Very Voice Actors – Tom Kane

Tom Kane is all over the board. He’s one of the big ones. And the strange thing is, his name is scarcely brought up.

Providing iconic characters for Nickelodeon, Disney, Cartoon Network, Pixar, Lucas Films, and so much more, Tom certainly deserves all the respect and mention that today’s modern voice actors receive.

You may have heard his deep and rich tones announcing for the Academy Awards, narrating Pixar sizzles (like Ratatouille and Wall-E), or providing the voice for a variety of movie trailers.

Or…

You could recognize him as one of these:

   

  

 

Tom started voice over work when he was just 15 years old. Growing up in Kansas he thought “It’d be fun to hear my voice on television” and started working towards that goal saying “I didn’t know anybody got paid for it.” He was raised with the voices of many of television’s most iconic shows like Hogan’s Heroes and Star Trek and says he received the inspiration for his characters and accents through those shows.

Tom realized that most of the local commercials’ voice overs were terrible and that he could do a much better job. He began calling nearby radio stations and advertisers and essentially telling them their commercials were no good. A myriad of hang-ups later he finally set the hook when he contacted the PSA’s for the American Cancer Society. “It sounded like they stuck the microphone in front of the receptionist”, he recalls, “which it turns out is what they did”. An hour later a call came in from the largest ad agency in Kansas City at the time saying they would love to have a professional voice over guy. Being just 15, Tom was driven to the headquarters by his dad who was actually mistaken as the voice guy and quickly pointed out it was his young “pimply faced” son that had the deep pipes they wanted.

As Tom was escorted into the rented out, expensive recording booth he could see the recording engineer, the one who agreed to Tom doing the voice over, being chewed out behind the class for bringing in a kid. With some audacity Tom asked into the microphone if they’d like him to read the script with an accent. There was a pause and the producer asked “…What?” Tom repeated his question adding further that he thought the script might sound better being read with the Pepperidge Farm type voice. Skeptically the producer replied, “Oh you do a 75 year old man from New England, do you?” One solid read later they sat quietly behind the glass and slowly responded with “That’s 29 on the nose…Ya, that’s good.” Tom only recorded three takes by the end of the session and the directors/producers were satisfied. 3 days later the same ad agency calls up requesting Tom for another 5 commercials.

Tom continued on with college and ended up graduating. Throughout High School he had done 100 or so commercials and had actually written several of them as well.

His accent work has only increased over the years. About 20-25 percent of his gigs, he says, come from doing some sort of British accent. He’s the voice of Disney Asia and has done Promos for India’s Cartoon Network.

Tom highlights his proudest moments as being the voice of Yoda, (being a huge Star Wars nerd), and meeting/working with such legends as Tom Hanks.

A down-to-earth, humble, and all around talented guy, Tom Kane deserves all the attention more talked of voice talents draw.

A mission statement to all: Let’s talk more about Tom Kane!

NEXT WEEK’S FEATURED VOICE ACTOR: Kids look out, it’s Miss Finster! The great April Winchell!

Very Voice Actors – Jack Mercer

Popeye, one of animation’s greatest icons, was aided to life through the work of Jack Mercer.

The sailor man actually started as a secondary character to Olive Oyl in a newspaper comic series titled Thimble Theatre, first appearing on January 17th, 1929. The character’s popularity grew steadily until 1933 when Fleischer studio acquired the rights to Popeye and give him his first screen appearance on a Betty Boop short simply called Popeye The Sailor. He was first voiced by a vaudevillian singer named William Costello. About a year later he was replaced (due to William’s demanding of more vacation time) by another man who was also quickly removed. The studio began to get desperate for a predecessor.

At the time, Mercer was an animator for Fleischer and often entertained his coworkers with impressions and voices, namely a perfect rendition of the Popeye theme song. One day Lou, one of the two Fleischer brothers, overheard his impression and began pushing for Jack to be the new voice of Popeye. Dave, the other brother, argued on the basis that they were short for animators. After a time, the studio still couldn’t find a fill-in and asked Jack to audition. He soon nabbed the job and made his debut as the animated legend in the 1935 short King of the Mardi Gras.

Jack was only eighteen when he landed the role of Popeye and was actually frightened he wouldn’t be able to sustain the voice for a long period of time. His wife (who played Olive Oyl from 1939-1944), said later that he’d go home everyday and practice continuously to get his voice deep enough.

Many traits that we now associate with Popeye were added when Mercer joined the force, including his iconic under-the-breath muttering. This was actually created out of necessity as the voices for Popeye were recorded “post sync” (after the animation was completed) and many times the mouth flaps weren’t a good fit, often going on longer than what it took to read the line. Mercer had to improvise and mumble to fill in gaps where things didn’t quite fit.

After Popeye shorts began airing with Fleischer Studio the character was picked up by Paramount Studios giving us the episodes many of us are familiar with. The first of these Paramount Popeye’s was titled I Yam What I Yam. By 1938 Popeye became the most popular animated character in the United States. He even took over Micky Mouse for a bit!

While voicing Popeye, Jack additionally wrote for many of the episodes.

Interestingly enough, Jack also voiced the well known character Felix the Cat and several other reoccurring minor characters. He was Wimpy from Popeye. He did work for Baby Huey as a shifty fox, provided voices for the 40’s Superman series, and performed as a large variety of characters in the original Casper the Friendly Ghost, most recognizably playing the ghost Spooky.

Jack was a loyal and genuine friend and performer, sometimes to an extreme level. He continued working with Fleischer studio during a great strike when more than 500 theaters banned Fleischer films due to the way they treated their animators. He never sought out trouble when others wanted to push the executives for more money or vacation time. His friend, (and voice of Pluto), Jackson Beck, recalls talking to Mercer saying “We should really ask for more money!’ and Jack responding with “No, no, no…I’m happy with what I make.” Jackson says Jack was always scared he’d be fired.

Jack was finally able to bring his voice to a feature film when, in 1980, a live action adaptation of Popeye was created starring Robin Williams. The beginning of the movie featured a short animated clip of Popeye and they called Jack in to perform the character. After the movie received a not-so-well reception, Jack’s wife says that countless people would come up to her and Jack saying “You’re the best thing in a 10 million dollar picture!”

In the December of 1984 Jack passed away from stomach cancer. He left behind a resounding history that brought to culture some of entertainment’s greatest legends.

NEXT WEEK’S FEATURE VOICE ACTOR: Sugar…Spice…and Everything Nice…these are the ingredient Tom Kane‘s character used to create the perfect little girls!

Very Voice Actors – Pat Fraley

Cowabunga dudes!

If you grew up a rad eighties child or a gnarly nineties kid than it’s very likely you were raised with the voice of Pat Fraley.

He wasn’t one of the turtles, however, he was actually the guy helping the turtles and the creature opposing them. That’s right, Pat played the sports sporting vigilante Casey Jones as well as the slimy screaming sack of Dimension X brains known as Krang!

Having started his career doing Shakespeare in Australia, he was pulled into the the voice over world when an audition call came into his theatre asking for someone who does a James Cagney impersonation. He got the part and, after going into record the spot, realized he not only enjoyed it but also made more from that one gig than he made from a week at his theatre.

Soon after, Pat came back to the States and moved to Los Angeles where he got his first cartoon credits as additional voices in Hannah-Barbera’s Scooby-Doo Goes Hollywood. He continued on doing Scooby-Doo villains in the late 70’s but, according to Pat, everything took off in the 80’s when more new original cartoon series began airing in the afternoons and not simply on Saturday mornings. Suddenly work was flooding in like crazy for Fraley and others lucky enough to be in animation at that time as there were, in his words, “only about twenty of us that could do multiple characters in a 22 1/2 minute show.” His first credit as a recognizable character was Major Glenn Talbot on the early 1980’s The Incredible Hulk cartoon series.

Pat called that time a “golden era of animation” as far as the work went. His co-voice-actors and him would take on all the additional voices as well as primary characters. Pat jokes there would be conversations that would go:

– Producer: “Alright who’s light on their contract?”

– Pat: *Raises his hand*

– Producer: “Ok great, you’re the Asian professor.”

– Pat: “I can’t do Asian!”

– Producer: “You do now!”

Finally in the late eighties, Pat landed on a gold mine when he auditioned for and booked the roles of several reoccurring characters on the soon to be smash hit show Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He went in to audition for the show and remembered thinking to himself “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…oh this’ll never go anywhere, what a stupid title.”

With only minutes to prepare a voice and after reading the brief description: *KRANG: An evil bodiless blurb of a man. A chortling villainous character but funny; Pat began breaking down his thoughts on the character. Check out the video, it’s a hilarious story.

He eventually went on to book, not only Krang and Casey Jones, but also Baxter Stockman and the crazy teenage turtle Slash.

With the Ninja Turtles, Pat says he finally came to the point in his career when his kids were interested in “daddy’s work”. Often in his kid’s school functions during auctions and sales, they would actually auction him off to use his voice for whatever purpose the bidder had in mind.

Pat is a veteran of animation voice over and one of the first in the group that essentially founded the business. He was, however, a bit younger than the rest, and such legends as June Foray, Daws Butler, and Mel Blanc would affectionally call him “The Kid”.

He attributes his success to both his mentors, such as Ed Asner and Chuck Blore, and to God and Jesus.

Currently, Pat is continually hard at work in the voice over business having done recent work on The Legend of Korra and the feature film Box Trolls. He’s been on a countless amount of radio shows, podcasts, blogs, and TV programs giving his stories and lessons. He offers coaching as well: http://www.patfraley.com/Learn/Learn.html

Pat got a reputation for his ability to quickly create characters. This, among other qualities, proves Mr. Fraley to be a model in creativity and risk-taking.

NEXT WEEK’S FEATURED VOICE ACTOR: He’s strongs to the finish when he eats his spinach, it’s Jack Mercer the VO man!