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  • - I just like saying showbiz [beeping].

  • Oops, sorry, Carl's not suppose to say,

  • "Oh [beeping], I said [beeping]."

  • It's still making everybody laugh.

  • I love that.

  • Hi, my name is Rob Paulsen,

  • which probably means nothing to you.

  • Unless, of course, you like cartoons.

  • In which case, let's see, Yakko Warner.

  • Does that mean something to you?

  • Hello, nurse!

  • Or Pinky, from Pinky and the Brain.

  • That is me, too.

  • See, watch.

  • Narf!

  • And then I know a lot of you love Carl Weezer.

  • I don't care why, I just care that you do.

  • I'm not one, but two of the Ninja Turtles.

  • That's right, ladies and gentlemen,

  • 50% of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

  • in one old guy from Detroit, Michigan.

  • Rafael on the original show

  • and in the 2012 version on Nickelodeon, Donatello.

  • So, cowabunga and turtle power.

  • You're probably asking yourself,

  • is that all you're going to do is ramble

  • and tell everybody how groovy you are?

  • No, that is not.

  • What we're gonna do here today

  • is I'm going to improvise some character voices

  • for cartoons I've never seen before.

  • Let's see what happens.

  • Oh, my goodness.

  • Well, I'm seeing what looks to be a very distinguished

  • elderly gentleman.

  • When I say elderly, that is understanding

  • that I am now elderly.

  • However, this older fellow,

  • one would think would might speak thusly.

  • I don't know why, he just looks quite distinguished.

  • Were it myself, I would say he looks extinguished.

  • Not too far from the truth.

  • But then we could go against type.

  • Wouldn't it be interesting if the gentleman opened his mouth

  • and all of a sudden started talking like this?

  • Hi, my name is Henry Wardsworth

  • and I know what you're thinking.

  • You're thinking, God, this suit fits me beautifully,

  • but it's a little incongruous when I talk.

  • Get over it.

  • What's going on there?

  • Don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you.

  • Bye!

  • Well, having already been Dr Scratch-and-Sniff,

  • which is that character who was the studio P psychiatrist

  • on the Animaniacs, a voice which I stole

  • from Peter Sellers, mainly because he's dead.

  • My favorite movie in the world is "Dr. Strangelove",

  • so I like that guy.

  • That's pretty typical, I think.

  • But he's also got that weird, crazy hair like Ed Wynn.

  • You know, the from Mary Poppins.

  • Let's go fly a kite.

  • So maybe we could put both voices,

  • that's kind of Dr Scratch-and-Sniff in the back

  • with the Ed Wynn, and maybe lose the dialect.

  • Hey, everybody!

  • Look, I'm drinking this.

  • It's going to make me so regular,

  • I'm gonna poop the rest of my life.

  • Oh, okay, great.

  • Well, the first thing I'm gonna say is

  • don't worry, he's just my dad.

  • You see what I did there?

  • You know what?

  • I gotta say, because he's a little ram here,

  • we are in LA so we have an LA ram here

  • and he's got sort of sleepy eyes.

  • So I would probably steal something

  • from a character I did a little bit earlier

  • on a show called Rick and Morty.

  • I played a little dog called Snowball who speaks like this.

  • And the first lines Snowball ever said were,

  • "Where are my testicles, Summer?"

  • Now, perhaps this goat could say the same thing.

  • If you're thinking for five seconds you're going to milk me,

  • let me show you what I can do with these horns.

  • I will beat you three ways, up, down, and continuously.

  • What if he was a teenager?

  • Okay.

  • Hey, my name is Goat.

  • Now, you're gonna think

  • that I'm describing what creature I am.

  • Oh, no, no.

  • Goat is an acronym for greatest of all time.

  • You know how I know?

  • Ask me, because I am, that's how I know.

  • I even got my own bell.

  • Deal with it.

  • Okay, I think, well,

  • he's already got lots of, what I'm seeing here is,

  • it looks like a science experiment doing karaoke.

  • I don't quite know what's going on here,

  • but he's got all this mess,

  • so let's bring in the mucous-y kind of stuff.

  • And I like the fact that he maybe does his speech

  • like Willougby used to,

  • so why don't we throw that in there, too?

  • Why not?

  • It could happen.

  • I mean, that's the beautiful thing about cartoons.

  • Who's going to argue with me?

  • Like a hype man?

  • Okay, maybe he can make it like,

  • Hey, if I'm lying, I'm dying.

  • My name is Gleep Glarp Glibble Globber

  • Glip Glop Glam and I'm here from Alpha Centauri

  • to tell you tonight it is great to be back

  • with Dancing With The Stars!

  • Be careful how close you get.

  • Good night, everybody!

  • I mean, look at that hair!

  • This gentleman is here said, "Hello, my name is Kyle

  • and I'm a human chia pet.

  • Most people would love to have hair like mine.

  • It is mine.

  • It is authentic and if you dig very deeply,

  • you can find Jimmy Hoffa."

  • Maybe he also looks like he could be

  • a very sort of healthy fellow.

  • Maybe he's a fellow who works as a butcher

  • and he has a-- oh, can you hear all that?

  • That's my parole officer coming to get me.

  • You'll never take me alive, copper!

  • With this gentleman, because he's very handsome

  • and has that, looks to me,

  • like he could be a Scottish fellow,

  • so maybe he's going to teach you how to make haggis.

  • I'll slaughter the previous character.

  • No, no, no, two characters earlier.

  • The sheep.

  • We'll slaughter him, take his stomach,

  • grind up his intestines, and shove it in the stomach

  • and I will show you how to make haggis.

  • Looks like me before I had my teeth fixed.

  • Anybody with orange bangs is, from the get-go,

  • is gonna be an unhappy fellow.

  • So, maybe he should talk like this.

  • Hi, I've got two speeds in my voice, slow and quiet,

  • and there's no in-between.

  • So maybe his name is Theo.

  • Theo, have you fed the dog?

  • Shut up!

  • Theo, would you feed the dog?

  • No, I'm gonna eat the dog!

  • What are you looking at?

  • Yeah, my eyes are green and my teeth are green

  • and my gums are white and my bangs are orange!

  • Get used to it!

  • Would you put your tongue in my mouth?

  • Why not?

  • Well, maybe, you know, I'll have him do something like this.

  • He's kind of droopy, maybe droopy.

  • We'll throw a little bit of droopy in there, too,

  • only we'll make it like this.

  • Mom, I ate the dog again.

  • Is that gonna mess with my intestines?

  • Oh, yeah!

  • Oh, yeah, this is great.

  • A raccoon.

  • I think, because I'm a little raccoon,

  • I've got a beautiful tail and I'm a little bit sneaky.

  • I'm even putting my hands together

  • because, of course, we know that suggests sneaky.

  • So I'm gonna steal a little bit of a voice

  • from one of my favorite character actors from years ago.

  • A guy named Al Lewis who played Grandpa

  • on The Monsters, right?

  • Grandpa Monster and he would say, "Oh, yeah!

  • Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

  • Oh, look at that!

  • I'm gonna eat coffee grounds and old chicken.

  • Now we're talking!

  • That's how I operate."

  • [sniffing]

  • Oh, oh, oh, this is excellent.

  • This is pork tartare, which essentially uncooked pork.

  • Perfect for me, not so good for you, so thank you.

  • We have a lobster who, probably,

  • because lobsters aren't red until they're boiled.

  • So this lobster has beaten the odds.

  • He just looks really happy!

  • He just looks, you know,

  • I'm just as serious as a pimple on prom night.

  • I don't know that anybody could be any happier than I am

  • because I was boiled alive, thank you very much,

  • and I'm still here to talk about it.

  • [laughter]

  • Don't got any closer, baby,

  • because I don't know what these things will do.

  • Whoa!

  • Well, you know, when you have a mustache like that,

  • it look very au francais, so maybe he is a lobster

  • from the north Atlantic off the cost of Nova Scotia.

  • So maybe he is a French or maybe a little higher up there.

  • Could be a French-Canadian lobster who beat death.

  • Why not?

  • Man, I got to tell you, I have not slept in so long.

  • There's so much bad dental work in this country.

  • I'm telling you, there's gonna be dearth of quarters

  • because, and by the way, parents, if your kid loses a tooth,

  • there's a cost of living index.

  • A quarter is not gonna work.

  • From now on, please drop your kid a five spot.

  • And, man, I'm getting old.

  • Fact is, you can't see it now, I'm so exhausted.

  • But I got a prostate like an Idaho potato.

  • I cannot do this much longer.

  • I got no retirement plan, so spiff your kids a five spot.

  • It'll pay me a little bit more

  • and oh, this is no way to make a living.

  • Oh, boy.

  • Okay, what' I'm looking at here

  • is on the front half on his head,

  • we have a critter that has really beautiful teeth.

  • Guy or girl, who knows?

  • Gorgeous blonde locks and one, two, three,

  • eight tentacles or so sticking out the back end.

  • And this is not that dissimilar to a character I used to do

  • on Fairly OddParents called Mark Chang

  • who is a surfer kind of octopus dude with a clear head

  • who lived in Yugopotamia.

  • So that's kind of like,

  • this is like a fireball with tentacles.

  • I don't even know where he's headed,

  • but he's headed there in a hurry, man,

  • because his hair almost looks like he's on fire.

  • Or, as they say, en fuego.

  • Okay, so this character does not speak English,

  • so what this character has to do

  • is make you understand what you are from talking from.

  • So even the character will say to you on the street,

  • "Excuse from me.

  • Can you point me from the to Chinese theater?"

  • That's what they tell me from saying to Hollywood peoples.

  • This looks like it could be,

  • I'm looking at a giant ball of hair

  • with two eyes that go this way

  • and it looks a lot like one of the Muppets, Gonzo.

  • [yells] Right?

  • Well, why don't we do him like this?

  • Why don't we say, "Hey, man.

  • What's that you eating?

  • If you're gonna eat that, give the rest to me

  • because if it ain't nailed down,

  • I'm gonna eat that bad boy.

  • But the cool thing is that when I'm quiet,

  • when I'm being sweet with my lady,

  • I talk like this.

  • Yeah, come on, baby.

  • You know what I like.

  • I like it when you do that.

  • Now, I ain't gonna tell you what that is

  • because it's probably a felony.

  • There's a fine line between funny and felony

  • and I ain't gonna cross it."

  • Actually, you know, I did a character

  • that is not too dissimilar.

  • I did a character in a bunch of movies

  • called, "The Land Before Time"

  • and I played a little dinosaur named Spike.

  • His dialogue consisted of the following:

  • [moans]

  • It's all I ever said.

  • Hey, Spike, here's a tree star!

  • [moans]

  • Are you happy? [moans]

  • Are you sad? [moans]

  • And then I get a check.

  • So this guy's probably the same way.

  • [grunts]

  • Oh, Harry.

  • Got to call him Harry.

  • [grunts]

  • Hey, Harry, how you doing? [grunts]

  • You want to eat the Brontosaurus burger?

  • [grunts]

  • Have you seen Spike? [grunts]

  • Spike still alive?

  • No, that was the Cretaceous Period.

  • Well, having played a couple of mice,

  • you might know me as Pinky.

  • And I also played a character called Jacques.

  • Cinderelly, Cinderelly.

  • That was me.

  • So, this guy is a very, he's a very fast rat.

  • Yeah, why not?

  • Why don't we get a guy like this?

  • He sort of sounds like Bruno Kirby.

  • Hey, I'm taking my cheese.

  • You wanna get this cheese?

  • I don't think so, junior.

  • I'm gonna grab my cheese and run until I can't run anymore.

  • Try and stop me.

  • Bye-bye!

  • Uh-uh!

  • Boom, I'm out.

  • Let's make him like this.

  • Let's make him like my own voice

  • because every now and then, I get a job like that.

  • Raphael sounds a lot like me.

  • Hey, Shredder!

  • You ten-faced geek!

  • Get back here and taste cold turtle steel!

  • And don't touch my cheese!

  • I think the best advice I can give prospective voice actors

  • is that it's small v, large a.

  • The actors who do this are wonderful, consummate actors.

  • My process in terms of creating characters

  • is no different than it was when I create a character,

  • try to flesh out a character, give it a personality,

  • a soul, when I was doing theater.

  • Also, because I'm not limited by my visage,

  • I swing for the fences.

  • My job is to give the producers an embarrassment of riches

  • so that they have trouble deciding

  • on which take to choose, if they're all good,

  • and being fearless, as Billy West says.

  • You don't have to worry about what you look like,

  • so if somebody says this is a talking sponge

  • or a talking turtle with ninja skills,

  • who knows what that sounds like?

  • Improv is huge.

  • Being able to think on your feet, doing a lot of improv.

  • Often, what'll happen is I might be in a session

  • with all these other world class actors,

  • somebody coming up with an idea

  • on the other side of the glass.

  • One of the writers, producers.

  • Rob, we've got two lines for this character.

  • You got anything?

  • And I'll look or I or Tara Strong

  • or Tress MacNeille or Mauriece LaMarche

  • will take a look at the character

  • and say, "Yeah, I've got something."

  • Off you go.

  • And that's why improv is huge because it helps

  • you think on your feet, so do improv.

  • You won't regret it.

  • And I have to tell you that at the ripe old age of 63,

  • the same Jones that inspired me to do this gig

  • when I was a kid is no different.

  • It just makes my soul happy.

  • I'm Rob Paulsen and that was my take on improvising

  • a few characters I've never seen before.

  • And look, if I can do it, you can, too.

  • Just do it.

- I just like saying showbiz [beeping].

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