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More Videos from Dragon*Con

posted by Gorebash @ 11:30 AM on Sep 10, 2010
Filed under: gargoyles,Voice Actors — Tags: , , , , ,

A couple more videos went up the other day from the Gargoyles panel at Dragon*Con. The first video is the opening from a different angle.

And the page Jonathan Frakes is reading from is IMDB’s plot summary page which can be seen at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108783/plotsummary.

This next video has new material from the panel where Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis talk about voice acting.

I totally get Marina Sirtis’ comment on the impact grunts. The radio plays we’ve had at past Gatherings have usually included those noises in the script which the actors would have to perform.

“The Last” is an episode of Team Atlantis that was never completed due to the series being canceled halfway through production, but the voice acting for the episode was recorded and it included Marina Sirtis in the role of a female “Gorlois” (a thinly-veiled incarnation of Demona).

The voice track and some partial storyboards from that episode were auctioned off at the 2003 Gathering. Vashkoda, with the help of fellow fans, worked to animate the entire episode including background music and sound effects. At each Gathering since fans were shown the episode with new animation and sound being added each year. It appeared to be complete at the last Gathering in 2009. However it’s not available for viewing online.

But in the beginning it was just the voice track with no background music or sound effects. This meant there were large chunks of just voice actors (including Marina Sirtis) making impact and grunting noises. With the visual aid of the animation and added sound effects and background music you don’t really notice them, but when it’s just the voice track they become very noticeable and, without context, are extremely hilarious.

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Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis Talk Gargoyles

posted by Gorebash @ 9:53 AM on Sep 8, 2010
Filed under: gargoyles,Voice Actors — Tags: , , ,

Dragon*Con was held this past weekend in Atlanta, Georgia. During the con Jonathan Frakes (voice of Xanatos) and Marina Sirtis (voice of Demona) hosted a panel on Gargoyles. Word is the room was packed and the discussions stuck mostly to Gargoyles.

YouTube user DragonEarthPart2 has uploaded some clips from that panel.

2009 Gathering Con Journal – Saturday

posted by Gorebash @ 4:08 PM on Oct 6, 2009
Filed under: gargoyles,Gathering of the Gargoyles,Spectacular Spider-Man,Voice Actors — Tags: , , ,

Saturday I was up before 10am and headed down to the registration desk and hung out for a bit. At 10 I decided to catch the Asian Ball-Jointed Dall panel run by Andrea Zucconi. I’d seen pictures of her dolls and figured I’d check them out in person. The big thing about these dolls is just how customizable they are. Not only are there different parts to swap out, but you can even reshape parts and paint them to look any way you want. Andrea does this for a living and she showed some of her work; it was pretty impressive. Then the cost of these things came up and my jaw hit the floor when prices starting at $250 (for a “cheap” doll) and going very high up ($1000) were thrown out. Tony, Andrea’s husband, was sitting next to me and I offered him my sympathies.

After the doll panel I got in line to get Marina Sirtis’ autograph. $20 a pop, which is a bit awkward, but when the hell am I ever going to meet her again? I got two, one for myself and one for a friend. I had no clue what to say to her. I’m sure she’s heard everything a thousand million times before, so I just thanked her for coming out and taking part in the con.

I helped out at the registration desk for a bit so Patrick could go eat and catch bits of the Gargoyles voice acting panel. Sarah showed up and took over as she knew what she was doing. I just knew how to smile and say “let me go find someone on staff”. A few con guests arrived while I was at the table, including Michael Reaves. I didn’t expect to see him at the con and was excited to see him. He needed a con badge made up and the label printer decided his name was too long. Patrick arrived just in time to push the one button needed to shrink the font size down a notch and make the name fit.

I caught bits of the Gargoyles voice acting panel, which included Marina Sirtis and Keith David. It was a bit surreal to see Demona and Goliath sitting next to each other. That panel broke and was immediately followed by the Spectacular Spider-Man voice acting panel. I was able to catch most of this panel. The room was too narrow to fit all the cast and wrapped around on the sides a bit. We had pretty much the entire cast there at the panel. I asked Vanessa Marshall (voice of Mary Jane Watson) to say “Face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot” several dozen times. At least that’s what happened in my head. Her voice is pure sex. It’s like Laura San Giacomo’s (Fox) voice. Put the two of them in a scene together and forget about it. A million pants will need to be changed.

The whole Spidey cast were very, very cool. Very friendly, willing to share stories and talk about the business. They seemed to be happy and having fun with the whole thing.

After the panel, and in the same room, was the radio play rehearsal. Out of 40 or so fans who auditioned, only 13 slots were open and I was fortunate enough to get one. All the pros were there and given their respective on-screen characters to voice. I was cast in the role of Matt Bluestone. The radio play was an original script — a cross-over between Gargoyles and Spectacular Spider-Man. Greg wrote the thing in three days with very little rest (I don’t think you can call it “sleep”) during that time. He said he was a bit nervous about the script, but it was great. Tying the two shows together actually seemed to go pretty smoothly. And thank you Greg for finding a way to get Obsidiana into the script. I could never get tired listening to Elisa Gabrielli do Obsidiana.

After a quick read through it was time to do the show in front of an audience.

To be able to say I acted alongside the likes of Marina Sirtis, Keith David, Phil LaMarr and so on is crazy. How does that happen? It was very cool. Listening to Marina Sirtis voice Demona was surreal. It didn’t take her long to get back into form and *poof* there’s Demona. And she’s twice as scary in person. (That’s not a knock on Marina, it’s a compliment to her voice acting.) Darran Norris doing J. Jonah Jameson (LOUDLY) was spine tingling. The whole time I keep saying to myself “holy crap! it’s J Jonah Jameson! right there! RIGHT THERE!! HAH!”. It took everything to keep myself from giggling like an idiot when I had a scene with Marina Sirtis (as Margot).

The radio play went well. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, including the cast both pros and fans alike. I’m told Marina Sirtis expressed that she had a lot of fun and was disappointed this would be the last Gathering.

After the radio play I went to the hotel bar with a few people (Susan, Joe, Rebekah, and a couple others I’m totally blanking on like an idiot) and had some beer. I intended to have real food as well but the Blue Mug panel was fast approaching and all I had for dinner that evening was a few Sam Adams. Which may have something to do with my behavior at the Blue Mug.

Early in the panel I was asked about getting on the interwebs and hooking into the projector that was in the room. Nothing had been set up and the panel had already started. No worries. I asked Scott, who was at the panel, if he could start setting things up while I went to my room and grabbed my netbook. When I came back it was a simple matter of plugging the projector’s VGA cable into the netbook and setting up the wireless connection on my machine. All went well and before long we had the Blue Mug Productions web site up and running. Just in time as BMP director Edmund Tsabard walked into the panel to talk all things blue. I walked through the site while Edmund talked about what it was all about.

It was pretty convenient, that tiny netbook. I could cradle it in one arm and play it like an instrument with my free hand. It didn’t take long to get into a groove. At some point Edmund left, but I was a bit busy with the pictures. Just as I was really hitting my stride showcasing the goods Greg Weisman popped back in. Oops.

The panel was light. A bit blue here and there, but nothing terribly raunchy. I just sat back and watched Nikki and Mara draw naughty bits.

After the panel was over Scott informed me of a secret plan to connect Rock Band up to the projector and sound system in the room and rock out with insane bass (until the hotel staff kicked them out an hour later), but I was wrecked. I headed up to the 24th floor with Tony to hang out for a bit with Greg, Jen, Tony, Mara before crashing.

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Gathering of the Gargoyles Radio Play Casting

posted by Gorebash @ 3:46 PM on Aug 31, 2009
Filed under: gargoyles,Gathering of the Gargoyles,Spectacular Spider-Man,Uncategorized,Voice Actors — Tags: , , , ,

This is a video I took while the cast for the radio play at this year’s Gathering of the Gargoyles radio play assembled and received scripts prior to rehearsal.

We had 16 professional voice actors in the radio play with another 12 or so fans filling out the cast.

The script is an original piece written by Greg Weisman in which the Gargoyles and Spectacular Spider-Man universes cross-over. Greg says he wrote it over the course of three days with very little sleep just before the convention. Everyone agreed it was a success.

Marina Sirtis remarked afterwards that she enjoyed it and was disappointed this would be the last con.

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This ‘old dog’ is always full of new tricks!

posted by siryn @ 10:02 AM on Jul 3, 2009
Filed under: Voice Actors — Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Frank and Bronx
“He came, he saw, he barked.” – Frank Welker on the voice actor’s legacy.

When Gargoyles fans think about dynamic voice actors, Jeff Bennett may be the first that comes to mind, who in several episodes had a habit of speaking to himself. Or perhaps fans think Kathy Soucie, who supplied a large number of the female misc vocals for the show. Being a ‘man of a thousand voices’, Jim Cummings, while not doing a huge range of characters on Gargoyles, is also a famous name in the voice acting business.

But perhaps one of the most successful, influential, and prominent voice actors in the show, was one who didn’t speak a single sentence throughout the entire series.

Frank Welker, the ‘voice’ of Bronx.

(Actually, Frank was responsible for MANY of the animal roles on Gargoyles, Bronx, Cagney, and Boudicca to name a few – check out his entry on the Gargoyles Wiki for a full listing!)

For years Frank has been in the animation business, adding voices to characters both human and animal. (Or even the occasional transforming robot!). It’s hard not to encounter an animated movie or TV series nowadays without some sort of input by Frank somewhere. According to THE-NUMBERS.com, Frank is the #1 actor for total box office revenue generated through his movies. Not average per movie, as that itself is less, but he’s done more movies than Samuel L. Jackson or Tom Hanks and made more money per movie than Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman or Nicolas Cage!

Frank admits in interviews to being somewhat ‘type-cast’ in animal roles, just because there are simply not a lot of voice-actors that specialize in those sorts of sounds. He does manage several speaking parts here and there. (One which you might remember clearly is the voice of Freddie Jones from the Scooby Gang. (He also has recently been voicing Scooby Doo as well since Scott Innes retired).

Ravage from Transformers IIThis past week, Transformers 2 has blazened itself across the big screen and in box office charts. While Frank Welker was not able to reprise his role of Megatron for the new Transformers movies (He did send tapes, but Micheal Bay had another vision in mind for the character), he is BACK in Transformers: Rise of the Fallen reprising his roles of Soundwave and Ravage. (Personally, my favorite characters/best designs of the entire movie). I think hearing his voice sent the silly little 80s child in me bouncing in my seat!

I won’t post spoilers here, but I think the revamped versions of Frank’s characters DO the older classic versions justice. As for the rest of the movie, I’ll leave you all to your own personal judgements. (I do wish Arcee (and her ‘sisters’) would have received more of a PART in this movie then generic made up characters. Jetfire’s incarnation/design is the movie is also pretty sweet, but again, sweet designs does not necessarily a good movie make.)

Here are some other interviews with Frank concerning the Transformers universe, check out the following links.

When looking up some information on Frank and what he’s been doing lately, I found this great clip of him taking Manny the Uncanny to the LA zoo showing them how he ‘researches’ animal voices for special projects.

For more information about Frank Welker, or wanting to send your own question to him about voice acting or his work, check out his official site: http://www.frankwelker.net/

From Disney Hero to Disney Villian

posted by siryn @ 11:23 AM on Jun 27, 2009
Filed under: Voice Actors — Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I told the Witch Doctor I was in love with you, and then the Witch Doctor he told me to Shhh!!!
“I told the Witch Doctor I was in love with you,
and then the Witch Doctor he told me to Shhh!!!”

If you’re any sort of fan of the animated series Gargoyles, then you should be able to easily recognize the voice of Keith David, the voice of Goliath. If not, here’s a hint on other works of his: The alien Arbitor from Halo 2 & Halo 3 video games, the voice of Spawn from the Spawn TV series or even the voice over on the US Navy commercials. Is he starting to sound familiar now?

So, what’s this about Keith David…and being a Disney Villain? This winter (December 11th), Disney is planning to release its 49th animated feature: The Princess and the Frog

With Disney finally going BACK to their 2d animation origins (THANKYOU Ed Catmull & John Lasseter!), adding a dash of fun musical melodies, and topping it all off with the concept of setting a fairy tale down south in the middle of New Orleans’ French Quarter, I am personally absolutely on edge in anticipation to watch this movie. The movie also features Disney’s first African American princess. Although, I don’t recall there being any royalty in New Orleans when I took Louisiana History class in 8th grade? But, I think I can overlook a ‘technicality’ like that.

So where does Keith fit in? Keith David will be adding his vocale talents to a already talented cast as the voodoo/witch doctor, Dr. Facilier. He’s our main villain who apparently started this whole mess by turning the Prince Naveen into a frog. (Although by how Naveen talks in the trailer, it seems like he was asking for it – in the traditional “I’m an overly spoiled prince who doesn’t know how well I have it!” XD)

But with this classic story, there’s a very unique twist – if you haven’t expected one already! I will let you see the trailer to find out for yourself what that is! While Keith’s character does not have any speaking lines in the recently released trailer, his characteristic evil laughter can be heard for a second or two, making  the prospect of him being this movie’s villain is just too exciting!

Keith David isn’t the only Gargoyles cast member to lend his voice to the production, Jim Cummings – who is in some way involved in practically EVERY corner of the voice acting arena – is adding his talents as Ray, a hopeless romantic firefly. (Ray is featured in this early teaser trailer for the movie). Jim Cummings was the voice of Dingo in the Gargoyles series – just in case fans may have forgotten!

The Princess and the Frog
is based on Ed Baker’s children’s book The Frog Princess.

It is good to see that Keith is keeping himself busy, as he seems to be in high demand these days. Earlier this year we were graced with Keith’s voice in the 3D animated picture Coraline as Coraline’s feline companion: The Cat. With no sign of stopping, who knows where we shall hear him next!

Quick Addition: The Inside Line with Ron (Clements) & John (Musker) with more dialogue and footage of Keith’s character plus information on other characters in the movie.

Search The Wiki

GargWiki.net has answers for all your Gargoyles questions.

The Dynamite Comics

Gargoyles Comic from Dynamite

The story of Gargoyles continues in the comic book series Gargoyles and Gargoyles: Dark Ages published by Dynamite. Available online or at your local comic book shop.

The NECA Figures

Gargoyles Figures by NECA

NECA has produced a line of Gargoyles figures which continues to grow. Available through online and department store retailers.

Watch Online

Gargoyles on Disney+

All seasons of Gargoyles are available for streaming through Disney+.

Buy The DVDs

Gargoyles Season 1 DVD Cover

Includes episode commentaries by co-creator Greg Weisman, interviews with the cast, and a documentary on the fan convention.

Season One
Season Two, Volume One
Season Two, Volume Two