Post by EGBFan on May 20, 2007 14:00:13 GMT -4
What really brings a cartoon character to life? Surely, the voice - which is why I thought I’d start a thread in which the voiceover actors of RGB and EGB are dissected, praised or mercilessly bashed. So what have I done? I’ve written an overlong analysis of the talents of each of the seven(!) main voice actors in EGB, taking into account both their other achievements in the world of TV (and particularly in the world of animation), and on their contribution to EGB.
I really don’t feel qualified to do anything like this for RGB, but I daresay somebody else will bring it into the thread.
I’ve given each character a “definitive episode”, in which I think their respective actor gives his or her best performance. These are just my opinion, of course - feel free to disagree. So here they are, in reverse order of how much I like what they’ve done:
Alfonso Ribeiro aka Roland Jackson
Well, what’s this guy famous for? Playing Carlton Banks of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, alongside the legendary Will Smith. Ribeiro played the comedy very well, and that includes visual comedy, as we actually got to see him as well as hear him. When he had to be serious and/or emotional… it all went downhill. But that’s hardly his fault - it’s true of the whole show and the entire cast.
Roland is essentially a (taller) animated Carlton whose visual comedy is down to the animators, which leaves him at a disadvantage. The character works well in a comedy, but EGB is essentially not a comedy. Roland does get the odd comic line, and Ribeiro delivers these very well. But most of the time, Roland was just boring. I don’t know how anyone could have voiced him better, but it would have been interesting to see, and he is the only character in EGB I’ll say that for. Roland is a weak character, and I don’t think that’s Ribeiro’s fault. But how can we know?
Definitive episode: “Sonic Youth”
Pat Musick aka Janine Melnitz
When I first saw her name in the cast at the end of EGB, I thought: Oh, Tony from An American Tale. I loved that movie when I was a kid, and Tony - the rough-around-the-edges streetwise urchin who takes poor lost little Feivel under his wing - has always been my favourite character. I can’t be bothered to look up any dates, but fairly recently two sequels were made that did not come recommended by my TV listings magazine, but I watched them both and thought that - though they had nothing on the original - they weren’t bad. They were certainly leagues ahead of that hour-and-a-half-odd of rubbish calling itself An American Tale: Feivel Goes West (in which Tony was on screen for approximately one second, and had no lines). Unfortunately Tony lost his girlfriend Bridget for these two new movies, who did add another dimension to him, and his whole character was horribly dumbed down. It was a shame, but Pat Musick still played the part well, and at least Tony was in it.
Janine’s third cartoon voice was, in my opinion, better than both of the voices she had in RGB - but I know that the boss favours Laura Summer, so I won’t dwell on it. I can’t say that she added much to the show, to be honest, but it was a good bit of casting.
Definitive episode: “The Crawler”
Billy West aka Slimer
This guy crops up all over the place. I seem to remember he provided the voice of Shaggy in the feature-length Scooby-Doos that preceded the live-action movie and the new cartoon series (What’s New Scooby-Doo?), all of which were enjoyable (except possibly that one where the whole thing took place in a VR game), and he did a good job… but was no Casey Kasem. West has also voiced a brand spanking new version of Woody Woodpecker in recent years, which I watched a few times - the show was pretty well done, and West’s Woody was a big part of that. But perhaps his best performance is Fry, of Futurama fame. I thought that show was every bit as good as The Simpsons (and far better than the more recent episodes), and West was a good bit of casting.
Slimer has always been a character who appeals to the very much younger audience members (except maybe in GB1), and the EGB Slimer remains in this vein - and is pretty cute. He occasionally gets to do cool things, and I think West did very well vocally with his reactions and emotions and such, considering that he wasn’t allowed to use actual words. We’ve all noticed that Slimer’s diction improves the more time he spends around people, and by the end of EGB you can just about make out the odd word. The babbling can get irritating, but there’s not much Billy West could have done about that - he did his best to vary it.
Definitive episode: “Slimer’s Sacrifice”
Jason Marsden aka Garrett Miller
Marsden’s chirpy delivery is always a pleasure to listen to. I first came across him in the cute and enjoyable Peter Pan and the Pirates, in the starring role of Peter. I then forgot about him for a while, and heard him next in EGB. I was twelve, and didn’t like him much in those days because he was always so chipper and I was in a constant bad mood, but he has grown on me considerably since then. Marsden’s voice is always distinguishable; I’ve recognised him as Chester in The Fairly Oddparents, doing a pretty good job, the kid’s friend in Ozzy and Drix (no comment) and Kovu in The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride - which wasn’t a bit necessary and made only in order to line the Disney guys’ pockets further, but I liked it anyway, and Kovu is by far and away my favourite character.
So Marden’s good - but he has to lose a few points from me because he always just uses his own voice. He varied it slightly in The Weekenders, taking it a few notches higher because his character was twelve. This character, Tino, was just excellent and carried all three of his co-stars - Lor to a lesser extent, though, as she was almost as strong a character as Tino and voiced by the very talented Grey DeLisle (who, incidentally, has impressed me recently as Sam on Danny Phantom, using her Lor voice - and I tell you, if anyone ever wants to animate Jessica Venkman, I’m signing nothing until Grey DeLisle agrees to provide her voice).
Garrett, then. As I say, a little too chipper for a pre-teen in a constantly black mood. But since that time I’ve come to like him, and even back then I realised that Marsden was playing the character very well. He may always sound the same, but it’s a good voice he’s got there, and his delivery is superb. And when he does have to be serious and/or emotional, he does it very well. He’s good at anger, which you get a lot of from Garrett; he had to combine this with shock and anguish in “The True Face of a Monster”, and did so marvellously. “Mole People” showed him being sensitive and supportive, a lot of which was down to the animators, but Jason did a pretty good job of what touchy-feely dialogue there was.
Definitive episode: “The True Face of a Monster”
Rino Romano aka Eduardo Rivera
I almost ranked him above Maurice LaMarche. I certainly prefer Eduardo to Egon, and Romano is a huge part of why. Where the lines were good, he delivered them brilliantly. Where they were terrible and designed solely for laughs at Eduardo’s expense (like in “Witchy Woman”, which has had to undergo a severe makeover administered by me), he did the best that could possibly be expected. It was pretty cool on the occasions when he spoke a bit of Spanish, and his chemistry with Tara Charendoff was just great.
So what’s he doing one place behind Maurice LaMarche? Well, if I was ranking these guys on their contribution to EGB alone, the order would be very different. But, as I said, I’m giving equal consideration to their other work, and I don’t think I’ve ever watched anything else that Romano was in. He shouldn’t be third on my list at all, probably, but I thought his performance as Eduardo was just that good.
Definitive episode: “Rage”
Maurice LaMarche aka Egon Spengler
What can I say? A voiceover god. Brain, as in Pinky and the springs to mind. There are others, but the only one jumping up and down waving its arms at me right now is Big Bob Pataki of Hey Arnold. He is without a doubt my favourite Maurice LaMarche character. Big Bob is the very large, abrasive and neglectful father of the female lead (arguably the most emotionally complex cartoon character ever invented), Helga Pataki. LaMarche usually plays alongside the equally praiseworthy Francesca Marie Smith and, interestingly, Kath Soucie, whom fans agree made a poor Janine (I anticipate that she will crop up in this thread at least once). I’m not generally a Soucie fan but as Miriam Pataki, I will say, she really shines. (I might as well mention that she’s in Danny Phantom, as Danny’s mother, using her mom voice - the only so-so piece of casting in the show.)
Egon, then - played by LaMarche throughout RGB and again in EGB. Beautifully done, I think most of us can agree. Bigger Egon fans than me can probably analyse the transition much better than any attempt I can make, so I won’t try - it’s a while since I saw RGB, and I can only remember a handful of episodes with any clarity. But, based on those, I happen to prefer him in EGB. When I was watching those repeats on cable, it struck me that the younger Egon was given a lot of - in my opinion - sh---y things to say. The Egon fans may not like this, but his dialogue had strong traces of qualities that I don’t admire. However he grew up in the intervening years, and there’s less arrogance in him by the time we get to EGB. Of course LaMarche keeps the fundamental deadpan approach, which is fast becoming clichéd as a character trait, but never mind - he pulls it off beautifully. That is not to say, however, that Egon cannot express emotion. The Egon-line that makes me laugh most:
Eduardo: …but the house got Garrett, and Roland and Kylie are dead!
Egon: WHAT?
- “Home is Where the Horror is”
Definitive episode: “Heart of Darkness”
Tara Charendoff aka Kylie Griffin
Tara. The Goddess. Now Tara Strong, since she got married to Mr. Strong (which is hilarious because this is what Mr. Strong means in my household) - she really is just marvellous. She’s always cropping up in things, always doing a marvellous job, for example she was Ariel’s daughter Melody in the ok but completely unnecessary Little Mermaid 2, Timmy Turner in The Fairly Oddparents and Bubbles of Powerpuff Girls fame. She’s also had two recurring roles in Danny Phantom, the bigger of which is Ember McLain, a kind of blue-fire-haired malevolent rock star ghost with a magic guitar.
I’ve watched all of the above at some point in my life, and enjoyed Tara’s work, but none of them are on my favourite anything, with the exception of the latter. Fairly recently I’ve been hearing Tara’s portrayal of Raven, as in Teen Titans, where she and Greg Cipes, who plays Beast Boy, make for a very entertaining and compelling show wherever one or both of them is/are allowed precedence over Robin (can’t stand him), Starfire (want to punch her) and Cyborg (meh). But better than all of these, better even than her Kylie, is Tara’s Dil Pickles. I got bored of Rugrats a long time ago, and I’m told that fans of the show think it jumped the shark with the introduction of Dil (although Tara did her usual good job with the baby noises, I thought). But in the spin-off All Grown Up, Dil really shines. He lifts an otherwise so-so cartoon to a whole new level. He is just the most wonderful character, and he’s given the most wonderful lines (well, why not link The Dil-Alliance?) - and I really believe that no one could read them any better than Tara.
Kylie, then, is not actually my favourite of Tara’s characters. But she is a very close second. One of the things I admire about Tara is that you can’t always tell it’s her. She tailors her voice exactly to the character (although they very often sound like Dil when they’re annoyed and Timmy when they’re excited). Kylie sounds just how she is: serious, sensible, sometimes cagey about how she’s really feeling and a little rough around the edges. One of the things I liked about these characters was that, for a change, they weren’t bang in the middle of the class system, or leaning towards the upper end of it. If anything, they were leaning a little the other way. Tara is very well spoken, but Kylie would occasionally drop the odd consonant, let slip the odd vowel and say things like, “You don’t gotta like it”.
Definitive episode: “Grundelesque”
I really don’t feel qualified to do anything like this for RGB, but I daresay somebody else will bring it into the thread.
I’ve given each character a “definitive episode”, in which I think their respective actor gives his or her best performance. These are just my opinion, of course - feel free to disagree. So here they are, in reverse order of how much I like what they’ve done:
Alfonso Ribeiro aka Roland Jackson
Well, what’s this guy famous for? Playing Carlton Banks of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, alongside the legendary Will Smith. Ribeiro played the comedy very well, and that includes visual comedy, as we actually got to see him as well as hear him. When he had to be serious and/or emotional… it all went downhill. But that’s hardly his fault - it’s true of the whole show and the entire cast.
Roland is essentially a (taller) animated Carlton whose visual comedy is down to the animators, which leaves him at a disadvantage. The character works well in a comedy, but EGB is essentially not a comedy. Roland does get the odd comic line, and Ribeiro delivers these very well. But most of the time, Roland was just boring. I don’t know how anyone could have voiced him better, but it would have been interesting to see, and he is the only character in EGB I’ll say that for. Roland is a weak character, and I don’t think that’s Ribeiro’s fault. But how can we know?
Definitive episode: “Sonic Youth”
Pat Musick aka Janine Melnitz
When I first saw her name in the cast at the end of EGB, I thought: Oh, Tony from An American Tale. I loved that movie when I was a kid, and Tony - the rough-around-the-edges streetwise urchin who takes poor lost little Feivel under his wing - has always been my favourite character. I can’t be bothered to look up any dates, but fairly recently two sequels were made that did not come recommended by my TV listings magazine, but I watched them both and thought that - though they had nothing on the original - they weren’t bad. They were certainly leagues ahead of that hour-and-a-half-odd of rubbish calling itself An American Tale: Feivel Goes West (in which Tony was on screen for approximately one second, and had no lines). Unfortunately Tony lost his girlfriend Bridget for these two new movies, who did add another dimension to him, and his whole character was horribly dumbed down. It was a shame, but Pat Musick still played the part well, and at least Tony was in it.
Janine’s third cartoon voice was, in my opinion, better than both of the voices she had in RGB - but I know that the boss favours Laura Summer, so I won’t dwell on it. I can’t say that she added much to the show, to be honest, but it was a good bit of casting.
Definitive episode: “The Crawler”
Billy West aka Slimer
This guy crops up all over the place. I seem to remember he provided the voice of Shaggy in the feature-length Scooby-Doos that preceded the live-action movie and the new cartoon series (What’s New Scooby-Doo?), all of which were enjoyable (except possibly that one where the whole thing took place in a VR game), and he did a good job… but was no Casey Kasem. West has also voiced a brand spanking new version of Woody Woodpecker in recent years, which I watched a few times - the show was pretty well done, and West’s Woody was a big part of that. But perhaps his best performance is Fry, of Futurama fame. I thought that show was every bit as good as The Simpsons (and far better than the more recent episodes), and West was a good bit of casting.
Slimer has always been a character who appeals to the very much younger audience members (except maybe in GB1), and the EGB Slimer remains in this vein - and is pretty cute. He occasionally gets to do cool things, and I think West did very well vocally with his reactions and emotions and such, considering that he wasn’t allowed to use actual words. We’ve all noticed that Slimer’s diction improves the more time he spends around people, and by the end of EGB you can just about make out the odd word. The babbling can get irritating, but there’s not much Billy West could have done about that - he did his best to vary it.
Definitive episode: “Slimer’s Sacrifice”
Jason Marsden aka Garrett Miller
Marsden’s chirpy delivery is always a pleasure to listen to. I first came across him in the cute and enjoyable Peter Pan and the Pirates, in the starring role of Peter. I then forgot about him for a while, and heard him next in EGB. I was twelve, and didn’t like him much in those days because he was always so chipper and I was in a constant bad mood, but he has grown on me considerably since then. Marsden’s voice is always distinguishable; I’ve recognised him as Chester in The Fairly Oddparents, doing a pretty good job, the kid’s friend in Ozzy and Drix (no comment) and Kovu in The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride - which wasn’t a bit necessary and made only in order to line the Disney guys’ pockets further, but I liked it anyway, and Kovu is by far and away my favourite character.
So Marden’s good - but he has to lose a few points from me because he always just uses his own voice. He varied it slightly in The Weekenders, taking it a few notches higher because his character was twelve. This character, Tino, was just excellent and carried all three of his co-stars - Lor to a lesser extent, though, as she was almost as strong a character as Tino and voiced by the very talented Grey DeLisle (who, incidentally, has impressed me recently as Sam on Danny Phantom, using her Lor voice - and I tell you, if anyone ever wants to animate Jessica Venkman, I’m signing nothing until Grey DeLisle agrees to provide her voice).
Garrett, then. As I say, a little too chipper for a pre-teen in a constantly black mood. But since that time I’ve come to like him, and even back then I realised that Marsden was playing the character very well. He may always sound the same, but it’s a good voice he’s got there, and his delivery is superb. And when he does have to be serious and/or emotional, he does it very well. He’s good at anger, which you get a lot of from Garrett; he had to combine this with shock and anguish in “The True Face of a Monster”, and did so marvellously. “Mole People” showed him being sensitive and supportive, a lot of which was down to the animators, but Jason did a pretty good job of what touchy-feely dialogue there was.
Definitive episode: “The True Face of a Monster”
Rino Romano aka Eduardo Rivera
I almost ranked him above Maurice LaMarche. I certainly prefer Eduardo to Egon, and Romano is a huge part of why. Where the lines were good, he delivered them brilliantly. Where they were terrible and designed solely for laughs at Eduardo’s expense (like in “Witchy Woman”, which has had to undergo a severe makeover administered by me), he did the best that could possibly be expected. It was pretty cool on the occasions when he spoke a bit of Spanish, and his chemistry with Tara Charendoff was just great.
So what’s he doing one place behind Maurice LaMarche? Well, if I was ranking these guys on their contribution to EGB alone, the order would be very different. But, as I said, I’m giving equal consideration to their other work, and I don’t think I’ve ever watched anything else that Romano was in. He shouldn’t be third on my list at all, probably, but I thought his performance as Eduardo was just that good.
Definitive episode: “Rage”
Maurice LaMarche aka Egon Spengler
What can I say? A voiceover god. Brain, as in Pinky and the springs to mind. There are others, but the only one jumping up and down waving its arms at me right now is Big Bob Pataki of Hey Arnold. He is without a doubt my favourite Maurice LaMarche character. Big Bob is the very large, abrasive and neglectful father of the female lead (arguably the most emotionally complex cartoon character ever invented), Helga Pataki. LaMarche usually plays alongside the equally praiseworthy Francesca Marie Smith and, interestingly, Kath Soucie, whom fans agree made a poor Janine (I anticipate that she will crop up in this thread at least once). I’m not generally a Soucie fan but as Miriam Pataki, I will say, she really shines. (I might as well mention that she’s in Danny Phantom, as Danny’s mother, using her mom voice - the only so-so piece of casting in the show.)
Egon, then - played by LaMarche throughout RGB and again in EGB. Beautifully done, I think most of us can agree. Bigger Egon fans than me can probably analyse the transition much better than any attempt I can make, so I won’t try - it’s a while since I saw RGB, and I can only remember a handful of episodes with any clarity. But, based on those, I happen to prefer him in EGB. When I was watching those repeats on cable, it struck me that the younger Egon was given a lot of - in my opinion - sh---y things to say. The Egon fans may not like this, but his dialogue had strong traces of qualities that I don’t admire. However he grew up in the intervening years, and there’s less arrogance in him by the time we get to EGB. Of course LaMarche keeps the fundamental deadpan approach, which is fast becoming clichéd as a character trait, but never mind - he pulls it off beautifully. That is not to say, however, that Egon cannot express emotion. The Egon-line that makes me laugh most:
Eduardo: …but the house got Garrett, and Roland and Kylie are dead!
Egon: WHAT?
- “Home is Where the Horror is”
Definitive episode: “Heart of Darkness”
Tara Charendoff aka Kylie Griffin
Tara. The Goddess. Now Tara Strong, since she got married to Mr. Strong (which is hilarious because this is what Mr. Strong means in my household) - she really is just marvellous. She’s always cropping up in things, always doing a marvellous job, for example she was Ariel’s daughter Melody in the ok but completely unnecessary Little Mermaid 2, Timmy Turner in The Fairly Oddparents and Bubbles of Powerpuff Girls fame. She’s also had two recurring roles in Danny Phantom, the bigger of which is Ember McLain, a kind of blue-fire-haired malevolent rock star ghost with a magic guitar.
I’ve watched all of the above at some point in my life, and enjoyed Tara’s work, but none of them are on my favourite anything, with the exception of the latter. Fairly recently I’ve been hearing Tara’s portrayal of Raven, as in Teen Titans, where she and Greg Cipes, who plays Beast Boy, make for a very entertaining and compelling show wherever one or both of them is/are allowed precedence over Robin (can’t stand him), Starfire (want to punch her) and Cyborg (meh). But better than all of these, better even than her Kylie, is Tara’s Dil Pickles. I got bored of Rugrats a long time ago, and I’m told that fans of the show think it jumped the shark with the introduction of Dil (although Tara did her usual good job with the baby noises, I thought). But in the spin-off All Grown Up, Dil really shines. He lifts an otherwise so-so cartoon to a whole new level. He is just the most wonderful character, and he’s given the most wonderful lines (well, why not link The Dil-Alliance?) - and I really believe that no one could read them any better than Tara.
Kylie, then, is not actually my favourite of Tara’s characters. But she is a very close second. One of the things I admire about Tara is that you can’t always tell it’s her. She tailors her voice exactly to the character (although they very often sound like Dil when they’re annoyed and Timmy when they’re excited). Kylie sounds just how she is: serious, sensible, sometimes cagey about how she’s really feeling and a little rough around the edges. One of the things I liked about these characters was that, for a change, they weren’t bang in the middle of the class system, or leaning towards the upper end of it. If anything, they were leaning a little the other way. Tara is very well spoken, but Kylie would occasionally drop the odd consonant, let slip the odd vowel and say things like, “You don’t gotta like it”.
Definitive episode: “Grundelesque”
I agree with your analysis though.