Andrea Romano (10,000 Voice Acting Sessions)

Get ready for cartoon royalty as Jim sits down with legendary voice casting and director genius Andrea Romano. She chats with Jim about 10,000 sessions on legendary cartoons, directing Steven Spielberg and working with Hollywood royalty.
 
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're a fan of everything we do here at
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(00:21):
slash Jim Cummings Podcast. Do it now? How you doing
out there? It's me Tigger, I am Doc Wayne Duck.
It's me Bunkers Deep Bobcat. All right, y'all? Is it great?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Your favorite firefly you desire?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Hold old Knock Gud. My name is Jim Cummings and
welcome to tuned In.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Tuned In with
Jim Cummings.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
Today, we have a very special guest for you.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yes, well you may not know her face, but everybody,
almost everybody that we've talked to on this show knows
her face and holds her in the highest regards. Over
ten thousand studio sessions, correct, over ten thousand studio sessions.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Eight.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Emmy's just an amazing career and an amazing person, so
from what I've heard. Andrea Romano joins us today.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Thanks for having me, Thanks for inviting me to play.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Amen.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Something you always said to me every session, whether you
had two lines or two hundred lines, you always thanked
me for inviting you to complain. I always thought that
was so elegant and lovely.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
So oh, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I appreciate you well, Oh my.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
God, And I'm so glad she has a really good memory,
because boy, oh boy, and we were talking earlier, and
I have to say that my career and our friendship are.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
The same age just about just about me.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
I you know, I would I broke into the business
by accident. On purpose. I mean I was aiming for it,
but the way I did it was by accident. You know.
A customer in my video store said he heard about
a guy who knew a guy who was casting for
a thing, and isn't that what you were trying to do?
And I go, yeah, so I got that job and

(02:03):
and that's and then they I said, I don't know
a single soul you should take. You should take a workshop.
And I said, a workshop, You mean they teach this
sort of thing? Boy, do they ever have? I have
good luck to you, And here you were and Sue
Blue and uh, and so I got in touch with you.

(02:25):
Do you remember eighty four ish and change? Eighty four
and change?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
So I was just startying Hanna Barbara.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, or eighty five, eighty five maybe eighty five, but
but yeah, but and it was over forty years as
the voice caster. Yeah, yes, oh yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
And I'm only forty five, so it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
You were just a little nipper. Yes, indeed, I forgot
it was.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
The class I met you. Yes, I forgot it was
in the class. Wow beautiful If I remember correctly, we
had what somebody referred to as a bunch of ringers
in that class because so many people then went on
and had careers. Oh it wasn't Anne Ryerson in there
and Clark Cam Clark, and I think there was one

(03:12):
or two other people that also then went on to
have like good voiceover careers.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yes, oh my gosh. Yeah. Made Whitman's Pat Music, Pat Music,
yeah right, yeah, why she's not Whitman, I don't know
or the other one.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
But yeah, she's Pat Music because that was her name
professionally before she got married to Jeff Whitman, and then
she kept her name Pat Music.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
It's very musical it is.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Indeed, I would have kept it.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
I would have kept it. And and uh and I said, commings,
Oh there we go.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Forgive me.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
She's very popular.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
She was really popular your phone. She's a bigger, bigger
name on the online.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
I'm really sorry. Technically challenged, Yeah, oh you too.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Huh, everything's a challenge.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, somebody, I forget I was supposed to do something,
sign up for something somewhere I think it was with Spectrum.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Was that you too, Okay, And that's because I'm on
them anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
And they well, if you have this, then do this
with the roku and then you can do this, and
then do it. And I'm like, you just said twelve
words that none of which makes sense to me. Can
somebody just come to my house and fix this? And
they say no, they just don't. They don't send people out.
They just they don't anymore. Very rarely will they say
I can help you from here. Probably not, probably not.

(04:34):
And they didn't. Yeah, And the landline I was speaking
to them on that they supply disintegrated to the point
where we could no longer hear each other. Myself and
the person that was trying during that phone call, during
that phone call, so anyhow, sorry.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well, I know I think we have a legitimate gripe.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
I do have something else I have to do with
that might have been who was calling?

Speaker 1 (04:56):
But I did I hear write ten thoughts ten thousand? Yes,
I have to think about that. That's a lot of.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
You know, even back when when we first started with Ducktails,
that was one of the very first series that started
with a buy of sixty five.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
I was sixty five right off the bat, so it
was gone.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
With the days of thirteen and twenty six, it was
sixty five, and then you know, if you only got
picked up for twenty six, it was pretty much guaranteed
you were going to at least go to fifty two.
And of course this was all because of the syndicated
package it made.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Ita and therefore, yeah, it adds up.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
So aside from the class, was it Ductails our first?

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yes? Yes, and I remember I was, and I remember
it because Disney named the theater El Capitan. I played
El Capitan, Yes, And you needed an old four hundred
year old Spanish pirates, so who else would obviously Cal

(05:58):
Cummings you know, wow, I love do you remember that.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
I remember, I must tell you, my young friend, you
have to find an old ool in sheep.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
What do you say? You know, that's why you got
the job.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
But but but.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
That's a really good voice. Thank you very good.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, and it hurts and it reminds me of my uncle.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Say, I think I used that a similar that voice
on pussing Boots.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Or something that you came something that was it was
it was I was uh huh, I know el Cabong,
So that was that was. That was drama and wrong.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
There's so many of those cartoons that are airing again
and make me so happy. The classic kind of yeah Ratoons,
the Huckleberry Hounds, which were my personal favorite, oh yeah,
and to get to meet people like Dolls Butler and
oh god yeah Blank and June.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
For I never did meet dos Butler. Who is the
very first legendary guy that you met. You were at
Anna Barbara.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
You were here, it would have been Dawes and I
met him, not at Hanna Barbera. I met him.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
Who can just clarify for the audio, Doug.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Butler is the voice of Yogi Bear Huckleberry Hound Quick.
So any voice that wasn't Don Messick or was, and
I do believe that Don Messick and Dowes Butler were
equally as talented, certainly as well. But Mel had better
publicity because he was an on camera actor in the

(07:33):
Jack Benny Show and so he actually had a publicity
machine in position, and so he got all the press.
And when Warner Brothers decided to use cartoon character voices
and said let's save some money and just use one guy,
that gave Mel a huge foot up in the industry altogether,
Dowes Butler. When I first met Dawes, I was at

(07:55):
Hanna Barbara, maybe my first week there, so we're talking
nineteen eighty four. And when he came in, and he
was a diminutive man, a giant talent. He wasn't much
taller than I am, and I'm just five foot and
I shook his hand, and I know I must have
been shaking like the fans we meet at calm Con.
And I just said, mister Butler, I'm so happy to

(08:18):
meet you. Huckleberry Hound was my personal favorite character in
the whole world, and he spoke to me as Huckleberry Hound.
And at this point, I'm, you know, a twenty seven
to twenty eight year old woman, and I burst into
tears just, oh gosh, it just wept and oh, because
I was transported in time, as watching those cartoons do

(08:40):
to you. Now, you you remember the pajamas, the feety
pajamas you were wearing, the cereal that you used to
eat to watch. Because Saturday morning and weekday afternoons were
the only times we could watch cartoons. There wasn't a
cartoon network, there wasn't a boomerang, there were none of
the two. You couldn't find cartoons other than those times. Yeah,

(09:02):
and so, but to meet Dawes was an absolute throughout
mel Mel was fabulous. We did I'm not sure if
you were a part of this. I don't think you were.
Maybe one of the things I did that you weren't
a part of when we remade The Jetsons. Oh, and
of course all those guys were on that show.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
I was on many Yeah, I guessed it.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
And then I sang the song as George Jetson great
we Are the.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
World or whatever or whatever.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
I can't remember the name of it, but it was, honestly,
it was actually kind of similar to that. But I
was singing George Jetson.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
That's great, we remade it. I forgot about it. It was
like forty gosh, they made twenty six original episodes and
then twenty years later they decided to make forty one
additional ones to make a syndicated package.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Oh and was that what that happened?

Speaker 2 (09:52):
And then so Gordon Hunt, the director at Hannibar at
the time, the voice director, and I was the casting
director at the time. We sat down and I said, Gordon,
I think they're all still alive, and we reach out
to all the original actors first and go from there.
And He's like, let's try so.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
We we certainly knew about.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Right, But but this is even before. This was way
back when. For the original Jetson's voices, this is DAWs
Butler and mel Blank as mister Spaceley. This is George O'Hanlon, right,
Georgia O'Hanlon a Penny Singleton because the Jetsons was and
she was Judy Janet Waldo was jew who still sounded

(10:37):
exactly the same. But what was so cool about doing
the Jetsons again after twenty six years or whatever and
getting them all back was Dawes was a teacher, and
Dawes taught fabulous classes and taught many voice actors that
we have right, Roger Rose and many many successful voice actors.
And Penny Singleton had dentures at this point and her

(10:58):
dancers would click when she would record, so she was
taking classes with DAWs to learn how to not click well.
She spoke and Georgia Hamlin had had a couple of strokes,
was blind, and so we reached out to his wife
and said, do you want to even present him with this?
We'd like to see if we can make it work.

(11:20):
And she said, let me talk to him. I'll talk
to you tomorrow. Called us back and said, I haven't
seen him so excited in a decade, And if you
are willing to do the extra work that it will take,
let's try it. So we would send them the scripts
in advance. She would read every word of the script,
every stage direction, every camera pan, every bit of dialogue

(11:40):
to George and recorded on a cassette. You might have
heard of cassettes, and then when they would come to
the session, they would drive in from like way, the
heck out thousand oaks or something still something, and she
would play the cassette for him. So, because he was blind,
so he would remember the story, and then Gordon would
sit in the studio with George and in the lines,

(12:00):
and I would sit in the control room and listen
for any issues. And then after we recorded all of
his stuff, we would edit it together because sometimes you
know the food to raca cycle and those words we
edited together, and then speed everybody just a little bit
to bring the pitch of their voices back up, because
gravity affects our vocal cord the same way it does

(12:22):
all the rest of the parts. That they lose their strength,
and that raises the back of that day. Back in
those days, we didn't have the ability to just click
a button and make We had to actually speed the
real to real tape.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
So I have a question about that. So does that
mean they have to record slower speaking the dialogue?

Speaker 2 (12:45):
No, because they were slow. That was the problem. Everybody
was considerably older, like in their eighties most of them.
And so this actually fixed two problems. It fixed the
pitch and it fixed the pace. There you go, that said.
Another show that we worked on a bit I believe
together was Chippendale's Rescue Rangers, and that show the three
main characters, Chipdale and Zipper, all bed right. So they

(13:12):
did have to act like this and make it make sense.
So we would record the whole cast who didn't have
to be sped record the actors who had to be
sped up, by slowing the tape down I think like
fifty percent a lot, and then we'd have to play
it all back to make sure it was clear and
that it made sense and it didn't sound like the

(13:33):
actors were acting that way, and then do their pickups.
It was a very complicated, joyful.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Remember it so well?

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Oh, my gosh, which show did you do? Fat Cat?

Speaker 1 (13:45):
That was Rescue Rangers.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Rangers only just threw away the oven myt that you
gave me a fat Cat recently because it.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Was so jerky and stable.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
It was no good anymore, but it was a gift
from you, and I saved it forever. Very hard to
throw that away.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Oh that's good. Yeah, God only knows where those are now.
I've they had that one little sort of not a
mini reboot, but what would you call it?

Speaker 2 (14:08):
That? Uh back at the Ductails of Rescue Angels.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, well, they they had a cameo oh in a.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
Oh it wasn't that.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
It was like less than ten years ago, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
and it wasn't well received.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
I don't remember hearing about it.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
No, well, it was like two lines, two or three lines.
Fat Cat had a line of the Chividelle. Each had
a line.

Speaker 4 (14:34):
They made an appearance in another.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
It was Yeah, it was some kind of retrospect a feature.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
No, it was a series. Yeah, I can't remember for
the lifetime.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Was not.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
It wasn't a big hit. Apparently it's not a big hit.
All good, but it was.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
Let us know in the comments, I'm sure you guys know.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, that's true. You guys know everything. They really do too,
they do. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
They actually information way faster than we did.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
I oh, I know.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
I used to have I mean IMDb and.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
All years off Enyclopedia.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Truly, I had a mimeograft okay, list of the Hannah
Barbera classic characters and who voiced them. So, for example,
when we did the Jetsons, I had to go back
and find out who did Henry the plumber, you know,
the handyman and the Jetson thing and find out And

(15:25):
here's the interesting thing I learned. All that information, by
the way, was actually on three by five cards written
in pencil that I found the casting notes for the Jetsons.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
And somebody's rollox or something, a.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Box of things in storage, I mean forever took to
find it written in pencil.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
It's in the Smithsonian now it should be.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
And here's the trivia that so few people know is
George Jetson. The first episode was originally voiced by Murray Amsterdam,
and they replaced him with George Howe Hanlon before it aired.
But the little card with the pencil and the line
through it didn't erase. Fortunately, they wrote the line through

(16:04):
and then put Georgia Island, so he did it first,
and that would have been good casting. I think, Yeah,
I can.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Tell you that. But yeah, and for folks who don't
know who that is, he was on the old Dick
Van Dyke Show. And if you don't know who that is,
what the hell are you watching this thing?

Speaker 2 (16:18):
For any He just turned ninety nine, Dick Van Dyke. Yes,
you still still can sing, still can dance a little
bit around? Yeah, and really, really, what's his name? Chris
the musician who just did a thing with him? Oh
he's huge. This is just terrible.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Chris Good, Chris Christopher Cross.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
No, no, let us know. In the comments.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
I'm so embarrassed. They just did a huge concert over
in Europe and Ireland, and he did a special with
Dick van Dyke and wrote a song for him on
the spot, wrote a song from on the piano. He's huge.
I'm just so embarrassed it'll come sitting the cart.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
Do you have any musical background. I do.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
As a matter of fact, I originally was going to
use music as my as my thing. I played bass, clarinet,
and I sang and literally as I was leaving for
college with music as my major, to the State University
of New York at Fredonia, Upstate New York, as in Hale,
as in hell, heal tell you a story about that

(17:27):
in a second. I just decided that music didn't do
it for me, for it didn't thrill me the way
I wanted to be thrilled by my choice of career.
And as I looked at this, it was one of
those buck slips. It was one of those hard pieces
of cardboard that's about that size and had all the
majors that the college offered. And I looked at music,
and I went down farther and I saw theater arts,
and I went and I checked that and changed my

(17:50):
major like a week before I showed up a college
because the whole first year is always liberal arts. You
have to take all the same courses no matter what
you're going to specialize in. And and I'm so glad
I did because it really changed my trajectory. And but
the music always helped me because.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Well, you've only overseen about it.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
That's why I asked so many voice actors. So many
voice actors have musical theater backgrounds. Have you know, we're
in a band, And I think it really helps with
like the timing and the intonation and everything.

Speaker 4 (18:20):
And the reason I ask.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
You is because you have to have for your profession,
your career, you have to have a good ear. You
have to be able to distinguish things.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah, oh that's so true.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
It was joyous to direct musicals. It really was absolutely
thrilling because I can read music, and also because I
was able to let actors, which has always kind of
been my theory of let me make an ass of myself.
So the actor, if they feel like they're making an

(18:56):
ass of themselves, they feel like it's okay. Andrea did it.
And so I would sing something for them, not worrying
about my performance, just trying to show it needs to
be no no no no no no no no no
no no no no no no.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
Na.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
And that's all I would have to do. And then
they after go okay, and then they could take it
to their level of performance, which was far superior to mine.
But at least I could. I knew where that note
had to get to.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
That's important.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
It really is State University of New York at Fredonia.
It's claim to fame. When the Marx Brothers toured there
as a vaudeville group, they threw them out. So duck soup,
Hail hell free don oh my Alma moder Wow, that's
pretty cool, nicol. So every year, of course they would

(19:44):
have a huge screening of duck soup and get.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
That's very cool. I didn't know that. I mean, I
knew the about to Donia part. I still I got
my Andrea lore I know my stuff. Thanks Mary, And
that's why you're here too.

Speaker 4 (20:04):
So you guys work together on Ducktails, what else?

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Rescue Rangers Rangers, there was a series at Disney. We
did a lot of Disney stuff together. I also brought
you into the Warner Brothers world because I wanted you
to be on everything. I was working on Frank. But
we did a show, and I'm so glad we're getting
the opportunity to speak about it. We did a show
called Bonkers.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yes we did, and it was and it was.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
It was one of those situations. Now I was not
the casting director on these projects, because Disney had their
own casting department, uh, And they went through dozens and
dozens and dozens, I'd say hundreds.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
And it was inspired by Roger Rabbit, the success of Roger.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Correct as many things work, the animation industry was, you know,
reinvigorated by the success of Roger Rabbit people.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
And the concept of calling cartoon characters tunes that itself.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Absolutely absolutely, but thank me say thank you Steven Spielberg
for bringing you back to everybody.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
And so when I heard who they were auditioning, and
who they had auditioned, and who they had called back,
and who they had called back twice and who they
called back the third time, and they were now in
the fourth and sixth callback for Jim Cummings, who, by
the way, was the first person they read for the character.
And after months and months of auditions, they cast them.

(21:23):
And the first person to read for us.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
And then I mean they had gone to the point
where they're ever having to pay you for callbacks because Sad, Yeah,
I think I got Sad tells you you can audition
three times without getting compensated, and after that you have
to be compensated because there's more stress, there's more.

Speaker 4 (21:42):
Takes time out of your day, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
And there's more. And I guess deep and deeper. The
problem I had with that show was Roger Rabbit was
live action and animated. It was very simple to see
who the live people were and who the animated characters were.
Bonkers was supposed to be about this world where that
was the same. There were live characters and there were tunes,
but they were all animated. So it didn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
I could never It wasn't clearly delineated.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
It was not. And then and then some nasty business
took place. You may recall where I was directing. I
think I did forty episodes of that show, and then
we're doing sixty five. Yeah, and then they invited somebody
to come sit in and watch. Okay, find a problem,
come watch, come watch, and then one day out of
the blue, Andrea, we're going to have that person direct
the rest of the episodes. It was crummy business. It

(22:33):
was bad business.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
But my point is, no matter what success you have
or where you are, you always get fired. Yeah, You're
always elitable to be fired, to be replaced. It doesn't
matter if you're Frank Welker or a Jim Cummings or
John Demaggio or Tress McNeil. You can get replaced.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yes, and so especially us, we're like, it's it's a shame.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
Business is so crazy.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah. If you're a fan of everything we do here
at tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the
show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts as well as
early in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
and more. You'll feel the difference, So go ahead and
join the tuned In family today at patreon dot com

(23:20):
slash Jim Cummings podcast Do it Now.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
I was just talking with one of my friends about this,
sorry unrest. It's just last week and.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
We were talking about awards, right, and in the film
industry you can literally win an Oscar and be broke, Like,
how many stories have you heard like Oscar winners and.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Please hire me yes, yes, it's just in their acceptance speech,
please hire me you need a job.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yeah, it's now based off that statement. Did you feel
more job security behind.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
The scenes or no? Is it the same situation.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
It's the same situation. I was very lucky that I
came into the industry at a time just before it floated,
just before so many cartoons were being made and they
needed voice directors. And I started as a casting director,
and then Jenny McSwain moved on to direct and I
became you know, I was there Hanna Barbera, and then

(24:14):
Disney Tom Ruzica, who I knew from being an agent
and I was an agent. He was a creative director
at Leo Burnett and we had done business together, and
he called me one day and said, we're going to
create this thing called Disney TV Animation, And frankly, I
was shocked. I was like, there is no TV division

(24:34):
for animation right now, just like Warner Brothers. And so
he said, yeah, we're going to do this thing called Ductails,
and we're going to audition a bunch of different directors
and somebody will do the remaining We're gonna have five
people auditioned as directors and then one of them will
do the remaining sixty and I directed the second episode
and they said, we're not even going to audition the
other directors we want. And what was shocking was Hanna

(24:57):
Barbera let me stay on staff casting in Hanna Barbara
while I went off one half day a week and
directed ductals. Never would be today would be allowed. They
were so awesome to let me do that. And then
I started doing Rescue Rangers and then a bunch of
other stuff, winning the Poo.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yes, what was the name of.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
The producer that used to direct, Carl Gears? Carl?

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Carl Gears.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
He wants me to come in and direct because he
didn't want to direct anymore. He wanted to be able
to sit back and just listen. I think it was
Carl who was the one. He was whoever was used
to let us sit down on the carpet and he
would tell us the story of the episode like we
were kids getting read and nighttime story.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah you remember that, that was him and Carl. Yeah, Carl
did that. He had the beard and the glasses and
it always wore a vest. Great great guy. Really sorry for.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Whoever he was. I can't remember the name. Embarrass it
might be called. But what was so lovely is you know,
usually when you do an animated series, my experience had
been all the actors sit around with the scripts. I
have the script and describe what action was important. The
actors make their notes, we rehearse, we just set any
we'll set any guest voices that maybe had not been
established yet, and then you record. But this was different.

(26:15):
He would describe the story. He would we literally would
sit on the floor with our you know, blankets and
pilos practically, and he would describe the story and then
we would get up and record it. And it was
joyful thought, it was fun.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, and we did that a lot of them at
the old B and B R. Yeah, that was great.
That was Now it's a sandwich shop.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Is that what it is?

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Sandwich shop?

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Oh my goodness, that is where it is. And isn't
Dubbing Brothers also over there to I think they have
a little piece of it. There is still some recording
in there in that same building, but by farther on Magnolia.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, well there's everything there.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
You know, we're still there yesterday.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
That's crazy. And you know, speaking of bonkers, I can
still remember and I just it's such a weird little thing.
It just popped into my head. I think I might
have mentioned it before. But during those callbacks, and we
had so many callbacks, it was down to me Matt Frewer,
who was a Max headroom, and a guy who was
on a show called in Living Color at the time

(27:22):
called Jim Carrey. Yes, And it was the only time
I ran into him in my professional life ever. You know,
I think he's so brilliant. But he went in first
maybe alphabetical order, who knows, and and he had a briefcase.
Then he came out and he goes, gentlemen, you and

(27:47):
he picked up his briefcase and Jim carried out at
the building. I'm gonna kick his ass, yeah, And so
I did once and you know.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Came into audition that show that was his first animated series. Yeah.
One of the humans was a police officer. He was
he was a fabulous, fabulous just loved him on the
podcast great. And then you know who else was in

(28:20):
that show was read a Moreno. And I remember, like
they when we would get to all the callbacks and go, Okay,
here's the preferred here's the preferred moreno or or or
I'm like read a moreno, yes, triple threat. She's got
an show everything, and she wants to do our show.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
And she brought her daughter to the sessions. Was because
she was getting a big kick out of it.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
It was so much fun. She was so she was game,
absolutely game. And and to watch actors like that learn
from animation voice actors, they just they would watch. They
would just look and go and we say, she used
to overlap, like you doing normal. You can't overlap the
animation and talking about how to turn pages and you

(29:05):
can't turn pages on your dialogue. You have to wait
those little time. But you don't have to teach them acting. No,
you don't have to teach him anything about finding the character.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
It was so cool because I would get there early
so I could sit next to her. And she was
just as pretty as a picture. She was gracious and
she brought her daughter and she goes and she and
she goes, this is fuck this. You can do it.
You can do anything. Because you know what I always

(29:36):
have a problem with, I'm a little too much.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
I could be too much animation. Not here, honey, No,
it's like I you just go. This is like a
license to.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Steal any more lines, you know, And she.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Was like she was game, and wasn't Nancy Carlor on
this too? Nancy?

Speaker 1 (29:55):
She was the dear bonkers. She was Bunker's girlfriend, who
who she didn't really like him that much, but.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
He should liked her because she was dreaming.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Because she was dreaming, she was kind of spicy.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
She was like, is that Chris Chris the books? Yeah,
I remember, I've used a million times. Why is your
heart pounding out of your chest like that?

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (30:22):
So sweet?

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yes, wonderful, wonderful Yeah yeah yeah yeah. But then we
did I don't make him like that anymore.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
But we also did a lot of Warner brother stuff together,
and you came in and played on Tiny Tooths and
you sang on some of the main titles.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, yeah, I was on the main title. It It
took a while to to for it to fade off,
because it was every like eight or nine shows, somebody
else would be singing the well that was Tasmania. But
and then Rob says something, you know, it was fun,

(31:00):
It really really was.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Came to play on.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
One of my favorites was when the Animaniacs went to
Ireland and you hired me to be an Irish guy.
But I wasn't allowed to say anything. But I was
supposed to never shut up, but I couldn't say anything.
So you told me I had to do Irish Gibberish
for the whole thing, and and I would always ended

(31:29):
in mick, you know, and oh, yeah, this is great,
you know. And I said, I'm gonna call my dad everybody.
I got to be some really Irish guy.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
I went to Ireland for the first time last year.
I was invited to Dublin Con.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Oh my gosh, well that's where green comes from.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
That's it is where green comes from. And the fans
are fantastic. I know, what a country Ireland. And then
we stayed and towards Scotland for a couple of weeks too,
and that was magnificently.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Did you survive and enjoy any meals there? I mean,
did you like to eat?

Speaker 4 (32:08):
You know?

Speaker 2 (32:09):
I I enjoyed my Jamison jamison, just kidding. No, I
haven't eaten meat in fifty years, so I don't need organs.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
It's not meat, it's laps and lands.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Flash, I know, it's no you know, grate cheese, wonderful cheese, excellent. No,
I had no trouble eating those wines.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Fine, I understand they have some beer and whiskey over there.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
You know. I learned to drink jamison.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
And I also learned that Guinness in the North of Ireland,
Murphy's in the South of Ireland. Yeah, both those foamy,
dark beers. But yeah, so I learned that Hinden Walls.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
And they served them like room temperature.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah they do. It is like a meal though, I
mean really and absolutely delicious. Loved it and there was
no fish and chips available in the country anymore because
and I them all, Okay, everywhere we went, I was, well,
let's have a Soladh fish and chips, yeah, because they
really know how to make it. But we went even

(33:10):
to Belfast and that was phenomenal and I love it,
loved it. Yeah, I stole your story about the Irish
accent and.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Beautiful thing. Yeah. Yeah. We had so much fun doing those.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
So much fun. And you know, we had the great
work with Steven Spielberg. I mean he would Stephen Spielberg
that it was great.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
It was.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
I mean, there was that moment when I said, okay,
stand by Stephen one second I turned.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
It was a nerve wracking at all.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Mind the room.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yeah, I remembered with Jane in the background. She she
stood in the background of everybody's picture, Jane President of
Warner Brothers.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Jean mccurty, j mccurty.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
And and uh and I remember her. I seen her
at White House, but she's standing there in the background
always with me, shaking hands with the Yes, I have.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Those, absolutely I do. But yeah, it was great. It
was intimidating. I've directed many directors since that was probably
my first I directed lands I directed, and.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
Just as a point of reference, So what was Steven
Spielberg known for at the time.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
At the time would have been Jaws.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
T was out there, that's for sure.

Speaker 4 (34:29):
You know.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
During the time when we were working with him, he
directed Schindler's List, and he was like, it's not my
usual fare, you know, because an of us really knew
what was going on. And he was like, you're gonna
need to watch a cartoon after you see Schindler's List.
I mean, such a stunning director.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
You know. That's so weird because I did that movie.
It was Balto and I was like the third guy.
They kept hiring really famous people. And one of my
pals over there said can you maybe just start Jim Cummings.
He's not famous, but maybe he can do it. So
they brought me in. It was Kevin Bacon was Balto
and I was Steel, the bad guy. So I got

(35:08):
to replace a couple of guys like that. Featherstone was
another one, and he directed me all day. I was
you know, Steven Spielberg and that was.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
He was a great guy, my favorite.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
And Jeff Dane it's my agent. And the time he
had to come all of a sudden, never went to
work with a a day. He goes, wait, I'm sorry,
who's going to be the you know, I could probably
spare some you know, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go.
So I go, yeah, I know, of course you are.
And and he sat there and my favorite thing, Stephen goes,

(35:41):
I don't think I've told this before. So this is
He goes, guys, I need a break. I need a break. Yeah, okay, yeah, Hey,
how you doing Bill? Yeah? Oh no, no'm I'm at work.
Yeah yeah, I'm at work. Uh yeah yeah yeah. Well
this one's animated. No, this it's not that one. This
one's anime made it yeah oh yeah, oh yeah, well

(36:04):
yeah I know it is kind of weird doing them
both at the same time, but you know, it's it's work.
It's worked anyway. Listen, I gotta go say hi to
Hillary and he and I said, were we talking to
the president? He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, and I go, oh,
of course, yes, sure, cool, yeah, I mean why not

(36:26):
I lost.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
I have a similar but not quite as good story.
Very good. Yeah, it's a very good one. I was directing.
I did the first five or six Land Before Time sequels. Yes,
I snuck in on one and oh, yes, you did
only one.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
I think, so maybe one or two.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
And so I was doing maybe the second one. And
we had just won an Emmy for Animaniacs, and Stephen
Spielberg was supposed to come to our offices over at
the Sherman Oaks Gallery and collect his Emmy, and we
were gonna do a big thing around the table and
chat and laugh and spend some time with Stephen, which
is always fun. And he kept canceling in that day.
It doesn't work out, so I had to go to

(37:03):
a session. I had to go direct Land Before Time
and so I'm in the middle of directing the session
and somebody comes in from the front office and says,
got a phone. I said, I'm sorry you guys. I
really apologize, but I have to take this phone call.
They're calling me from an emergency for some sort I
don't know. Pick it up. Hello, Andre, It's Stephen, Hi,
Steven Stevie. And he said, I understand. He's like, congradulations

(37:27):
on your emmy. I se, congratulations to you on your Emmy.
And he said I understand you're directing Land Before Time
And I said, yeah, you edited the first one, the
feature film, after it had sat on the shelf for years,
into something that could actually be released. And he said, oh, yeah, absolutely,
and then he started I don't want to say bad mouthing,

(37:50):
but he started joking about some of the characters ducky,
totally derivative, blah blah. And I'm in the room with
all the producers of the current show and I'm like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Uh huh uh.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Huh absolutely right.

Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
We talked for about five minutes and I said, I
really appreciate the call. I'm so sorry I couldn't be there.
I was looking forward to seeing you, but thanks, thanks
so much, and take care. Okay, bye. Yeah, I'm sorry
you guys.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, I was.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Steven Spielberg and there do you do. Oh so not
exactly as good as yours, the president, but.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Working on damn good, I should say, was amazing. I
have I'm going to tell this one because we both
know this guy. But after Lion King, I was a
long time ago. It was a Saturday and I was
I was fiddling around. I was trying to get unclogged
my daughter's Olivia. She was like twelve at the time

(38:45):
or eleven. She's forty now, you know. I was unclogging
her drain because lots of we just put the hair
right down that we don't care. And so I'm doing
that and it's Saturday, and she goes dad telephone and
I said, oh, honey, can you take a message? Yeah,
I mean yeah, just take a message. I'll call him
in a minute, okay, And I'm going and you know,

(39:08):
and she goes, okay, So so cee a t z
okay a t z e and b e R. It
was Jeffrey Katzenberg. So I said, who oh, that is coming.
That is hold on Jeffrey. And I swear to the Lord,

(39:31):
how many times have I told you not to call
me on a Saturday? I swear to God. I said that,
you know I did, and uh and he laughed like
I think and uh and he said, well, Jim, I
just and he just called me up to congratulate me.
And I thought that's great, great, Yeah, and it was cool.
And they didn't they didn't tell him that I sang

(39:53):
be prepared until after he signed off on it. Oh wow,
So that was kind of cool.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Well, we all have our tricks, yes, I mean, I
think about when we did Animaniacs and we had just
finished Tiny Tunes, and we knew who we wanted to
play certain roles. So when we submitted to mister Spielberg,
whom we have tremendous respect for him, we're not trying
to do anything underhanded, but we were trying to control
the narrative by numbering the auditions rather than puting names. Five.

(40:21):
Remember that the five submissions for Yako Warner, three of
which were Rob Paulson. All that because we knew we
wanted Rob. Rob was the guy we knew we needed
him to make it work.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
And so he's away exactly.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
So we had three choices of Rob Paulson to choose
from and two other people if he didn't like Rob.
But so we you know, it's like you said, we
didn't tell him about changing somebody's voice or doing whatever
until after the fact, until after they approved it. And
again not trying to be duplicitous, just trying to get
the job done the best way that we knew possible.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Speaking of I think that's that clears the slight.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Indeed, I think speaking of animaniacs and music and doing
all that, Stephen Julie Bernstein did a tremendous amount of
the music for a lot of the shows we've worked
down together together with the brilliant and dearly departed Richard Stone,
and to make us all feel older. Their youngest Madeleine
is getting married next week.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Okay, I mean the little toddler.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
This one, the one I've known her since first, she's
getting married next week. It's just it just but the
was dying.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
No, I said, it beats dying. Every birthday means you're
still here, exactly.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
But it's it's lovely that we're all still friends.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
You know that we all still see each.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Other and try to stay in touch. And I'm not
on any social media, so I don't have that connection,
but people do reach out and everyone's a while here. Hey,
I just saw so and so at the end of
the day, and they send their regards. Oh, thank you
very much.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Well, occasionally I'll see Tress and Jess and Rob on
and off probably the most of me.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Do you do comic cons?

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Oh yeah, I do a few, all only the special ones.
It's it's hard, there's there's I don't do all of them.
I know, I keep hitting this.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, I don't do all of them.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
I don't either. Some of them are too It's not
that they're too small, it's that the complication of getting
to that place and and and I'm no big star.
I'm just not. I'm not. When I was working, before
I was retired, I was a bigger draw because people
felt like they could get in front of me and
do their voices in my face, which was always a mistake.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
They used to chase me down at San Diego Comic Con,
literally chase me, because I'd be there doing five or
six panels and I'd be running for one panel to
get to the opposite end of the Sandy Rodney dangerfield.
Not even no, they would just run up and start
doing it in my face, like because they knew this
was the only chance they saw me read from running
and I was like, if you put it on a

(42:55):
tape and send it to my office, I promise I
will listen to it. I listened to everything that's sent
to me. I have always done that. Oh yeah, whether
they're union or not union, whatever, I always listen, make notes.
And if they would call up to follow up, I
would tell them, well, you need some acting experience. These voices,
I couldn't tell what they were. I didn't know how
to cast them. I didn't you need to make sure

(43:17):
that they're identifiables. Oh that's a good professor voice. Oh
that's a very good doctor. That would be very good exactly.
And often people would do too short a clip. They
would try to show, you know, fifty voices in fifty seconds.
It's like you can't. No, I have to tell that
you can sustain it. You were joking about Rodney Daingerfield
a second ago. Someone would go, you know, don't get

(43:38):
no respect, but they can't do anything else and sound
like Rodney Dangerfield. And so I would need people to
do fifteen seconds or so. But yeah, I don't do
very many. I like the big fat ones because I travel,
and I like traveling, although it's a little scary right now,
isn't it? With aeroplane issues. It's a little bit scary.
But I'm still going to get it online next week.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Yeah, well I had COVID already. If that's an issue, No,
that wasn't it.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
It's the it's the airplanes going down.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Oh, the planes knocking into each other, separate the lack
of air traffic control.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah, it's always nice to aim.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, and because I'm married to a Brazilian, we're not
traveling internationally because who knows if you easy to get
back even though he's a dual citizen.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
If you're a fan of everything we do here at
tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the show
on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as early
in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
and more. You'll feel the difference, So go ahead and
join the tuned In family today at Patreon dot com

(44:45):
slash Jim Cummings podcast Do it now.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
You know, in regards to like big actors coming into animation,
I heard a podcast you were on. You were talking
about that how it really changed things and you know,
people like Mark Hamill, and you know, we're starting to
kind of see the you know, it was lucrative and
they wanted to get into it. I'm curious that that
push or that I don't know, decision to start getting

(45:10):
you know, on camera actors. What level does that come from?
Does that come from you guys as a casting director?
Does that come from production? Who really is.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
And I'll tell you where it kind of started. And
I have to take some of the blame or credit,
however you look at it. Gordon Hunt and I when
we were over at Hanna Barbera, they and you heard
this a million times. I'm sure when we get a
breakdown for a show, we want new voices, we want
different voices.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
I forgot about that.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
I was too strong.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
We don't want the same old Yeah. Fine, yeah. So
Gordon Hunt had been the casting director at the Mark
Tapeer Form downtown Los Angeles, the Music Center, and he said,
you know, there's an awful lot of really talented actors
who do stage work, and because they're used to that
boosted energy, that slightly higher energy than people who are

(46:06):
strictly on camera. Because the camera captures everything, you can
be so a little tiny prince, you know, fabulously on
camera cartoons doesn't make it, and so we said, let's
start auditioning some of those people. Let's start bringing in
some of those actors, the Jeffrey Tambors.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
And what was the reasoning behind it, just to experiment, to.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Supply the producers what they were asking for, which was
different voices, different people, not the same old people. And
then the Mark Hamill's who reached out and said I
want to be a part of the Batman series. And
then come to find out he was such a huge
collector of Batman memoribilea and stuff. I think most of
which got lost in the fire, which breaks my heart.

(46:53):
But you know, Mark came and worked for me. I
did hire him right after he reached out saying I
want to play on Batman, and I hired him and
he did a great guest star and then he said
at the end of the session, he pulled me over
to the side. He said, I had so much fun,
and I thank you for the gig, but I really
want to be a part of Batman. And coincidentally, there
was a decision made to replace the Joker voice, which

(47:14):
I never would have done. I love Tim Curry's Joker.
I wouldn't have done it myself, but my job is
to supply the producers with that which they asked for.
And so Mark auditioned and was crazy good. We already
had five episodes in productions only come up with his
own voice, but he had to match Tim Curry's mouth
flaps because they were already animated. And you know, from

(47:34):
most people, when they think of The Joker, they think
of Mark Hamer.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
Absolutely, when they think of.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Batman, they think of Kevin conroyly. But I have been
adamant about this from the get go, and I will
always fight for the right actor. If they happen to
be a celebrity, I'll fight for them. If they're a
rank and file voice actor, I will fight for them.
And many times I had to say, absolutely, this is
the right guy. I know he's not the big, fat

(47:59):
celebrity you want, but he's going to come through for
you if you're going to do a series. First of all,
he's not going to take off from New York and
do a Broadway play for six months.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
And I never did that.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
And there were people who did. You know, there were
people who auditioned for me. There was one after audition
for Superman, and we were like absolutely, you are. We
would love for you to be Superman. And then we
called the agent and the agent said, oh, he's leaving next
week for a run on Broadway. We're like, well, why
didn't you tell us this? This was back in the
day when they get the phone patch. There wasn't even

(48:34):
ISDN or any kind of satellite recording. It was listening
over a phone line to an actor who had not
had any experience doing this yet, so we couldn't. We couldn't.
Where we found the fabulous Tim Daly who became our
Superman and was fantastic. And then Tim went to New
York to do Madam Secretary and something else and was
not available. And then we found the glorious George Newburn

(48:56):
who then became Superman. So so, but always I would
I always fight for the right actor for the role.
And you know, as you know, many of these series,
when they first come up with these projects, they're not
over scale their scale. Everybody's getting the same dough. But
there's no memorization, there's no wardrobe, there's no makeup unless
they're doing you know, epks and interviews afterwards. Factor can

(49:19):
show up in their pajamas, you know, as long as
their voice is warmed up, they can come do the gig.
And so there was a lot of appeal. I remember
Brookshields reached out to me and said, I am pregnant.
I can't do on camera work. I want to stay
in Los Angeles. Can you find something for me? Absolutely?
I thought she was a lovely actress and found something
that she came in and she was excellent. And the

(49:40):
number of people I've had the opportunity, I mean, as
a casting director. It allowed me to hire people I
admired across the board, I mean ridiculously. The downside of
that was hiring them and then having to replace them
if they couldn't cut the mustard. And I would work
with them for hour hours after school, you know, con

(50:02):
Tinuesday after school, and you just keep them and make
jokes and do everything I could to get the proper voice.
I remember Michael and Sarah was working with us on
as a mister Freeze on Batman and he did the
first episode and I thought he was terrific, and Bruce
Tim said it's not working. I want to replace him,
and I said, please let me keep him after school

(50:22):
and we kept him after we released everybody else, and
I worked with him for another hour and found exactly
the voice that he then did for twenty more episodes. Oh,
I didn't have to replace him. But there was someone
I was after for years and I finally got it.
Wasn't that he didn't want to work with me or anything.
He just wasn't available. He was busy working on camera.
Actor got him perfect role for him, came in, never

(50:45):
spoke louder than this, and he was the villain of
the episode, the villain so quiet anyone. And I'm like,
I'm going to keep pushing you. I'm going to keep
pushing you. I need bigger, I need louder, hear you.
And he said, I just I don't go any louder
than this. And of course I knew, because I knew
it was on camera work that he did, and I
had to replace him.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
And so when the contract came here, that is after
I will show the contract, girl said to me, you
know he was drunk. What because she sat right next
to him as he executed his contracts at the session
and she said he wreaked of alcohol. So, long story short,
when I went back to the agent to find out,
he was nervous because he hadn't done this, and so

(51:24):
he fortified himself with alcohol, which made him even more
intimidated and couldn't do the job. And I know he
could have done it. I know he couldn't have done it.
He just you know. And we did the ensemble records.
It was a Justice League, so there's you know, fifteen
twenty actors. We had those huge recording facilities that had
fifteen microphones. I could record everybody at the same time.

(51:47):
And I think he just was intimidated and couldn't.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah, I've seen that in actors. There was a video
directed video thing that I did years ago with a
very famous person. I won't tell you, but uh think
Star Trek and and he he was in the studio
and and he's looking around like this and uh yeah,

(52:12):
oh no, no, what oh dear, and and uh yeah
and and and and everybody's going and uh and went
on went on and it turns out, you know, we
did the whole thing. And then it turns out they
called me back in for pickups. They rewrote a few things,

(52:33):
and I said, how did that go the other day?
Do I still have the same buddy on the screen?
And and he said he was so intimidated by what
was going on around him because he couldn't. And I
was like, he didn't even have to memorize. He's he's
a really famous guy. He's making a ship ton of money.

(52:54):
What the hell is that? You know?

Speaker 2 (52:56):
That funny, but you get to see it. You see
it in the weirdest way. Is the way the nervousness,
like an actor hasn't really done that. You can do it.
But they sit there doing the entire recording session doing this,
Oh yeah you can't. Everything you do, we hear, and
he would like chat to the actor next to him
while somebody else was recording.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
I'm like, yeah, that's we are.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
Live the whole time, all those weird things. But I
wanted to mention it reminded me of did I finish?
Did you finish a story?

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Day?

Speaker 5 (53:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (53:21):
That was it.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
It was so I had the great opportunity I directed
a so called The Boondocks for I was just about
to ask you about the boon and I got to
work with the great Samuel Jackson, And of course they
had to do a parody of fiction. By the way,
can I swear?

Speaker 4 (53:37):
Yeah, okay, just check it.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
So the episode was about and forgive me. Forgive me,
I'm going to say the N word a couple of times.
And I never was comfortable to saying the N word.
There was one episode where we had to say it
fifty six times in the episode and have two quick stories.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
He said, fife anyway right now, were directing on this, Okay,
do the initial casting.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
But I did all the episode casting, and so the
very first time I had to record Kevin Richardson on
that episode, he wasn't available for the ensemble record. I
had to record him by himself where at Salami Studios
where when the actors, when I'm sitting, when the actors
are sitting, I can just barely see like this much
of it, that's right. And so I said, okay, Kevin,
I'll reach into the first line and you just you know,
we'll just go on from the scene from there. So

(54:19):
we're at line fifteen. This is take one, and the
guy before he says, yo, nigga, what's up there? The
hose that? And I'm waiting for Kevin to read his
line and nothing and nothing, and so I stumped up
and look and he's completely like agog his mouth is open.
I'm like, it's because I said Nigga isn't just like

(54:45):
I've ever seen Kevin Richardson like speechless. No, that was
that was it. You did it, I did it.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
So the episode was just for the record. He's one
of the most talented guys on the block and stunningly
looks like it looks like world class wrestlers. So you're
not going to mess with him.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
First beautiful black man, beautiful talent.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Oh lord.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
So Samuel Jackson, first time I'm directing him, and the
scene is all about the episode is all about forgive
me again, Niga technology, right when there's my space and
all those and so it starts with the two characters.
It was Samuel Jackson and Eddie Murphy's brother, Charlie Murray

(55:28):
the two characters, and Charlie wasn't available for the session,
so I had to read with Samuel Jackson. I just
was so happy to read with Samuel Jackson. So the
scene begins and with Charlie Murphy's character is saying something
about nick technology is great. I'm at the strip club.
I got a titty in one hand, a titty in
the other hand, and I'm checking my messages, and then

(55:48):
Samuel Jackson's line comes, so I read him. I got
a titty in one hand, titty on the other hand,
and I'm checking my messages. Samuel goes into the scene,
ruin the whole scene once, the scene the second time,
so I got titty in one hand, titting the other hand,
and run the scene the second time. I said, anything
you want to pick up, Samuel, anything you want to
do again? He goes, can we just run the whole

(56:09):
scene one more time? I said, absolutely, no problem, of course,
I got everything I need, so you can do anything
you want. And I said, do you need me to
read in that first lining?

Speaker 1 (56:16):
And he goes, please, Yeah, he just wanted to hear it.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
It was so cute. And then also that scene went
on to have the you know, say what again? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I have to that scene with him, which is just
so fantastic. So those kinds of things where I got
to work with actors who I admire so much, whether
it was Chlorus Leachman or you know, I'm Bewitched h

(56:47):
Elizabeth who insisted I call her Lizzie.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
Lizzie.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Wow, so sweet.

Speaker 4 (56:53):
So Gina King must have been great.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Regina King, What an angel, What a talented actors and
director and person I mean crazy, I got to most deaf,
I got to direct and oh my gosh, crazy, wonderful, talented,
Kat Williams, brilliant, so Snoop.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Dogg, snep dog Jesus.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
First of all, getting these wrappers into the studio was
just impossible. Snoop Dogg was late three months. We finally
get him in.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
That's a long wait, and like.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
I always do, as I always do, I walk them
to the microphone and you start the comforty.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
We share a blunt with you.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Chat chat with them. Make sure you here's the script
in friend, you had a chance to look it over. Okay,
good stand by. I'm a Salami Studios studio. See. So
I have to leave him and walk around through the
hallway and then get into the recording booth to the
control room and I look up and he's gone. He's
already upstairs with the blunt. He's outside, like, damn it,

(57:53):
how do I get him? I got him in the
studio and now he's disappeared. Oh, I finally got it.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
He spent the horrording.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
I needed him for about an hour. We did his
work and then he's like well, and we booked a
studio for like five hours we knew we're going to
be there. He's like, can I just play? And it's
your studio, go nuts, And so he stayed. The longest,
thinnest fingers you've ever seen. You know that he's a
tall drink of water, you've seen it, but when you
shake his hand, it's just it's an amazing thing. How

(58:21):
long and thin, really talented, did a very good job.
Happy to work with him on a couple of other
projects as well.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
But that's great.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Michael Michael, Michael b Jordan, Michael multiple times, be Michael
B Jordan multiple times. Fabulous guy creed himself And it
was before it was just as he was beginning to
find his night and came to play and he played
cydebalg for me on something and I did a boon.

Speaker 4 (58:50):
I have to ask you, what was Aaron McGruder.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
Like and is a genius? There's no question he's He
created a comic strip that was so far and above
anything like it that was being done politically, just what
was happening in the world culturally, the whole thing. Aaron
had a really hard time wrapping his head around a
production schedule and what they needed overseas in order to

(59:16):
animate to get it back to make air dates, and
so he would constantly rewrite scenes, and rewrite scenes, and
rewrite things that were already in animation, and so he
had a really hard time making air dates. And studios
aren't very tolerant because you get fined if you listen
to air date a lot of ADR, and he would
rewrite during the ADR and it would be like, you

(59:38):
know what, give me a minute, I'm going to come
up with a new thing here, and fifteen years, fifteen
minutes later he would have line and it would be brilliant,
it would be great. It's just that there's a time
concern that we all had to get used to. I
would have loved to have done eight hour sessions. Sometimes
I can't. I had to get it rehearsed and recorded
in four hours. That's all I had. It's all the

(59:59):
screen actors gives me. And I liked ensemble records. I
liked us all on the same I liked you guys
acting with each other, perfectly, willing to step in when
I needed to to read you a line in so
you could have somebody to act against if they weren't there.
But to do every single actor solo, and I retire
at a good time because the pandemic hit and everybody

(01:00:20):
recorded separately, everybody recorded from and some of them something
will still do at home. And so to me, casting
was always kind of like making the cake, putting all
the stuff together and making the cake. The recording sessions
were getting to eat the cake with everybody. We all
got to eat the cake. And so when that was

(01:00:40):
taken away for me, that was a big that I
was true. I just like, no, that's not I don't
I'm not interested in individual I mean, well, we had to,
of course, but I really liked the ensemble. I liked
because so much of acting is reacting. So time you

(01:01:01):
if you're recording all by yourself and the actor before
you has not recorded yet, I have to read you in.
I have to get at least five or six different
versions from you, because for good measure, in case's going
to cut together.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Yeah, that's right, that is so right.

Speaker 4 (01:01:16):
God.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
Yeah, I have a weird my famous Robin Williams story
about that we did.

Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
He was the.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Genie in Aladdin and I was Brazil, the guard and
there's this one scene where he uh and the third
one where he grabbed a hold of me and went
like this, and uh, all of a sudden, we're in
a courtroom and he was the judge, and he was
the prosecuting attorney, and I was in the witness stand
sitting there like this, and and I had lived a

(01:01:42):
couple of things, and and and they kept him excellent
and and uh, and he had already recorded, and so
he had to come back. They had to record a
couple of things because his line didn't work, because they
wanted to keep mine. And so they did that one
or twice, and he goes and and finally they said, well, okay,

(01:02:04):
well we finally got got the scene. And I go, yeah,
would you would you like to see it? And I
said sure, yeah, yeah, And it's and it's Robin. It's
me doing this and saying something. And then boom, he
snaps it and puts me in the thing there and
he goes, I'm sorry, but I will not be upstaged
by a tertiary character. And he reached over and grabbed
my feet and rolled me up into a blind and
threw me out into the universe. So I got personally dissed.

(01:02:28):
I got well, they had like one or two of
my zingers in there. And then he goes, I'm sorry,
but I will not be upstage by a tertiary character.
So he got the two ends so he can get
knew that he was insulted, and then he got rid
of my ass and well I don't know about that,

(01:02:48):
but he was tired of living around me. He was like, no, no, no.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Around here, all right, I hate to do this. We're
stacked up this time. Just I flew by, we have
another people yeah, way, I know. Yes, I was just
about to say we need to do this again.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
We didn't even talk about this stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
This was definitely part one. Yes, absolutely that that hour
just flew by. You're such a high energy versus it's
a pleasure to our quickest period and honestly, like to
all you guys watching, to me, this is what the
heart of Tuned In with Jim cummings In is. It's
it's just like you guys go way back, and it's

(01:03:32):
like getting to peer in to what those sessions were
like and your inner personal relationships. To me, it's so
different than just like a normal interview or a normal
podcast because of that past history. And you guys are
peers rather than you know, somebody like me with no relation.
You know saying, oh, what was it like on this?
What was it like on that?

Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
And I think that's why this went by so fast.
It's because it's just like good friends catching up.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
Good good. You heard it here first right from her mouth.

Speaker 4 (01:04:03):
We can do it again next week if you want to.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Yeah, yeah, Andre Romano.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
Everyone, thank you so much for one here the only
thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
And stay tuned for part two. As always, if you
like this kind of content, like and subscribe, it'll help
the YouTube algorithm show you more videos like this. And
if you like it so much that you want to
see even more than nobody else gets to see. Guess what,
there's a patreon that's right tuned in. When Jim Comming's
on Patreon, you get bonus content, exclusive episodes that nobody
else here on YouTube gets to see. So make sure

(01:04:32):
to subscribe for that. If that's what you're into, everything.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Else you'll feel different.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Jim Commings closet on Shopify if he want some merchandise,
and am I forget anything anything else?

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
I think that's it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
That's about it well too.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
For now, I'm producer, Chris Jim Cummings Andrea Romano Thank
you so much for joining us. We will see you
in the next film.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Yay. Thanks buddy, was so fun to listen to me.
Believable