Today, however, I am compelled to write a brief story about Frank Welker.
But, first...I must digress. My pal, John McCann, has updated his blog and added a little snippet from Freakazoid in the sidebar. The clip is from the end of the episode, The Chip, and is perhaps my ultimate favorite thing we ever did on Freakazoid. Yes, it's the man wrestling a bear for no reason.
As you'll recall (or not) The Chip featured a cameo by none other than Jack Valenti. And yes. It really was Jack Valenti. I wrote all kinds of things for Mr. Valenti to say and ended the episode with him saying, "And now, a scene of a man wrestling a bear for no reason."
As I recall, we just assumed we'd find such a scene from a stock footage house. Months went by. When the episode was finally animated, it was now time to find the scene.
I recall Tom Ruegger telling John and I to come down to the editing department. He had something he wanted to show us. Somehow, he had gotten permission to use a clip from Grizzly Adams. It was funny and we all chuckled. But...it wasn't quite funny enough.
Anyway, it was one of those things. Some things work. Some things don't.
A few weeks later we were doing ADR at the recording studio. ADR is where we add dialogue or change a line if it didn't work.
Frank Welker happened to be at that session. I don't recall what he was going to do for us, but at the end of the session we asked him to go into the booth and add bear sounds. (Frank is a genuis at animal sounds in case you didn't know.)
Anyway, we recorded the bear. Fine. And then...I think he was just going to do the man grunting or something. But instead, Frank had the guy screaming and crying and yelling. We peed ourselves. Frank did it in one take and we spent the next 15 minutes unable to function.
That's Freakazoid.
By the way, here's a bit I did as Manny The Uncanny with Frank Welker at the LA ZOO.
[The tension is mounting, what could the prize be I wonder?]
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing that! I've always laughed at the audio for that clip; it so obviously doesn't go with the imagry. Beautiful.
Were it not for you guys, I'd only remember Jack Valenti for this one time when he sued a friend of mine in federal court.
ReplyDeleteThrough looped bear-wrestling and animated cheeks, my pain is lessened somewhat.
Oh yeah, when I saw that clip John added, I saw the comment someone had of, "It doesn't sound like a bear at all," and was going to reply, "Yeah; it sounds like Frank Welker!"
ReplyDeleteAnimal sounds are something of a specialty of mine too. I once confused someone into thinking I was her cat. Speaking of cats, I did a shrieking cat for a film major roommate of Linda's. We must have recorded 20 or 30 blood-curdling cat shrieks right there in the dorm! We didn't know what the visuals would be yet, so I did long shrieks, short shrieks, built-up shrieks, tapered-off shrieks, running shrieks... everything I could think that a cat might do while shrieking.
I'm told the entire audience jumped when the scene played. Yay!
"someone" was me Keep. No offense to Mr. Welker, his Tiger also doesn't sound like a real tiger, but hey, he can do more realistic animal sounds than anyone.
ReplyDeleteKeeper's kitty sounds are the cutest! I still have them on my computer. They make my heart happy.
Oh that Manny vid!
ReplyDeleteThe first time I heard this line, "One time I did come here, and Michael, he drove me around like this to get me all sick so he could steal muh moneh." But I heard, "Michael drove me around like this to get me all sexed so he could take my moneh" I was floored for a second.
Blinkblink...
ReplyDeleteTaki, you're thinking about WHAT when you see Manny? I suppose you have bought a plaid suit for David, just to fulfill your fantasies...!
Paul,
ReplyDeleteToday = rough.
Manny Video = made things better.
Thank you. You're a Good Man, Mr. Rugg.
Troy
Keeper: I'm not THAT Freudian!
ReplyDelete[anymore.]