,
and he was one of the it was. It was
kind of amazing. And I've watched, um, you know, documentaries,
and I've watched people that have home businesses like you
think they've got funeral parlors, and we've had series about this,
(24:46):
and it really just was an odd family business. This
is what we did. They went everywhere with us, We
went everywhere with them. UM. I think in my personal
life there's a little reason I live alone. UM, I
have been married, but I did now I'm alone. Is
that I, as a young kid, became the adult very quickly.
(25:11):
And it's really hard to curb that. When you're eight
or nine years old and you're telling somebody you will
not do that, you will not say that, you will
not wear that, you just become this little authoritative kid
and it's hard to break. It's hard to break that.
So um, that's the that's the downside, um. But learning
(25:34):
humility and compassion, um was definitely the upside. Well now
with both you and your father or your father especially
at the time, but you probably already showing the talent
both being performers. Did you ever perform for the people
that were in your home? I mean, were you? Were
you performing for the people that were there? Um? When
(25:56):
I was a fresh was freshman or sophomore in high school,
I got the lead Dolly and Hello Dolly, and my
dad thought it was a great idea to bring eight
of our residents to the performance of Hello Dolly, put
them in the front row, and teach them the overture
for Brigadoon. So um. When the overture started playing with
(26:17):
the high school band off key, they started singing Briga Dune,
Brigadoon and it should be like put on your Sunday
clothes when you feel down. So um. Yeah, my dad
was very funny and I'm scared, but that's neither here there.
But I remember the director, who was also the theater teacher,
(26:38):
saying warning everybody that there were developmentally disabled adults in
the front row, and that they were there to have
a good time and to put on the show anyway.
And I'm like Homer Simpson fading into a hedge. Right,
I am going to kill my father. I am going
to kill him. And I remember I walked out in
the black and the lights came up and they gave
(27:00):
me a standing ovation. And I realized that they did
that because I did something they would never be able
to do, which was to stand on a stage and perform.
And I think that was a golden lesson UM. But
I my dad was not a big supporter of UM
the whole show biz career. He came really yeah, he
(27:22):
came up very hard in the fourties and fifties, and
women in show business, in his estimation, got there two ways.
They married well, or they work or the other way.
So he was like, no, no, no. And I was
a bright and curious kid. I had skipped grades. I
he wanted me to go to law school. I did
(27:44):
go to college. I did do pre law, and I
was pretty much out of there in a year and
a half. And I did get my degree as an
adult UM and ended up getting a B a UM
as an adult on the weekends. UM, but I I
wish that he had been more supportive. In my book,
there is a picture of him singing with me, which
(28:06):
was one of the only times that he ever performed
with me. And then we we did have a piano,
but we we were not UM. When we lived in
the home with them, it was a fraternity house, so
we were in the den mother's unit, which was a
two bedroom UM thing. So we were it was a
(28:27):
two bedroom in office and for the time being it
was our place. And while we would eat meals with
them and watch TV, they were very much independent and
their own people, and they did their own things UM.
And then during the day we went to school and
they went and did their thing, and then it would
(28:48):
start all over again. So now if you're if you're
if your father wasn't a huge proponent, which I totally understand.
I write kids and I don't particularly with them in
the business. But if it happens, it happens kind of thing.
You know, I won't stand in your way, right, But
how did you find how did you get that technique?
(29:12):
If you were on a whole another UM, Well, I
will say that, uh my parents wouldn't give me piano lessons,
so I taught myself piano. I taught myself um how
to sing, and I got my first professional job at
Marriott's Great America UM singing in a theme park at fifteen.
And then I performed when I was sixteen. Um, do
(29:33):
you remember what she's on? Do you want to know?
How did you sing? At the theme park? I am
a woman, heard me row in numbers too big to
ignore piano string breaks. I look at the piano player
and tell her to stop playing and finish the song
a cappella, and they were like, when will you be
sixteen January? Okay, good UM. And then I was doing
(29:58):
Broadway hits in the theme park and I sang Annie
in a bright red wig and I sang um and
I could tap um, so I um tapped this whole
American I'm like in a red, white and blue outfit.
And so it was the Broadway show in nineteen seventy seven,
(30:20):
the summer of seventy seven, and I was making minimum wage.
And this is again now. Was your father actively trying
to keep you away from the industry or was it
like Christie said, where it's like I'm not going to help,
but I'm also not going to stand in your way
right at this point. UM, it was interesting at this
(30:42):
point he was not saying don't, don't, don't, but he
wasn't helping. And when I was struggling because I was
a big, huge belter, like a Broadway belter, and I
kept losing my voice because my technique was wrong, his
way of helping me was to say, you're flat and
you're not getting enough air. Okay, thanks, thanks so much
(31:03):
for identifying the problem that I'm aware of. But I did.
I did eventually pay for my own UM, and it
was just something we just we didn't talk about. And
then at the very end of his life, I had done,
um a movie with Dick Clark and NBC called Reaching
(31:23):
for the Stars UM and it was the first docu drama.
It was the first reality movie of the week, and
UM he was very ill and I remember telling him
that I got this, and he said, what do you
mean You're going to play you? What do you mean?
What do you what do you ever done? And I
was like, well, I think that's what we're about to
(31:44):
find out, is what I can do. And I think
that he just, you know, he never let go of nightclubs.
I mean, he opened for Cab, Callaway and Strong, and
he traveled with Louis Prima and Keeley Smith and he's
another life. It was a lifetime ago. And he only
(32:04):
stopped because nightclubs stopped. That's the only reason. And it
was such a lifestyle to back in the day. I mean,
the whole nightclub thing was just so I mean from
what I've read, and no, obviously it was it was
hard drinking, it was late at night. It was gals,
it was drinks. It was the rat pack, and it
(32:24):
was like rock stars, like yes, you know, it was
not being on the road, and that was it. And
you know, what's my Am I on a plane? Am
I on a train? Where am I going? How many nights?
How many shows? How long of a show? Who's going
to pay me? It really was, it really was, And
it was all analog. There was no digital. There was
(32:46):
like paper plane tickets. Um. And when my mom did
pass away last year, I found all of this. I
found his his calendar while he was in the USO,
which used to be a branch of the service. By
the way, he was in the USO in Denang in
(33:06):
Vietnam and they had a schedule of when you did
the Officers Club, and then you performed for the guys,
and then where you performed, because if you had a
show and you weren't on Bob Hope's tour, you couldn't
perform your show anywhere near So he when Bob Hope
came in, they sent him out to the guys in
the jungle and and so it was like a grind. Um.
(33:30):
You know, he had smoke for Sinatra. He was like,
I don't know why he had Joey Bishop. Why couldn't
you hire another guy like me? And um, I was like,
probably your attitude, Dad, I'm just saying probably the fact
that you're making a hand gestures like you're like you're
a mobster. So I, um, I think that that was
(33:50):
really tough. But also in his papers, guys was um
about sixteen letters of commendation for his work with the
disabled children and vets that he always had this thing
and and just so you know, his idea was that
his home, Milo Arms Board and care home was going
(34:12):
to be four veterans, and uh, we didn't get any veterans.
That's still amazing though. Okay, so the book is surviving
the odd. It comes out on October four. And also
you're gonna be doing a book signing at Bars and
Noble at the Grove and the signing is Theft, so
everybody come out and see Candy. Uh. The story is
absolutely incredible. But speaking of incredible stories, so we did you? Now,
(34:36):
I want to get into Dexter because obviously I'm a
big fan and how and how you came up with
the voices and all that stuff, but I got I
want to take it back a little bit farther, just
just very briefly, because we always like to know did
you grow up watching cartoons? Were you did of animated
series and which ones were they? Okay, so, first of all,
I was a huge fan of the Three Stooges, which
(34:57):
is why I was a huge fan of Looney Tunes.
And that's what Looney Tunes is for your for your
fans who don't know, watch on YouTube, old old three Stooges,
and you know, it's got to be Three Stooges with Curly.
I like Shemp. I loved Curly. I thought I was
cur is daff Who is Daffy Duck? That's who Curly is.
(35:22):
And and when Daffy gets mean, he shimp like it's late.
It's the oddest, It's what I did. I also watched
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop the jay Ward cartoons, of
which June Foray was also a huge part. So um,
I did watch that, and then I wasn't really into
(35:45):
I like Josie and the Pussycats. I didn't see myself
in it. No, I didn't. I didn't. I watched Fat Albert,
I watched the Jackson five, but I started, I really have.
And I'm not even saying that because that's brand. I'm
telling you. I was a huge fan and that's what
I grew up on. That's what I find still funny today.
(36:10):
And there is a Looney Tunes cartoon that we do
on HBO Max that I think Alex Kerwin and m
and Pete and everybody who's involved with that, they really
have that old Looney Tunes ninet forties sensibility. They're very
fast and funny. But with cell phones, that's what I say.
That's the difference with this new thing is that we've
(36:31):
added in some technology, but it's very much bam bam, bam, bam,
bam bam, set up, set up, jokes, set up, set up, jokes,
set up, set up, It's It's great. Chrissie Kavanaugh is
the original voice of Dexter from Dexter's Lab, and she
quit completely quit voice acting, UM, and they were shelving
(36:52):
um Dexter. They were going to get rid of it.
She had done I think a year and a half
and then they had a year and a half of
her in the Can you quit a voice acting? No
offense to Chrissy, but I just wonder why. And she's
no longer living, so I can't ask her. But she
and I were good friends because we had the same
(37:14):
um on camera agents and um. We were both trying
to get on Sketch TV. That was our big deal,
testing for Mad or in Living Color, and Roseanne Barr
had a sketch show that she got on and I
was testing for mad and I was testing for in
Living Color and it just I could never get it um.
(37:35):
And she just, I mean, she was chucky. She was babe.
And I think she said, I've I've had enough. And
so I in my speaking voice if I put on
if I talk like this, and I've had a little
hustomat voice, and I had a little bit of an
accent this is what Chris Cavin I'll sound like. So
(37:58):
my agent at the time Times said, I want you
to slate in Chrissy's speaking voice. Interesting and um. Gendy
Tartakovsky picked me and I ended up doing eight years
of it. And then the voice of the episodes that
they had in the can that she did I read
voiced um. And then so she is credited. We're both credited,
(38:26):
but she's no longer living, so I get the residuals.
But we we go back and forth depending on who
licenses it, of whose voice it is, and whose voice
it really is. Is Gendy Tartakovsky that is exactly sense
like a French Russian guy sounds exactly like this. He
would say, I don't know how to tell you to
(38:48):
go up uncertain words, because Chrissy would go up and
I was like, Chrissie was nuts. She also had her
own sense of humor. I have a different sense of humor,
of a loony UNEs sense of yes, you have a sense.
I have a stuge sense of humor. So when you
hit the joke, I'm gonna hammer it to let the
(39:08):
kids at home know this is the joke. And Chrissie's
method of method of joke telling was to go away
from the joke that another that it was in the animation,
do you know what I mean? So like Dexter would
say something like man Dark, I'm going to get you,
and then it would be closing on Man Dark with
blink blink, with the piano key sound, blink blink, and
(39:31):
it was just different. But I did do I think
seven years of episodes and it's been it's been amazing.
I mean, it's a phenomenal show, well acted, well crafted,
animated series. I mean it was, and I for years
(39:51):
was saying to agents, um, because it is it behooved them.
Although the agent that handled me for Dexter handled Chrissie
as well. I mean, so when Christie quit, they had
her in me and she was happy that I would
be able to do it because we were friends. Our
voiceover agent was the same person. But they used to say,
(40:12):
when you go out on tour or if you go
to cons, don't tell people you didn't create the voice.
And I was like, you know, that's kind of creepy.
I think I can imitate her. It eventually became me,
but at the beginning get wanted Chrissie, that's who we wanted.
He wanted you audition originally as well. No, because it
(40:35):
was an art school thing and he sent it. Um
that's what it was. It went to I believe and
forgive me. It could have started, you guys at Hannah
Barbara because one was bought by Time. Time was bought
by Warner Warner blah blah blah blah blah, and then
(40:56):
We've Got Kids w B Cartoon Network. It was all
under the same umbrella. I believe. It's also We're Butch
Hartman and Seth McFarland started and Andrea Romano and Andrea
Romano in the Hannah Barbera Stable and I think it
was a short and I was doing other shorts there
that got picked up another short, Um Kenny and the
(41:20):
Chimp with Tom Kenny. Um. I had done a bunch
of shorts. Cow and Chicken was the mom and the
feature on Cow and Chicken. Um, yeah, so I mean
that is that was Chris Chris Salter was Chris Simmerman
Salter who was the voice director and also casting on that.
(41:40):
And then um, I just kind of stayed in that family.
So it was a cartoon cartoon or a Hannah Barbera short, UM,
and I was not on that short, so I was like,
I think, like five other ones, and so was Chrissy.
I was on two to the super Arena, and a
lot of these they did not take from the animators,
(42:05):
so they went over to UM Nickelodeon, and that's um Fred.
I can't think of his last name. Um started pardon me,
you love. I'm thinking of the producer Um. He does
Freederator films. He took a lot of those shorts over
to Nickelodeon, and that's how I did chalk Zone, My
(42:25):
Life as a teenage Robot, Jimmy Neutron. All of these
shows that I was on were all originally sort Hey,
it's Megan King from Intimate Knowledge. If you want to
know what was really happening between me and Mike Johnson
from Bachelor Nation in Vegas, listen right now to intimate
knowledge and get all of the not safer work details.
(42:48):
Listen to Intimate Knowledge on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. So
here's the thing. So Chris and I are we haven't
talked about it yet on this episode, but we and
we don't talk about it much because we're still getting
all our ducks in a row. But we are launching
the super awesome contest to find the next voice actor
(43:10):
and contests to find the next voice actors. So we
are going that. You you know, we can't get into
all the prizes yet, but you win a voiceover agent
for a year, uh, you win some money, you get
thrown out. It's really amazing. So it's amazing. The thing
that we love is what everybody learns from different voice
(43:31):
over actors that we have on the show is the
kind of you know, they're they're picking up different techniques,
different tidbits from everybody here. And one of the things
that I thought was really interesting about you when I
was doing the Deep Dive is one of the things
you spoke about a lot in a bunch of the
different interviews I watched, And that's something that I don't
think it has talked about enough and I think could
so benefit some of the amateur actors out there. Is
(43:53):
your prep time before you start a job, and you
prepped the same way you prepped to sing. So I
was curious if you could kind of walk us through
how you prep your voice to get ready to do
some of these longer sessions or more grueling sessions, or
or what can the amateur actor do? Because the last
(44:13):
thing you want to do is you were saying when
you were singing and you were losing your voice as
you're singing. You don't want to destroy your instruments. So
how how do you prep before you get started? There
are and and for for those of you that are
you know, financially challenged. UM you can do this on YouTube,
but I have a set, have two sets of warm
ups there twelve minutes each um minor from a vocal
(44:36):
teacher in l A Bob Garrett, but he offers. He's
also on Instagram. He does things called vocal gyms. I
do UH a twelve minute warm up, starting with humming,
just low hums, but I don't humm a scale. I
stay on one note to hear where the cracks are,
so it's just a and then I'll go up have
(45:00):
steps or just until I get to the top, and
then I'll go back down. Then I do lip trills
up and down, um to a scale, and then I
warm up three sets of my instrument, which is the belt,
the mid or the passagio, which is really in your mask,
(45:22):
which is your face. Think of yourself wearing a mask.
It's up there. And then I do my high voice.
I will do this every single day, and I did
it before I talked to you. I did it just
because I knew we were going to talk and I'd
be excited, so like i'd scream or I do something
(45:42):
gut around and be shot, you know, And that's all
it takes. Especially someone who has a little age on
their voice, you have to do it. Then I do
my gig, and one of the things that warming up
will do is that they'll take all screams and everything
out of your throat and put it in your mouth usk.
There is a way for you to scream nasally and
(46:03):
not scream gutturally. I will do my gig, and then
I get in the car and I have a warm down,
especially if I'm doing something like when I did Maya
Miguel and she was really high like this. It was
so freaking hard that by the end of the session
my my larynx was up by my ears. So I
(46:25):
cooled down, which is none of the hard selty things
I do, the lip trills and the humming from the top,
only going down, and I usually do that in the
car going home. So it's like, do you lower lower?
(46:48):
And I do that three or four times, and then
it is the hums starting high, going all the way
down to the bottom, and it releases your larynx, releases
your shoulders. But if you don't cool down, your larynx
stays up there and it exhausts it. It's just exhausts.
So true. So I went to Joan later who um
(47:10):
really was helping me. I was Belle on Broadway, and
yes you were. And I had had um double nodule
remote removal prior to booking the job, and in two
months time I was on Broadway and so that actually
it was maybe like more three or four months. But um, after,
you know, that was not the case. Usually you're supposed
(47:32):
to take a year after getting knowledge surgery, and I was,
you know, nineteen and desperate to to get in there.
So Disney was like, okay, whatever, whatever works, and sort
of they kind of they kind of didn't look they
looked the other way so that I could get as
long as you're saying. And so it was very hard
to maintain my integrity of my instruments. So when I
(47:53):
went to this woman Joan later, who's i'd say, one
of the premier um, you know and voice coaches for
Broadway performers and singers. Um. And so she did exactly
the same thing. She would tell me the exactly to
the warm up and then the cool down, which I
had never heard of before, and right um, and it's
(48:15):
it is so vital I think for the investment of
the longevity of your voice. And I'm unashamed to say, Christie,
I will and will I will say it. I'm I'm
sixty one and I probably have another thirty years definitely
voice acting. What tends to slow down is breathing, Like
(48:37):
it gets as you get older. It's harder and harder
to take a twenty six year old breath. And do
you know I credit this, Christie, I credit to the
warm down. My longevity is the warm down. And I
would say to everybody listening, if you don't have twelve
minutes or you've forgotten and you're walking in how and
(49:00):
lip trill and then hum and lip trill on your
way out, But you can't go in shouting cold. You
will double nodule. That's what I got at sixteen, was
a double nodule, and the only way which would make
it nineteen seventy seven that they could take those off
was scraping them off and praying that you didn't scab. Yeah,
(49:27):
so it didn't get that much easier too. I think
that's about they or something. Yeah, I think they later
open throat surgery. Yeah. I think it's really important to
you know, to avoid it. That's why we took vitamins.
That's why we walk and we keep mobile. It's all
about avoidance of injury. And so if you can take
(49:47):
two minutes, um. I would also say for your listeners
as a last thing um which even many professional voice
actors do not do, and that is read and mark
your script before you walk. I will not tell you
how many people that I've gone that really believe that
(50:10):
they can wing it. And all I can tell you
now to my fellow faboos is that the business is
wide open now. And I'm I'm a prep guy. I'm
always I'm always reading my lines, I'm marking it on.
You did that with Ron, You did that a lot? Yeah, Oh,
I never I never ever show. I can honestly shows
(50:31):
it really does it well. It makes you an actor,
It makes you a voice actor rather than relying on
silly voices. I have a couple of friends who whom
I adore, who are brilliant, who are like enough time,
I'm gonna wing it. And I'm like, you know, this
is a young guy. Look at how he's written it.
He hears this a certain way, man, you better deliver this.
(50:52):
He's got eight thousand exclamation points. He has capitalized fifty
words in this sentence. You here's this a certain way?
Had you read it? Because what ends up happening is
that somebody else when we did group records, you guys, um,
everybody else will have read it, and so we all
know what your line is supposed to sound like. Because
(51:14):
it's not just my life. I'm also reading Will's lines
and Christie's lines, and you're knowing where where my silence is,
Where do I come in? Where do I fit in
that joke joke bounced, joke joke bounce? Where do I fit?
So that would be my last tid a bit. That's
a protest that those are two important ones because it's
(51:36):
all about preparation. It's prepping your voice and then it's
prepping your your talent. I love that I know that
I love that you guys do that I didn't gonna
get better. If I ever get the opportunity to to
to to be on you know, a long running series again,
then I would definitely be doing much more. I was.
I was so young when gospel was that it was
(51:59):
just the farthest from my mind. I was like, well,
I'm the character's age, etcetera. I I was smoking, I
was ruining my voice, and at the end, it was
towards the end where my nodules really flared up, which
is why you know, well, my my voice did sound
a bit different. And now I'm healed, and I just
think that I would approach it so much more maturely.
(52:19):
And I will say, that's the Christie, what you just said,
it's hugely important because I will just tell you that,
you know, we do what we do once we got
the job. But I'll tell you, if you warm up
and you read the script and you find your niche,
that's also how you get the job. That's why I'm
auditioning every day. And in my little mind, I am
(52:40):
a goddess of but I audition, like when we leave,
I just took this off of my my music. That's
the audition I have for when we hang up and
I'm warm, and I was like, but I've read it,
and last night I sat and I marked it and
I was like, oh, that's a funny thing because you'll
see in the stage direction run run, run, fall, hit
(53:03):
catch the ball anyway, So you you want to put
that stuff that's in the that's in the script, in
the prep for that line. Casting people love that, and
I always say that that's if you act and you
prep like you were going to be on a on
an on camera series. That is how you stand out
from the crowd when you audition with even against those
(53:25):
of us who are vets. I think that's a great
place to leave it right there. Preparation everybody. Prep your
voice and prep your script. Those are very very important.
So Candy, where can everybody find you if they're looking
for you right now? What what social media stuff you
have and what projects you have coming out? I am
at Candy Milo on TikTok where I'm having a blast
because it's so wrong. Um so the Candy Milo on
(53:49):
Instagram come with me, and I am on Twitter at
Candy Milo and Candy is with an eye. Please preorder
my book. I hope that you read it and that
you like many and then I have a bunch of
stuff with n d As that I can't talk about,
but I have six animated series that I'm hoping will
(54:09):
pop before January. Congratulations and thank you. What are you think?
That's very sweet of you to come on anyway. I
I'm gonna hunt you down content. I know his address,
I'll give it to you. I love it. This is
(54:30):
one of the warmest, friendliest programs that I've been on.
And I think I feel that way because y'all did
your homework. Yeah, well, thank you. It's not preparation, h
but preparation is the key. Thank you so much for
having me and giving me an opportunity. Don't forget everybody.
(54:50):
Surviving the Odd coming out on October four and it's
available for preorder. And then she's also gonna be signing
at Barnes and Noble at the Grove and that's on
October fifteenth, So everybody, that's what you Nicole Brown Wow,
who's also a friend of the show, she was just
on stop it. Yeah, she's going to moderate and um,
we're getting our show together now. This is phenomenal, So
everybody go check it out. It's going to be amazing.
(55:11):
Thank you again so much for joining us and my pleasure.
Thank you, bye bye, Ny. Wow. That was amazing, Christie,
and a great way to end it talking about preparation
class and yeah and everything that people are gonna need
and it's going to be perfect for um what was
the name of the contest again, m hmm, yeah, that one. Yeah,
(55:33):
she's going to be No, she's going to be really
good mentor for what though? For what for? What for?
We're the super bodacious, wonderful, fantastic, scrumptuous, correct, most amazing
contest to become the next big voice actor. Percent correct.
(55:55):
It is a super awesome contest to become the next
big voice actor. We will get into that later, but
Candy Ilo, thank you so much for joining us. That
was amazing. Everybody, have a great time, enjoy yourselves and
thank you for joining us. And don't ever forget that
if you think you've got what it takes to step
up to the mic, then put your voices where your
mouth is. Thanks everybody. I hear Voices as hosted by
(56:16):
Wilfred l and Christy Carlson Romano. Executive produced by Wilfredel
Brendan Rooney, Amy Sugarman and Vicky Ernst Chang. Our executive
in charge of production is Danielle Romo, Our producer is
Lorraine Vera Wez and our editor slash engineer is Brian Burton.
And that was my announcer voice. Some side effects of
listening to I Hear Voices are sore abs from hilarity,
falling down the Coco melon rabbit hole, sneezing due to
(56:37):
mass nostalgia, and hugs. Follow I Hear Voices wherever you
listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of the
amazing voices. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and
TikTok at I Hear Voices podcast. To see the video stream,
subscribe to my YouTube channel. You can also check us
out on my space omeigal Vine, lime Wire. Hey I'm
a napster. Okay, well, let's teach you about the Internet.
The who
Hey Christy, Hey, Will, how are you. I'm so good.
I'm still recovering from our big night out at the
I Heart Radio Festival. How much fun was that? Though?
Sue is still dancing to Lionel Richie. Yeah, and my
feet are still hurting me, but it's okay. Yeah. Well, unfortunately,
I we were talking about this before. I have officially
(00:21):
hit the age where the music is too loud. I
get that, really loud. It was because they have the
most amazing stage setup I have ever seen. It was
not playing around. Well. Today we have an amazing guest
for everyone, who I'm a big fan of all too.
I can't wait. It's Candy Milo. Everybody, Candy's here, Hello,
(00:43):
folky folks, how are you? I am so old? It's
so old. I don't know. I feel like every day
I just keep getting older. Well I think that's probably accurate,
but that doesn't make you old. You don't know that Will.
She does played Ranny. She does play so I get that.
(01:09):
I want to tell you guys, honestly, so, I have
a daughter in her thirties. That was like, I am
so jealous that you are on the show with these kids.
And I was like, just so you know. She loves
you both, and I love you. She watched you and
I could get stuff done. Yes, I know how that is.
I have a five and a three year old so well,
(01:33):
I have a daughter in her thirties too, so it's
it's no big deal. I get it. So yeah, I do.
I just I actually will tell you I am in
awe of both of your talents immensely. We feel the
same way about you than you on cartoons, Are you kidding?
That's all I grew up on and watching your so
(01:53):
I obviously do a deep dive on whoever we have
on the show. I didn't have to dive that deep
with you, Candy, because I knew everything you've done. It's
that's why the amount of your work is insane. Thank you,
you know I and I'll tell you honestly, life will
take you where it takes you. I um my mom,
who who passed away last year at nineties six, so
(02:16):
a great life, long life. She used to tell me,
pick up your oars, you're in a canoe and follow
the flow. And it was one of those things when
life didn't kind of take me where I thought I
wanted to go. Um, you know, she would always say, well,
just follow the flow. You only use your oars to
push against the rocks. And I thought it was really fascinating.
(02:38):
And I remember going on this audition with Stephen for
Steven Spielberg for Tiny Toon Adventures, and I did not
want to do it. I thought voice over acting was
where actors went to die. I was like, I don't
want to do this. I wanted to be a singer.
I had come off the first national tour of dream Girls,
and I kept thinking, I'm going back into that someday.
(03:01):
And then I realized I was not used. I was
trying to row against rather than just using my oars
to push against the rocks. And that's how it really started,
was Tiny Toon Adventures way back when you were babies.
You're tiny, tiny babies? If so? Yeah, so I was
(03:23):
Your very first animated series was with Steven's It Gets Better. Well,
my very first audition was for Steven Spielder and I
was singing at um awake um, and of course, as
one does when they have no class, I started to
do like a little stand up and it was awake
(03:43):
for an agent. It was awake for an agent. It
was the eighties. What can I say so, Um, an
agent for cartoons, came up to me and said, you know,
I think Aaron would want me to represent you. And
that was how it gan. And I didn't return her call.
I just I wanted to be a singer so badly,
(04:05):
but more specifically, I wanted to be a singer, backup
singer for her Balbert. Who usually do you know who
it was that that came up to you? Who was
it that came It was my agent UM at the time,
Nina nissen Holtz at the William Morris Agency, and she
was that you were you were discovered at a week
(04:26):
and for an agent ian agent who I guess was
his assistant and now was going to be the real
And I just so you know, when I saw that
it said voice over in commercials, I tore it up.
I was like, I Am not doing this. You're like,
this is real? I know right. I was like, I
understand that you just heard me sing and thought that's
a voice for cartoons. I'm a little bit anyway. She
(04:50):
I guess she called me because she looked me up
in the wait for it, yellow I mean white page
and I walked down. I had been living in a
teeny tiny apartment in Beverly Hills. I walked down to
William Morris and she said, I'm just gonna throw you in,
which was a closet because then it was real to
real tape. And an auditioned for denting Gum Perkins Restaurant
(05:15):
and this show called Tiny Toon Adventures, Steven Spielberg's Tiny
Toon Adventures, and I got all three and I she said,
you should do this, and like that sound was my
heart breaking, knowing that this was my flow, this was
going to be the river I was gonna be on,
(05:37):
and um wow, I just I don't know. I fell
in love with the room. I fell in love with
the vibe. And then you guys know, because you've done
this type of work, Um, you also sing in these
sessions you do, so I was fine. I could do
my stand up and my singing. And you know, I
(05:57):
had big, big plans to be the bet next Midler,
but right now I'm just the next cartoon person. So
I have to say the next June four A is
not such a bad thing to be a young man. No,
it is not. In the world, especially in this business
of show that we you know, carving out any type
(06:18):
of a lasting a career is next to impossible. Where
it's you're working all the time and you're you're becoming
a legend in your field. That's that's almost never happened.
And I will tell you she was the most adorable
UM Tiny like TV Tiny, I'm little, I'm five ft two.
I really could have like not the crap out of
(06:41):
or I couldn't, which I would never do, but I
do say that, you know, she was so little, UM.
And she appeared once or twice on time the original
tinytoon Adventures and she worked until her nineties and when
we lost her. UM, I had been to being around
with the voice and the folks at at Warner Brothers,
(07:06):
who have been very, very good. You know, I am
back where I started, which was Brothers. Yeah, and I
will say, honestly, I'm not really good with the whole
corporate thing, but Warner Brothers has been amazing. They're the
least corporate they are. They've got Cartoon Network, they've got
edgier stuff, and I am so pleased. UM. Highlight, of course,
(07:28):
you know, was Space Jam two. UM. Working with Lebron
was kind of amazing and we recorded during COVID so
where I'm sitting now with my really bad lighting. Um,
that is sound amazing and you look good. It's like
I'm trying very hard. Um. But I said, um, you know,
(07:51):
we built this little thing myself, like this is a phone,
mattress pad from bed bath and beyond. Um, that's smart.
I never thought about for people. Well, I had done
a comic con and in Touca, Mississippi, and when it
was all kind of happening in the beginning of March,
and we said, you know, this is not your grandmother's
(08:13):
flu folks, this is going to be something different. So
everything online. I ordered everything online and just kind of
over the next two weeks built it. And then I
got I got the role of Granny in Space Jam
two and we ended up recording you know, over the
next year, off and on. You know. First it was
(08:34):
original dialogue. Then I was doing it to picture and
we were tightening and changing some stuff, and it was
all done in the world's smallest closet um where I
am now. It was wild and they and they did it.
Christie Zoom, we did it over that's what I'm hearing
Zoom and we were getting real time. Malcolm de Lee
(08:56):
was the director who's hilarious and really truly wonderful to
work with. And a lot of the funniest stuff that
I said was his ad libs, which was just great.
And I know that Lebron was on and watching um
and so it's kind of so cool. And did you
get to work with a friend of the show? Eric Bowser?
Stop your voices right now. I love that kid. That. Yeah,
(09:22):
he is a talentless hack. You hear it, You hear
it first here. Eric Bowsa is a talentless You know
Eric likes you everybody's talking about No one likes Eric.
He has no talent, no personality, the worst person ever.
I feel bad for his son. No, I know he was.
He was our first guest ever because it was one
(09:45):
of those things where it was I've I've now worked
with him on I don't know twenty cartoons and usually
and I've always said, the voice over actors are the
most talented actors I've ever worked within this industry, bar none.
There's no close second. Voice for actors are using with talent,
but you get used to that talent. You're with it
all the time. You're in the booth with the same
(10:06):
people all the time, and so you expect it, and
every once in a while somebody walks in that makes
you once again go, you've got to be kidding. I
feel that way. That was about Eric the first time.
I mean I knew of him and we would pass
in the night or I'd hear him doing silly things
like Nickelodeon and uh. And then I was lucky enough
(10:30):
to be with him on Put Some Boots where where
he does the perfect He's Antonio Banderis. You can't you
can't tell the different. That was a That was a
room that was directed by Andrea Romano, who knows how
to pick twn. You know, she just saw and one
of my closest friends. I adore her, and she she
(10:52):
directed Tiny Tunes. So we go go way back to
when I had a waist. It was just times and
so Drea was your first voice over director. Andrea was
mine to stop it. I don't mind too, Batman. Beyond
my very first animated Sery just kind of got each
other because we are both anti the big the big
(11:14):
room where they direct by committee and we're just kind
of we're just more indie folk. And I would say
before Eric, it is now hard with Eric bowsa um
Tress McNeil is possibly the most brilliant voice actress. If
we have to go to agree with you work. I
heard you mentioned her will many times. I was just
(11:36):
about to say that I had the same feeling the
first time I worked with Tress that you get when
you work with with Eric or Frank Welker or somebody
like that, where you just um, it's it is, it's
next level. But I mean, I guess it's like that
in any anything, when you're surrounded with talented people, there's
always one or two that just are so much better
than everyone else, right, And you know what I will
(11:58):
tell you, Like Frank, that room that I walked into
was like a third grade classroom. Everybody was voicing and
doing these weird things, and then you'd say something and
somebody would imitate your voice, and I thought, you know,
much like my book, it was like growing up in
a in a house with sort of like developmentally disabled.
(12:21):
I was like the noise and the quietest two people
in the room were Tress McNeil and Frank Welker. And
Tress was in the front. It was like a classroom
and I was way in the back and next to
me was Frank Welker, who showed me how to separate
my pages and how to be quiet and when to laugh,
and it was a great training ground. But to watch
(12:42):
Tress and Frank and then to see Eric, you get
that feeling like there's a Bob Bergen in the room.
You you just you get this vibe that there's so
much more that they can do, but they've sat in
their canoe and let let the current take them. And
(13:02):
for me, I was a single parent when my daughter
was very young, and cartoons allowed me to bring her
up and send her to college and do all that.
And am I super famous? No, except for like the
three ft and undercrowd, Am I you know? Super well?
They're the best fans. Like It's like I said, I
(13:23):
feel like I'm on an I might go on a
soap opera. You know, I got my crew and I
got my people who watch my show. Um, but I
you know, for my initial shock of this is where
I was going to be, I can now tell you
there's no place that I would rather be, honestly, And
that's not That's the thing. The other thing that I
(13:44):
love about our side of the industry is the if
you know you know factor, So you might not be
a superstar in the world. We might not be superstars
in the world, but we are to each other because
if you know, you know, and so Candy Milo, it's
like they're you know, I heart calls like, well, Candy's
gonna come on the show. We were like, you've got
to be kidding me. So that I mean to us,
(14:06):
you'll you'll always be a rotor. I just well, and
now with UM comic cons we've seen since COVID, so
many people were streaming animation UM and re re, you know,
investing themselves into all of the stuff that they could,
the content and things that were very you know, nostalgic
for them. I'm sure they did Kim Possible. And I'm
(14:27):
sure they did Tey because I I loved that. And
I have to tell you I I had only done
a couple of episodes of Kim Possible only because you
guys had it. Hold on a second, know, you guys
had it covered. Like when you have Nancy as your
mole rat, you you got it like you've got it covered.
She could do other things, but every once in a
(14:48):
while they needed me and I would be able to
go in. But as um you know, as you know
we were all done separately. What were you doing, Candy,
because I was not aware of this, so please inform me.
I did um extra voices that Nancy couldn't pick up.
I mean, another brilliant human being. But like if you had,
(15:12):
off the top of my head, a stewardness and then
you add a random mom, I would come in and
and for for your listeners and your your your people,
your crowd that don't know I was utility. I think
on three or four UM can possible episodes and I'm
I'm thinking, was it Lisa Shaefer directing? Yeah? And the
(15:38):
best people like ever in the history of awesomeness. Yeah,
just like a regular nice human being. But you find
I find that the best voice directors are like Lisa
in that when you're acting, they just let you go.
If they feel like you're dialed in, they are not.
They're not worried about every single line, every single beat.
(15:59):
They're not looking to have you match something. You know.
They just let you go. And yeah. And I think
one of the great things about Lisa's that she had
to do shows one character at a time because that's
the way it was scheduled so that they could get
it and she was so great at directing me in
(16:22):
that here's without playing the other people or saying, here's
how they're probably going to read this line. This is
what I'm trying to get, And so I could do
line by line five times in a row and then
what was cut together was great. So it was never
brain surgery when I worked with Lisa Shaeffer, you know,
and I say that just because that's how I felt
(16:42):
about Malcolm de Lee for for Space Jam two. It
was never brain surgery. Let's just let you go give
us five or ten things and we'll let you know
what works, and if not, we'll get another session and
come back and pick it up. So well, Kitty, I
have to have a couple of questions, follow up questions
to that. So when you do utility, as we know,
if we've mentioned before, sessions, UM can can basically contract
(17:06):
you to do up to is it up to three characters? Yes,
you get two for the price of one, and then
a third voice is a bump, a fourth fit voice
is a new session. So it's funny. I had very
little UM notoriety in a show called Fanboy and Chump
Chump on Nickelodeon, and I made more money doing that
(17:29):
show because I was so versatile or you know, nuts
if you want to say it personal, because I sing,
and I think that's it. I know how to manipulate
and control my voice that I could come on sometimes
and do six or seven characters along with Jeff Glenn Bennett,
Oh hi, an brilliant guy. Like we would just come
(17:52):
in and we would say back, clean up. We would
come in and I I had a character named share Leader,
Shall please do please do all your characters okay? So
here all day. She was a character on Fanboy Chump
Chump called Share and she was a shareleader like a cheerleader,
and all she said was her like share and then
(18:15):
they made her a triplet and so it was like hey, hey, hey,
and then three of them, and I was Um Loupe
on that show where I had a Buffy's in my
hair and I had like little braids like Princess leah
Um and then I mean it was one of those things.
(18:36):
And then I was um Marcia and somebody named Marcia
who had breaking and it was a main girl. And
then there was like the Christmas special where all of
those characters were in that episode, and I said, I
think they never run it because they just don't want
to pay me. Oh ends, It's Hillary, Joy and Sophia
(19:02):
and we are your Drama Queens. We are going on
tour and we are so excited to announce that we
will be live streaming our New York stop of the
tour on October at five pm. We have guests Barbara
Allen Woods, Daphne Zuniga, Tyler Hilton, and Matt Barr. That's right.
If you live stream the show, you will get to
see the guests from both New York City shows right
(19:24):
in your own home. Amazing. It's amazing. So get your
tickets now at Drama Queens o th H dot com
and we will see you on octobery. So, okay, I
have a I have a couple of questions myself here.
So first of all, we've got it. We're gonna get
into all the we gotta of course talk about Dexter
(19:44):
and all the great things uh from there. But you
mentioned briefly before your book, and your book is coming
out on the fourth correct and just reading about it
called Surviving the Odd and just reading about this was
so amazing. I mean, can you can you explain to
us what it's about because it is incredible and I
(20:05):
want to know how much this influenced the voices uh
that you ended up using in your career. Yeah, let
me just I will give you like the Quicken Down
and Dirty. My dad was a very successful nightclub performer,
singer or comic, depending on who the UM star was,
he would do like a nightclub show. He was Bett
Midler before there was Bett Midler, and he was extremely successful.
(20:29):
But with the advent of TV, nightclubs were closing. So
with five kids, he tried to figure out what he
would do in the late sixties, and he wanted to
give something back to society, which he decided should be
my childhood UM, and he opened one of California's very
first licensed halfway houses, board and care homes for the
(20:51):
developmentally disabled and emotionally disturbed and UM. He had very
little secondary education, I believe none. He was a comic
and he got twelve he got who was left and
so twelve adults lived in a fratern converted fraternity house
on Frat Row by the San Jose State Campus in
(21:12):
San Jose, California, and we lived in the house with them,
and then two years later we had enough money to
get the house next door. My dad cut a hole
in the fence so he could get to work quicker,
and um they became my family. And over the sixteen
years that my dad ran this home, UM, we cared
(21:33):
for close to three hundred and fifty adults with disabilities
UM mental disabilities, and nobody ever really got better, They
just became. So I have had a giant family. And
what this did to my cartoon and my acting abilities
(21:53):
is that I never judge a book by its cover.
And I learned very very very early on to watch
people very closely for safety as well as oddity, as
well as of a fascinating life study. But when I
get a character, I am now looking beyond the pale
(22:16):
for the similarities to me, because you would never see.
I mean, we had a reputation milow Arms Hi, the
name of the house Hi, that was on the side
of a van that I had to ride to school.
And when I was nine, I'm not damaged at all. Um,
I it was like judging a book by its cover.
(22:37):
You want to immediately dissociate yourself from anybody. I am
not like that. I am quote unquote normal, I am fine,
And I was the type of kid that said, Wow,
we both like the archies. That's weird. Wow, we both
like Abbas Abbas, that's weird. Wow. You love your mom
and dad and I love my mom and dad. Wow,
(22:57):
you take medication and I don't yet yet. So that's
how I think it informed me was um And I
learned later that was kind of a cool thing, you
guys that rather than looking distancing myself, which I did
in the beginning I was eight of nine years old,
I started to look for the similarities. So when I
(23:18):
see a way out their character, like a Dexter from
Dexter's laboratory, we that has a a laboratory in his
basement that his parents don't know about, right that, I
look at those similarities and what is he hiding? And
why does he consistently have to hide his genius um?
(23:39):
And what are the consequences that he does? And where
can he lose his temper and tell everybody that he
is a that he has dexter breaking? Yes, how could
he tell everybody he is? So I think that that
is how it did it. I'd like to tell people
it is not my book is not character funny. No
one is being made fun of. That's the the actual opposite.
(24:02):
It's situational funny. It's putting a bunch of uneducated people
in a home, uh with development. And our family was
a bunch of uneducated people in a home with people
who were struggling to belong to a family, and we
were the people teaching them how to tell a joke
so that they didn't become a joke and function in society.
(24:26):
And I think my dad did a really great thing, um,
and he was one of the it was. It was
kind of amazing. And I've watched, um, you know, documentaries,
and I've watched people that have home businesses like you
think they've got funeral parlors, and we've had series about this,
(24:46):
and it really just was an odd family business. This
is what we did. They went everywhere with us, We
went everywhere with them. UM. I think in my personal
life there's a little reason I live alone. UM, I
have been married, but I did now I'm alone. Is
that I, as a young kid, became the adult very quickly.
(25:11):
And it's really hard to curb that. When you're eight
or nine years old and you're telling somebody you will
not do that, you will not say that, you will
not wear that, you just become this little authoritative kid
and it's hard to break. It's hard to break that.
So um, that's the that's the downside, um. But learning
(25:34):
humility and compassion, um was definitely the upside. Well now
with both you and your father or your father especially
at the time, but you probably already showing the talent
both being performers. Did you ever perform for the people
that were in your home? I mean, were you? Were
you performing for the people that were there? Um? When
(25:56):
I was a fresh was freshman or sophomore in high school,
I got the lead Dolly and Hello Dolly, and my
dad thought it was a great idea to bring eight
of our residents to the performance of Hello Dolly, put
them in the front row, and teach them the overture
for Brigadoon. So um. When the overture started playing with
(26:17):
the high school band off key, they started singing Briga Dune,
Brigadoon and it should be like put on your Sunday
clothes when you feel down. So um. Yeah, my dad
was very funny and I'm scared, but that's neither here there.
But I remember the director, who was also the theater teacher,
(26:38):
saying warning everybody that there were developmentally disabled adults in
the front row, and that they were there to have
a good time and to put on the show anyway.
And I'm like Homer Simpson fading into a hedge. Right,
I am going to kill my father. I am going
to kill him. And I remember I walked out in
the black and the lights came up and they gave
(27:00):
me a standing ovation. And I realized that they did
that because I did something they would never be able
to do, which was to stand on a stage and perform.
And I think that was a golden lesson UM. But
I my dad was not a big supporter of UM
the whole show biz career. He came really yeah, he
(27:22):
came up very hard in the fourties and fifties, and
women in show business, in his estimation, got there two ways.
They married well, or they work or the other way.
So he was like, no, no, no. And I was
a bright and curious kid. I had skipped grades. I
he wanted me to go to law school. I did
(27:44):
go to college. I did do pre law, and I
was pretty much out of there in a year and
a half. And I did get my degree as an
adult UM and ended up getting a B a UM
as an adult on the weekends. UM, but I I
wish that he had been more supportive. In my book,
there is a picture of him singing with me, which
(28:06):
was one of the only times that he ever performed
with me. And then we we did have a piano,
but we we were not UM. When we lived in
the home with them, it was a fraternity house, so
we were in the den mother's unit, which was a
two bedroom UM thing. So we were it was a
(28:27):
two bedroom in office and for the time being it
was our place. And while we would eat meals with
them and watch TV, they were very much independent and
their own people, and they did their own things UM.
And then during the day we went to school and
they went and did their thing, and then it would
(28:48):
start all over again. So now if you're if you're
if your father wasn't a huge proponent, which I totally understand.
I write kids and I don't particularly with them in
the business. But if it happens, it happens kind of thing.
You know, I won't stand in your way, right, But
how did you find how did you get that technique?
(29:12):
If you were on a whole another UM, Well, I
will say that, uh my parents wouldn't give me piano lessons,
so I taught myself piano. I taught myself um how
to sing, and I got my first professional job at
Marriott's Great America UM singing in a theme park at fifteen.
And then I performed when I was sixteen. Um, do
(29:33):
you remember what she's on? Do you want to know?
How did you sing? At the theme park? I am
a woman, heard me row in numbers too big to
ignore piano string breaks. I look at the piano player
and tell her to stop playing and finish the song
a cappella, and they were like, when will you be
sixteen January? Okay, good UM. And then I was doing
(29:58):
Broadway hits in the theme park and I sang Annie
in a bright red wig and I sang um and
I could tap um, so I um tapped this whole
American I'm like in a red, white and blue outfit.
And so it was the Broadway show in nineteen seventy seven,
(30:20):
the summer of seventy seven, and I was making minimum wage.
And this is again now. Was your father actively trying
to keep you away from the industry or was it
like Christie said, where it's like I'm not going to help,
but I'm also not going to stand in your way
right at this point. UM, it was interesting at this
(30:42):
point he was not saying don't, don't, don't, but he
wasn't helping. And when I was struggling because I was
a big, huge belter, like a Broadway belter, and I
kept losing my voice because my technique was wrong, his
way of helping me was to say, you're flat and
you're not getting enough air. Okay, thanks, thanks so much
(31:03):
for identifying the problem that I'm aware of. But I did.
I did eventually pay for my own UM, and it
was just something we just we didn't talk about. And
then at the very end of his life, I had done,
um a movie with Dick Clark and NBC called Reaching
(31:23):
for the Stars UM and it was the first docu drama.
It was the first reality movie of the week, and
UM he was very ill and I remember telling him
that I got this, and he said, what do you
mean You're going to play you? What do you mean?
What do you what do you ever done? And I
was like, well, I think that's what we're about to
(31:44):
find out, is what I can do. And I think
that he just, you know, he never let go of nightclubs.
I mean, he opened for Cab, Callaway and Strong, and
he traveled with Louis Prima and Keeley Smith and he's
another life. It was a lifetime ago. And he only
(32:04):
stopped because nightclubs stopped. That's the only reason. And it
was such a lifestyle to back in the day. I mean,
the whole nightclub thing was just so I mean from
what I've read, and no, obviously it was it was
hard drinking, it was late at night. It was gals,
it was drinks. It was the rat pack, and it
(32:24):
was like rock stars, like yes, you know, it was
not being on the road, and that was it. And
you know, what's my Am I on a plane? Am
I on a train? Where am I going? How many nights?
How many shows? How long of a show? Who's going
to pay me? It really was, it really was, And
it was all analog. There was no digital. There was
(32:46):
like paper plane tickets. Um. And when my mom did
pass away last year, I found all of this. I
found his his calendar while he was in the USO,
which used to be a branch of the service. By
the way, he was in the USO in Denang in
(33:06):
Vietnam and they had a schedule of when you did
the Officers Club, and then you performed for the guys,
and then where you performed, because if you had a
show and you weren't on Bob Hope's tour, you couldn't
perform your show anywhere near So he when Bob Hope
came in, they sent him out to the guys in
the jungle and and so it was like a grind. Um.
(33:30):
You know, he had smoke for Sinatra. He was like,
I don't know why he had Joey Bishop. Why couldn't
you hire another guy like me? And um, I was like,
probably your attitude, Dad, I'm just saying probably the fact
that you're making a hand gestures like you're like you're
a mobster. So I, um, I think that that was
(33:50):
really tough. But also in his papers, guys was um
about sixteen letters of commendation for his work with the
disabled children and vets that he always had this thing
and and just so you know, his idea was that
his home, Milo Arms Board and care home was going
(34:12):
to be four veterans, and uh, we didn't get any veterans.
That's still amazing though. Okay, so the book is surviving
the odd. It comes out on October four. And also
you're gonna be doing a book signing at Bars and
Noble at the Grove and the signing is Theft, so
everybody come out and see Candy. Uh. The story is
absolutely incredible. But speaking of incredible stories, so we did you? Now,
(34:36):
I want to get into Dexter because obviously I'm a
big fan and how and how you came up with
the voices and all that stuff, but I got I
want to take it back a little bit farther, just
just very briefly, because we always like to know did
you grow up watching cartoons? Were you did of animated
series and which ones were they? Okay, so, first of all,
I was a huge fan of the Three Stooges, which
(34:57):
is why I was a huge fan of Looney Tunes.
And that's what Looney Tunes is for your for your
fans who don't know, watch on YouTube, old old three Stooges,
and you know, it's got to be Three Stooges with Curly.
I like Shemp. I loved Curly. I thought I was
cur is daff Who is Daffy Duck? That's who Curly is.
(35:22):
And and when Daffy gets mean, he shimp like it's late.
It's the oddest, It's what I did. I also watched
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop the jay Ward cartoons, of
which June Foray was also a huge part. So um,
I did watch that, and then I wasn't really into
(35:45):
I like Josie and the Pussycats. I didn't see myself
in it. No, I didn't. I didn't. I watched Fat Albert,
I watched the Jackson five, but I started, I really have.
And I'm not even saying that because that's brand. I'm
telling you. I was a huge fan and that's what
I grew up on. That's what I find still funny today.
(36:10):
And there is a Looney Tunes cartoon that we do
on HBO Max that I think Alex Kerwin and m
and Pete and everybody who's involved with that, they really
have that old Looney Tunes ninet forties sensibility. They're very
fast and funny. But with cell phones, that's what I say.
That's the difference with this new thing is that we've
(36:31):
added in some technology, but it's very much bam bam, bam, bam,
bam bam, set up, set up, jokes, set up, set up, jokes,
set up, set up, It's It's great. Chrissie Kavanaugh is
the original voice of Dexter from Dexter's Lab, and she
quit completely quit voice acting, UM, and they were shelving
(36:52):
um Dexter. They were going to get rid of it.
She had done I think a year and a half
and then they had a year and a half of
her in the Can you quit a voice acting? No
offense to Chrissy, but I just wonder why. And she's
no longer living, so I can't ask her. But she
and I were good friends because we had the same
(37:14):
um on camera agents and um. We were both trying
to get on Sketch TV. That was our big deal,
testing for Mad or in Living Color, and Roseanne Barr
had a sketch show that she got on and I
was testing for mad and I was testing for in
Living Color and it just I could never get it um.
(37:35):
And she just, I mean, she was chucky. She was babe.
And I think she said, I've I've had enough. And
so I in my speaking voice if I put on
if I talk like this, and I've had a little
hustomat voice, and I had a little bit of an
accent this is what Chris Cavin I'll sound like. So
(37:58):
my agent at the time Times said, I want you
to slate in Chrissy's speaking voice. Interesting and um. Gendy
Tartakovsky picked me and I ended up doing eight years
of it. And then the voice of the episodes that
they had in the can that she did I read
voiced um. And then so she is credited. We're both credited,
(38:26):
but she's no longer living, so I get the residuals.
But we we go back and forth depending on who
licenses it, of whose voice it is, and whose voice
it really is. Is Gendy Tartakovsky that is exactly sense
like a French Russian guy sounds exactly like this. He
would say, I don't know how to tell you to
(38:48):
go up uncertain words, because Chrissy would go up and
I was like, Chrissie was nuts. She also had her
own sense of humor. I have a different sense of humor,
of a loony UNEs sense of yes, you have a sense.
I have a stuge sense of humor. So when you
hit the joke, I'm gonna hammer it to let the
(39:08):
kids at home know this is the joke. And Chrissie's
method of method of joke telling was to go away
from the joke that another that it was in the animation,
do you know what I mean? So like Dexter would
say something like man Dark, I'm going to get you,
and then it would be closing on Man Dark with
blink blink, with the piano key sound, blink blink, and
(39:31):
it was just different. But I did do I think
seven years of episodes and it's been it's been amazing.
I mean, it's a phenomenal show, well acted, well crafted,
animated series. I mean it was, and I for years
(39:51):
was saying to agents, um, because it is it behooved them.
Although the agent that handled me for Dexter handled Chrissie
as well. I mean, so when Christie quit, they had
her in me and she was happy that I would
be able to do it because we were friends. Our
voiceover agent was the same person. But they used to say,
(40:12):
when you go out on tour or if you go
to cons, don't tell people you didn't create the voice.
And I was like, you know, that's kind of creepy.
I think I can imitate her. It eventually became me,
but at the beginning get wanted Chrissie, that's who we wanted.
He wanted you audition originally as well. No, because it
(40:35):
was an art school thing and he sent it. Um
that's what it was. It went to I believe and
forgive me. It could have started, you guys at Hannah
Barbara because one was bought by Time. Time was bought
by Warner Warner blah blah blah blah blah, and then
(40:56):
We've Got Kids w B Cartoon Network. It was all
under the same umbrella. I believe. It's also We're Butch
Hartman and Seth McFarland started and Andrea Romano and Andrea
Romano in the Hannah Barbera Stable and I think it
was a short and I was doing other shorts there
that got picked up another short, Um Kenny and the
(41:20):
Chimp with Tom Kenny. Um. I had done a bunch
of shorts. Cow and Chicken was the mom and the
feature on Cow and Chicken. Um, yeah, so I mean
that is that was Chris Chris Salter was Chris Simmerman
Salter who was the voice director and also casting on that.
(41:40):
And then um, I just kind of stayed in that family.
So it was a cartoon cartoon or a Hannah Barbera short, UM,
and I was not on that short, so I was like,
I think, like five other ones, and so was Chrissy.
I was on two to the super Arena, and a
lot of these they did not take from the animators,
(42:05):
so they went over to UM Nickelodeon, and that's um Fred.
I can't think of his last name. Um started pardon me,
you love. I'm thinking of the producer Um. He does
Freederator films. He took a lot of those shorts over
to Nickelodeon, and that's how I did chalk Zone, My
(42:25):
Life as a teenage Robot, Jimmy Neutron. All of these
shows that I was on were all originally sort Hey,
it's Megan King from Intimate Knowledge. If you want to
know what was really happening between me and Mike Johnson
from Bachelor Nation in Vegas, listen right now to intimate
knowledge and get all of the not safer work details.
(42:48):
Listen to Intimate Knowledge on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. So
here's the thing. So Chris and I are we haven't
talked about it yet on this episode, but we and
we don't talk about it much because we're still getting
all our ducks in a row. But we are launching
the super awesome contest to find the next voice actor
(43:10):
and contests to find the next voice actors. So we
are going that. You you know, we can't get into
all the prizes yet, but you win a voiceover agent
for a year, uh, you win some money, you get
thrown out. It's really amazing. So it's amazing. The thing
that we love is what everybody learns from different voice
(43:31):
over actors that we have on the show is the
kind of you know, they're they're picking up different techniques,
different tidbits from everybody here. And one of the things
that I thought was really interesting about you when I
was doing the Deep Dive is one of the things
you spoke about a lot in a bunch of the
different interviews I watched, And that's something that I don't
think it has talked about enough and I think could
so benefit some of the amateur actors out there. Is
(43:53):
your prep time before you start a job, and you
prepped the same way you prepped to sing. So I
was curious if you could kind of walk us through
how you prep your voice to get ready to do
some of these longer sessions or more grueling sessions, or
or what can the amateur actor do? Because the last
(44:13):
thing you want to do is you were saying when
you were singing and you were losing your voice as
you're singing. You don't want to destroy your instruments. So
how how do you prep before you get started? There
are and and for for those of you that are
you know, financially challenged. UM you can do this on YouTube,
but I have a set, have two sets of warm
ups there twelve minutes each um minor from a vocal
(44:36):
teacher in l A Bob Garrett, but he offers. He's
also on Instagram. He does things called vocal gyms. I
do UH a twelve minute warm up, starting with humming,
just low hums, but I don't humm a scale. I
stay on one note to hear where the cracks are,
so it's just a and then I'll go up have
(45:00):
steps or just until I get to the top, and
then I'll go back down. Then I do lip trills
up and down, um to a scale, and then I
warm up three sets of my instrument, which is the belt,
the mid or the passagio, which is really in your mask,
(45:22):
which is your face. Think of yourself wearing a mask.
It's up there. And then I do my high voice.
I will do this every single day, and I did
it before I talked to you. I did it just
because I knew we were going to talk and I'd
be excited, so like i'd scream or I do something
(45:42):
gut around and be shot, you know, And that's all
it takes. Especially someone who has a little age on
their voice, you have to do it. Then I do
my gig, and one of the things that warming up
will do is that they'll take all screams and everything
out of your throat and put it in your mouth usk.
There is a way for you to scream nasally and
(46:03):
not scream gutturally. I will do my gig, and then
I get in the car and I have a warm down,
especially if I'm doing something like when I did Maya
Miguel and she was really high like this. It was
so freaking hard that by the end of the session
my my larynx was up by my ears. So I
(46:25):
cooled down, which is none of the hard selty things
I do, the lip trills and the humming from the top,
only going down, and I usually do that in the
car going home. So it's like, do you lower lower?
(46:48):
And I do that three or four times, and then
it is the hums starting high, going all the way
down to the bottom, and it releases your larynx, releases
your shoulders. But if you don't cool down, your larynx
stays up there and it exhausts it. It's just exhausts.
So true. So I went to Joan later who um
(47:10):
really was helping me. I was Belle on Broadway, and
yes you were. And I had had um double nodule
remote removal prior to booking the job, and in two
months time I was on Broadway and so that actually
it was maybe like more three or four months. But um, after,
you know, that was not the case. Usually you're supposed
(47:32):
to take a year after getting knowledge surgery, and I was,
you know, nineteen and desperate to to get in there.
So Disney was like, okay, whatever, whatever works, and sort
of they kind of they kind of didn't look they
looked the other way so that I could get as
long as you're saying. And so it was very hard
to maintain my integrity of my instruments. So when I
(47:53):
went to this woman Joan later, who's i'd say, one
of the premier um, you know and voice coaches for
Broadway performers and singers. Um. And so she did exactly
the same thing. She would tell me the exactly to
the warm up and then the cool down, which I
had never heard of before, and right um, and it's
(48:15):
it is so vital I think for the investment of
the longevity of your voice. And I'm unashamed to say, Christie,
I will and will I will say it. I'm I'm
sixty one and I probably have another thirty years definitely
voice acting. What tends to slow down is breathing, Like
(48:37):
it gets as you get older. It's harder and harder
to take a twenty six year old breath. And do
you know I credit this, Christie, I credit to the
warm down. My longevity is the warm down. And I
would say to everybody listening, if you don't have twelve
minutes or you've forgotten and you're walking in how and
(49:00):
lip trill and then hum and lip trill on your
way out, But you can't go in shouting cold. You
will double nodule. That's what I got at sixteen, was
a double nodule, and the only way which would make
it nineteen seventy seven that they could take those off
was scraping them off and praying that you didn't scab. Yeah,
(49:27):
so it didn't get that much easier too. I think
that's about they or something. Yeah, I think they later
open throat surgery. Yeah. I think it's really important to
you know, to avoid it. That's why we took vitamins.
That's why we walk and we keep mobile. It's all
about avoidance of injury. And so if you can take
(49:47):
two minutes, um. I would also say for your listeners
as a last thing um which even many professional voice
actors do not do, and that is read and mark
your script before you walk. I will not tell you
how many people that I've gone that really believe that
(50:10):
they can wing it. And all I can tell you
now to my fellow faboos is that the business is
wide open now. And I'm I'm a prep guy. I'm
always I'm always reading my lines, I'm marking it on.
You did that with Ron, You did that a lot? Yeah, Oh,
I never I never ever show. I can honestly shows
(50:31):
it really does it well. It makes you an actor,
It makes you a voice actor rather than relying on
silly voices. I have a couple of friends who whom
I adore, who are brilliant, who are like enough time,
I'm gonna wing it. And I'm like, you know, this
is a young guy. Look at how he's written it.
He hears this a certain way, man, you better deliver this.
(50:52):
He's got eight thousand exclamation points. He has capitalized fifty
words in this sentence. You here's this a certain way?
Had you read it? Because what ends up happening is
that somebody else when we did group records, you guys, um,
everybody else will have read it, and so we all
know what your line is supposed to sound like. Because
(51:14):
it's not just my life. I'm also reading Will's lines
and Christie's lines, and you're knowing where where my silence is,
Where do I come in? Where do I fit in
that joke joke bounced, joke joke bounce? Where do I fit?
So that would be my last tid a bit. That's
a protest that those are two important ones because it's
(51:36):
all about preparation. It's prepping your voice and then it's
prepping your your talent. I love that I know that
I love that you guys do that I didn't gonna
get better. If I ever get the opportunity to to
to to be on you know, a long running series again,
then I would definitely be doing much more. I was.
I was so young when gospel was that it was
(51:59):
just the farthest from my mind. I was like, well,
I'm the character's age, etcetera. I I was smoking, I
was ruining my voice, and at the end, it was
towards the end where my nodules really flared up, which
is why you know, well, my my voice did sound
a bit different. And now I'm healed, and I just
think that I would approach it so much more maturely.
(52:19):
And I will say, that's the Christie, what you just said,
it's hugely important because I will just tell you that,
you know, we do what we do once we got
the job. But I'll tell you, if you warm up
and you read the script and you find your niche,
that's also how you get the job. That's why I'm
auditioning every day. And in my little mind, I am
(52:40):
a goddess of but I audition, like when we leave,
I just took this off of my my music. That's
the audition I have for when we hang up and
I'm warm, and I was like, but I've read it,
and last night I sat and I marked it and
I was like, oh, that's a funny thing because you'll
see in the stage direction run run, run, fall, hit
(53:03):
catch the ball anyway, So you you want to put
that stuff that's in the that's in the script, in
the prep for that line. Casting people love that, and
I always say that that's if you act and you
prep like you were going to be on a on
an on camera series. That is how you stand out
from the crowd when you audition with even against those
(53:25):
of us who are vets. I think that's a great
place to leave it right there. Preparation everybody. Prep your
voice and prep your script. Those are very very important.
So Candy, where can everybody find you if they're looking
for you right now? What what social media stuff you
have and what projects you have coming out? I am
at Candy Milo on TikTok where I'm having a blast
because it's so wrong. Um so the Candy Milo on
(53:49):
Instagram come with me, and I am on Twitter at
Candy Milo and Candy is with an eye. Please preorder
my book. I hope that you read it and that
you like many and then I have a bunch of
stuff with n d As that I can't talk about,
but I have six animated series that I'm hoping will
(54:09):
pop before January. Congratulations and thank you. What are you think?
That's very sweet of you to come on anyway. I
I'm gonna hunt you down content. I know his address,
I'll give it to you. I love it. This is
(54:30):
one of the warmest, friendliest programs that I've been on.
And I think I feel that way because y'all did
your homework. Yeah, well, thank you. It's not preparation, h
but preparation is the key. Thank you so much for
having me and giving me an opportunity. Don't forget everybody.
(54:50):
Surviving the Odd coming out on October four and it's
available for preorder. And then she's also gonna be signing
at Barnes and Noble at the Grove and that's on
October fifteenth, So everybody, that's what you Nicole Brown Wow,
who's also a friend of the show, she was just
on stop it. Yeah, she's going to moderate and um,
we're getting our show together now. This is phenomenal, So
everybody go check it out. It's going to be amazing.
(55:11):
Thank you again so much for joining us and my pleasure.
Thank you, bye bye, Ny. Wow. That was amazing, Christie,
and a great way to end it talking about preparation
class and yeah and everything that people are gonna need
and it's going to be perfect for um what was
the name of the contest again, m hmm, yeah, that one. Yeah,
(55:33):
she's going to be No, she's going to be really
good mentor for what though? For what for? What for?
We're the super bodacious, wonderful, fantastic, scrumptuous, correct, most amazing
contest to become the next big voice actor. Percent correct.
(55:55):
It is a super awesome contest to become the next
big voice actor. We will get into that later, but
Candy Ilo, thank you so much for joining us. That
was amazing. Everybody, have a great time, enjoy yourselves and
thank you for joining us. And don't ever forget that
if you think you've got what it takes to step
up to the mic, then put your voices where your
mouth is. Thanks everybody. I hear Voices as hosted by
(56:16):
Wilfred l and Christy Carlson Romano. Executive produced by Wilfredel
Brendan Rooney, Amy Sugarman and Vicky Ernst Chang. Our executive
in charge of production is Danielle Romo, Our producer is
Lorraine Vera Wez and our editor slash engineer is Brian Burton.
And that was my announcer voice. Some side effects of
listening to I Hear Voices are sore abs from hilarity,
falling down the Coco melon rabbit hole, sneezing due to
(56:37):
mass nostalgia, and hugs. Follow I Hear Voices wherever you
listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of the
amazing voices. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and
TikTok at I Hear Voices podcast. To see the video stream,
subscribe to my YouTube channel. You can also check us
out on my space omeigal Vine, lime Wire. Hey I'm
a napster. Okay, well, let's teach you about the Internet.
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