Episode Transcript
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This is the FCB Podcast Network.This is The Outlaws Extra. Welcome to
the special edition of The Outlaws.This is Darth Yoda Kington Tomorrow. I
don't forget too Like us on Facebookat Facebook dot com, slash the Outlaws
(00:25):
Radio, follow us on Twitter andInstagram is the Outlaws Radio. And it
is that time again in the cityof Cleveland. This Fan Expo Cleveland where
they have this big convention where youget to meet some of your favorite celebrities
and actors and actresses, voice actors, voice actresses, cartoonists, you know,
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you name it, and we've beencovering it for several years and we've
had that honor to do so.And thank you to everybody at Fanexpot for
always being hospitable to us. Andas always, we have some great interviews
for you, and we are goingto do like we always do on Outlaws
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Extras. We're going to take abreak now and then when we come back,
we'll get to the interviews in itsentirety. So stay tuned. You're
listening to The Outlaws Extra. Thesedays, it seems like everybody's talking,
but no one is actually listening tothe things they're saying. Critical thinking,
isn't dead, but it's definitely lowon oxygen. Join me Kira Davis on
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Just Listen to Yourself every week aswe reason through issues big and small,
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and FCB Radio podcast on Apple,on Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Fuck up,sir, pray, Yeah, welcome back.
(02:06):
We're gonna jump right into our interviewsfrom Fan Expo Cleveland. All right,
we are still here at Fan ExpoCleveland, and we have the voice
of an iconic figure, the voiceof Dora the Explorer, Kathleen Hurless.
Welcome. How you doing Hi,I'm doing well. Thank you for speaking
with me, absolutely, thank youfor spending time with us. So first,
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when you first started to be apart of this project, be a
part of Door to Sport, didyou have any idea that it would become
as massive as it did. No, not at all. I was actually
cast when I was seven years oldto work on the pilot, and we
didn't know if it was going toget picked up. And then once it
did, I got a chance tocontinue working with the show, and I
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voice stra for the first four seasons. So what was that like being a
part of that experience, especially somethingthat has grown to be as iconic as
it. You know, I don'tthink I realized that when I was younger,
how big of a show Dora wasand how important she was. Like
I knew she broke a lot ofbarriers within the Latino community, within children's
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programming, you know, with herbeing a Latina heroine, But I don't
think I really fully understood, youknow, I was still a kid,
and as an adult now, especiallydoing the cons and meeting fans who grew
up with the show, I cansee it now with a different perspective and
really understand and see how impactful theshow was, how important it was,
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and how big it was. Andshe still is. She's like international,
she's global, She's all over socialmedia, like she's like a global phenomenon.
It's incredible, absolutely, And thatactually goes right into my next question
about the importance of representation. Obviously, like you said, it broke barriers.
Talk a little bit about now beingable to see, like you said,
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you were a kid at first,but now being able to talk about
how important Dora the Explorer was forrepresentation. I mean, you know,
there wasn't a lot of representation forLatinos, especially in children's programming. And
I've heard it multiple times where peoplecome up to me and say, you
know, Dora was the only personon TV that looked like me. And
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to have that connection with an animatedcharacter too is really cool. But it
also shows how important representation was neededat the time. And I think,
you know, society in the worldhas gotten better with diversity and being more
inclusive, but I still think there'sa lot more work to do so and
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I don't know if the viewers knowthis, but Dora is back in a
new series. It's the same Dora, same friends, She's going on different
adventures, but her being reintroduced nowto a new generation I think is really
important because it also signifies that importanceof representation that it's needed today. And
I think we still need to havethose conversations. There's still work to be
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done, absolutely, So let's talka little bit about some of the things
that you've done since Door at theExplorer. Talk a little bit about some
of the other projects that you've workedon all that good stuff. So when
I was a kid, I didgo to school, so I did have
to manage both work in school.But I was fortunate enough to do a
lot of voiceover work with commercials.I was in New York, so that's
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where commercials happen a lot. Iwas on Sesame Street a few episodes.
That was really fun. It wasreally hard to get into, but it
was really cool to kind of seethe behind the scenes of you know,
the amazing puppeteers and be a partof that. I also, after Dora
was recast, I was graduating fromhigh school. I went to college for
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communications. I still took acting classesand tried to, you know, be
an actor. I wanted to doon camera at the time, and I
wasn't really landing, you know,those big roles that I was looking for,
and I think after a while,I kind of lost a little bit
of passion for acting and I movedinto corporate. I found a job with
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a company for interior design. Iworked on a hotel, and then I
worked for a private firm, andthen I was still auditioning, especially through
COVID. You know, I lostmy job at one point, and I
still had that outlet where I couldaudition, you know. So I took
that and then I got the opportunityto audition for the new series for Dora's
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Mom and that was weird because Iwas like, wow, how much time
has passed, And I was like, wow, it would be really cool
to be a part of it.But I also understood that there could be
a possibility where I wasn't. Andthat's fine because I was so it's been
so long. But when I foundout I got the part, it was
like all those memories like started floodingback, and I was so excited,
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so emotional because I'm an adult nowand to kind of have Dora back in
my life and to have all ofthe opportunities that come with it too.
I had to really think, also, is this something that I want to
do, like, because as anadult, you start a family, I'm
married now, you know, There'sa lot of different elements to think about.
And I decided that if I'm goingto do this, I'm going to
do it one hundred percent because that'show I like to do things. So
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I quit my corporate job and Idecided to pursue a career in voice acting,
and I am so excited and Ican't wait to see where the next
adventure takes me. Awesome, awesome, congratulations on all of your success as
well. So as we as wewind down here, one thing that I
always asks people is to give advicefor people who may want to follow in
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the footsteps, and I think inthis particular interview it's doubly important as a
person of color. So talk alittle bit about what give your advice for
people who may want to follow thesame path. Yeah. I mean,
you know, if you talk toor listen to a lot of different actors,
we all have different stories in differentways that we've kind of found our
place in the industry. It's noteasy. So I would also say,
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like, never give up if thisis something you really want to do,
like really try and pursue and persevere, because the industry will, you know,
well try to you know, keepyou from fighting for what you want.
But I would also say, youknow, especially if you were trying
to pursue voice acting, it's stillacting at the end of the day.
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So I would always say it's importantto be connected to an acting school or
a local theater if that's something thatyou can do just to kind of you
know, pick up those skills ofan actor. And then you know,
there's so many resources online too whereyou can connect and take online classes for
different types of voice acting or acting. And through those channels, I really
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do believe that you'll be able tomake connections and kind of understand how to
connect to an agent or make ademo and do all of these things.
It's a lot of different steps,but you know, there's there are a
lot of resources out there and onceyou get there, yeah, it'll it'll
be a lot of fun. It'sa lot of work, but social media
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two is a really a great tool. There's so many podcasts now that actors
are doing that are giving a lotof advice on the industry. So yeah,
I would say do a lot ofresearch. Google will will give you
answers if you ask the right questions, you know, and it's it's really
awesome to be living in a timelike that because there's so much available to
us. Absolutely, let everybody knowif you're on social media, how they
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can follow you, keep up witheverything you got going on on a good
stuff. You can follow me onInstagram. It's my name Kathleen Harless.
I'm on TikTok, on YouTube asthe Kathleen Harless because Kathleen Harless was taken,
and yeah, follow me to hearmore of anything upcoming that I might
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be doing. But also as Ilearn, I would love to share kind
of my journey within the industry andI'll try to help other who are looking
to pursue acting as well. Absolutely, thank you so much for spending time.
Was We really appreciate it. Thankyou so much. Bye. All
Right, we are here at FanExpo Cleveland with someone who's been in a
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host of projects that you all areaware of that you all know and love,
but particularly Boy Meets World and myname is earl Ethan Souper. Welcome.
How you doing, sir, I'mgood. How are you? I'm
good, I'm good man. Solet's talk a little bit about your journey,
Like what when did you know thatyou wanted to be an actor?
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This was you know, something thatyou want to do? Well? When
I was a little kid, Imean I was raised in Los Angeles and
there were some a couple actors inmy school and the first kind of hint
was that they got to spend alot of time out of school and that
was super appealing to me, Likenot going to school was the first thing
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that was made acting interesting. Everybodycould understand that. So as you as
you continued on and got into yourcareer, you were able to be a
part of a lot of important andiconic projects. But let's let's first talk
a little bit about Boy Meets World. What was it like? What was
the experience like being on Boy MeetsWorld? Boy Meets World was a lot
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of fun. My character was writtento be in one episode and I wound
up doing twenty five, I think, and you know, I think in
the very first episode he was hewas written as a kind of conflicted bully,
which I liked. It was itwas there was more dimensionality to him
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than than just like you know,a show about junior high where there's a
bully, okay, but then thisbully is like feels bad about it and
wants to write poetry and stuff,which was interesting. So it was a
lot of fun. Absolutely, Anduh, talk a little bit about of
course my name is Earl that youknow everybody knows and loves that. What
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was that like being on My Nameis Earl? That was a lot of
fun. Working on that was reallymore like goofing off all day with very
very brief interludes of work mixed intoa day of just being silly and having
fun. So, out of allof the roles that you've had, like,
what do you think is your yourfavorite role, the role that you
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enjoyed the most. It's a televisionshow called Chance on Hulu that nobody watched.
We did two seasons, me andHugh Lory, and and it's my
favorite job I ever had. Ithink it's so awesome. So if your
listeners want to see something interesting thatthey definitely didn't watch a TV show called
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Chance on Hulu, make sure y'allcheck that out. Chance on Hulu.
And finally, for people who arelistening and maybe interested in following that same
career path, what advice would yougive him? Show up on time and
know your lines As far as likegetting into it, I don't know because
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when I did it, the internetdidn't exist, so like it's all changed,
and I'm just kind of like Iwouldn't know how to start today,
you know, But if you wantto do it, the best work ethic
you can have is showing up ontime and knowing your lines. All right,
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let everybody know how to follow youon social media? Whatever you're working
on right now, if they wantto keep up with your new projects and
all that good stuff. I havea TV show that'll be on Amazon in
October that I'm not allowed to talkabout, so I didn't just say that.
And you can follow me on Instagramat Ethan Sipple. All right,
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thank you so much, Surh forspending time with us. Really appreciate it,
my pleasure. Thank you for havingme. All Right, we are
here at Fan Expo Cleve and weare with the creator of an amazing show
of The Fairly OddParents. Butch Hartman, welcome. How are you doing so?
I am good. It's good tobe here in Cleveland. I am
kind of a Browns fan, butmore of a more of a Liance fan.
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But I'll take the Browns while I'mhere. All right. Well,
you know what, it's Midwest love, so that's all that matters. So
talk a little bit about your journey, how you started, what made you
interested in going into the space.You know, I grew up in the
seventies where there was no Internet.I think people know that, but there
was TV and I just loved watchingcartoons on Saturday morning. Saturday morning cartoons
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and comic books are really what gotme going as a kid, and I
would use those as like everybody does. I just love to escape into those
worlds. But then when it cameto wanting to do it for a living,
I really became interested in Disney cartoonsbecause we really couldn't watch those very
much as a kid unless they cameout of the theater, and we didn't
go to the theater that much ofmy house, so I would just watch
stuff on TV. But Disney wassort of this unattainable goal. But then
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I found out that Disney had acollege in California called cal Arts that taught
animation. So I worked on myportfolio. I lived. I'm from Michigan
originally, and so I thought,man, how's a kid from Michigan again
to California. So I decided tomake my portfolio good enough to get into
the school. And I got intothe school, and then I started taking
classes at the school, met peoplein the industry, and I ended up
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just kind of getting connection after connection. But it's all hard work. It
doesn't just fall out of the sky. You've got to really work hard.
I do learn how to adapt mystyle, had to learn how to draw
other people stuff even better than myown, because that's how you make a
living. You get a job onthis show, you learn how to draw
this show. You got to drawon that show, you learn how to
draw that show. So it's areal game of learning different styles. Absolutely,
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So talk a little bit about howyou created the Fairly Parents, something
that many of our listeners have fondmemories of from their child. Talk a
little bit about that. Oh,yeah, you got it. Yeah,
I created Fairly on Parents really becauseI needed a job. I was working
on Johnny Bravo at the time,and you know that's why, Hey Baby
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Johnny Bravo and Johnny Bravo was endingand I really didn't have a job.
And I had a new baby athome and was like, you know,
babies like food and everything. SoI'd learned how to buy, learn how
to you know, make a living, but I really was out of a
job I wanted. I was ata point in my career I'd been working
in the industry for about twelve years. I'm like, you know, I
really need to make a show ofmy own so I can always be employed
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on the show. And so afriend of mine was at Nickelodeon. He
was a producer. He said,why don't you create a show for me?
Meet me on Friday. Do youhave anything? And I said,
I sure do. I got thegreatest idea. I hung up the phone
on Tuesday ad nothing. So Isat down on Tuesday and just sat there
working on this thing. I drew. Timmy Turner was the first drawing that
I drew because I'm I was alittle boy, so I know how little
boys think. I thought, ifI could do a show about this little
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boy, that'd be cool. Whatcan the little boy do? You?
Could you have science abilities? ButDexter's Lab had already come out I wanted
I didn't want to repeat that.So I thought magic could be a good
way to do it. So Ithought magic would be fun for this kid.
I need to give him a magicfriend. I thought of Wanda first,
like a Cinderella thing, a fairygodmother. I've never seen a fairy
godfather before. So I drew Wanda, and then I drew her husband,
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Cosmo, and I had this littleboy. I named him Timmy Turner after
my brother Tim. And then aboutliterally about fifteen minutes, I had the
show idea, and so it reallycame out of needing a job. Wow.
Wow, So did you have anyidea that it would take off the
way that it did. I sortof really always knew it would be a
success if I was given the abilityto make it the way I wanted.
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I knew it would be a success, but I really didn't know for sure,
of course, but I was like, I hope, I hope I
get a chance to really explore thisshow as much as I want, create
as many characters as I want,and get the time to do it as
much as I want. So fortunately, Nickelodeon let me do that, and
I was able to have as manyseasons as I had and create as many
characters as I wanted. So itwas really really fun and I'm really glad
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to do that. Awesome, awesome, And so talk a little bit about
some of the suf that you've workedon since the success of Fairly Yeah.
Well, I created a show calledDanny Phantom after that, and a show
called Tough Puppy and a show calledBunsen Is a Beast for Nickelodeon. Danny
Pantom just celebrated its twentieth anniversary,which I'm so excited about. A lot
of Danny Fanno fans out there.And then I just created a brand new
show that teaches kids the Bible calledThe Garden, and it's a Christian show.
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He just kids all about Jesus andabout scripture, but it's really funny.
So it's like fairly OddParents with scripturein it. And it has a
little lion named Lenny and a littlelamb named Lucy. They live and work
in a miraculous garden where anything cangrow, and you can check it out
on a gardencartoon dot com. Wehave our own garden cartoon app as well,
so check that out. Well,that's fantastic. I don't know if
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you can tell, but I havea cross in my ear rings here,
so that's so that's that's definitely somethingthat appeals to me as well. Absolutely.
So as we wrap here, youknow, for people who may be
interested in following similar career path,what advice would you give to them,
I would just say, really reallykeep practicing and don't give up. You're
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gonna have a lot of time alonewhen you're not getting any applause. Don't
be doing this for the applause.Do it because you'd love it. But
then you got to get smart aboutyour business. End of things like you're
making a product, which is you. You're the product. You have talent,
you can sell it, but howdo you sell it wisely? And
you need to know how to getan agent and a manager. But you
need to know the connections, likewhat studios need work, what studios need
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if they need this thing drawn,learn how to do that. If they
need this thing drawng learn how todraw that. No one's going to knock
on your door at first. Youneed to do all the knocking. So
be ready to work and get outthere and hustle and learn how to make
yourself a viable product that can besold. All right, let everybody know
how to get in contact with youon social media, keep up with what
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you got going on all that goodstuff. Yeah, you can find me
on TikTok on Instagram, go toButch Haartman dot net and you can follow
me there and also ask Butchhartman dotcom and get my email and email me
there too. All right, thankyou so much for spending this time with
us. Appreciated. Thanks for theopportunity and as I say on my YouTube
channel, gives you power use itwisely. Yes, sir, once again,
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thank you so much, to allof our guests. Uh from fan
x quote we're spending some time withus coming on the show. We absolutely
appreciate it and thank you to youof course for tuning in. As always,
we will see you next time.Peace. This has been a presentation
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of the FCB podcast Network, whereReal Talk lifts visitors online at fcbpodcasts dot com.