Animation Source Forums

-How's it like voicing Gopher for Winnie the Pooh?

-When did you first take up voice acting?

-How did u enjoy voicing for Jambalaya Jake on Darkwing Duck?

-I've read you voiced Raphael in the final season of TMNT. When Rob Paulsen left the show, was it because of his work on Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain?

-What's Colonel Spiggot's favorite meal?

Hi John,

Here (finally) are the answered questions--sorry it took awhile.
Thanks again for the interest and all the best to you and any other fans out there!
Take Care,
Michael


-How was it like voicing Gopher for Winnie the Pooh?
I loved doing Gopher for Winnie the Pooh. That was my first big voice job, my first animated series (The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh) and I was totally excited about working for Disney. It had been a sound-alike audition for the original voices of the Pooh characters from the 60’s shorts, Gopher's whistling "S" 's & all...and he's a great character--industrious, cranky, optimistic, irritable, helpful, impatient, loyal, excitable--all kinds of conflicting and fun things. I was thrilled to be a part of it.

-When did you first take up voice acting?
I moved to LA after college to pursue the acting thing (which was something I discovered kinda late when I was almost done with college). I was doing alot of theatre and auditioning for film and tv (with a few scattered jobs here and there) and wasn't even all that aware of voice acting as a possibility at first. It took me a few years to catch on that the voiceover world might be worth a try. In the back of my mind it was something I thought I could do--I think I spent alot of time as a kid sitting in my room playing around with my voice, mimicing the tv etc. I took a voiceover class which really helped, managed to get an agent and started auditioning for jobs. When it started becoming my main source of work I figured 'hey,this is the path to take' .

-Did you enjoy voicing Jambalaya Jake on Darkwing Duck?
Oh yeah, another great character! Jambalaya Jake was a blast--all that crazy ragin' Cajun stuff. I really had fun with him. He only appeared in 2 episodes, but I guess he made an impression--one time (long before imdb etc) I was just having a normal (no Cajun accent!) conversation with someone who had no idea that I had worked on D.D. and out of the blue she said "Hey, were you the voice of Jambalaya Jake on Darkwing Duck?" Wha!? I was blown away that someone would recognize that from my speaking voice. Anyway...loved Jake!

-I've read you voiced Raphael in the final season of TMNT. When Rob Paulsen left the show, was it because of his work on Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain?
I'm not sure why Rob and TMNT parted ways. Rob was very cool about it but never really elaborated on why he left the show etc. Again, there were sound-alike auditions and I was excited and honored to get to have a little something to do with the original TMNT series for its final season. Rob's one of the all-time greats and those were certainly some big vocal chords to fill.

- How did you come up with the voice of Spigot? Did you 'invent' it yourself, based on his personality?
Originally someone else had been cast as Spigot but for whatever reasons, it just wasn't working out for the folks at Disney. Some of the episodes had already been recorded--he sounded a whole lot different and I think maybe they thought he sounded too...severe, not enough humor to the character? I just kind of played around with the comic nature of his delusions of grandeur, his need for recognition ("Perhaps you've...heard of me?"), his feelings of self-importance. His tusks gave me a clue to his having sort of a messy lisp. I remember trying things out and working with the casting/director, and lucky for me they ended up liking what I was doing.

- Do you remember how it was like, to work on TaleSpin?
Sure, it was a unique situation because a few of the episodes had already been completed, so at first I had to record my voice to match the animation and replace the existing voice. That made it tricky for timing etc, but in a way it helped to hone in on the character right away because I could see it played back immediately and see how the character behaved etc. Usually the voices are recorded separately, then the animation comes later to match the vocals. Once I finished the already-animated episodes, I had a good feel for Spiggy and recorded the rest of them in the 'usual' way. And I loved it...Spigot is awesome! Hmm, I'm noticing that all the characters we've talked about (Gopher, Jake, Spigot) are 'short'. Is there a pattern here?

- If it were to happen, would you agree to voice Spigot again for a future project?
Absolutely! I'm ready--I think it's time for a Spigot revival!