Every now and then, you hear about someone who does not have a star on our St. Louis Walk of Fame in the Loop, but is richly deserving of one.
I would like to take this opportunity to n-n-n-nom, n-n-n-nom, n-n-n-nom, recommend that our own Bob Bergen get a star.
For more than 20 years now, Bob Bergen has provided the voice for Porky Pig in Looney Tunes cartoons, movies, and even for electronic talking toys. He’s proven himself to be the heir to the great Mel Blanc, also voicing Tweety Bird, Speedy Gonzales, and Marvin the Martian on occasion.
At age 14, the enterprising Bergen, who has wanted to provide cartoon voices literally as long as he can remember, looked up Mel Blanc in the phone book and gave him a call to ask for advice. A recording of that conversation, along with many other cool samples from Bergen’s history, can be heard at his web site (www.bobbergen.com).
Bergen moved from St. Louis to L.A. with his family at about that time, and began to network, getting more advice from voice-acting luminaries like Casey Kasem (Shaggy from Scooby Doo), and Daws Butler (Yogi Bear, Elroy Jetson). He broke into the business, and gradually began to grow a curriculum vitae of staggering quantity and range. When he’s not being Porky, Bergen has does other voices for animated and regular features, cartoons, video games, and hundreds of radio and TV commercials. You may not know his face, but there’s no question that you’ve heard his voice.
He’s returning to his old stomping grounds this weekend to offer his acclaimed “Two-Day Animation Voiceover Workshop,” which he’s taught to aspiring actors for 24 years, but never before in St. Louis. The class, to be held at Shock City Studios in Soulard, has sold out, but you can still audit it for a fee. (Call Marian Massaro at 917-842-5395 or 914-948-7515 if interested.)
Here’s what Bergen had to say about stuttering, acting like a pig, learning at the feet (or paws) of Yogi Bear, and boarding a plane with a lightsaber.
Does Warner Brothers have you do Porky every time they need him?
Ninety-nine percent of the time for the last 21 years they have. Tweety is my number two, but I’m not doing him in the current series [The Looney Tunes Show, airing now on Cartoon Network]. Speedy is my number three.
How often do you do Porky?
Over the last two years, we’ve been recording the new series, so lately it’s been a lot. We did "Duck Dodgers," Looney Tunes: Back in Action, a T-Mobile spot a few years ago. It’s sporadic—it depends on demand.
Are you voicing the new Looney Tunes Show in the recording booth by yourself, or with other actors next to you?
Both. It depends on availability. My dream would be to have the entire cast there. I’m in L.A., though, and some of us are in New York. Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig from “Saturday Night Live” do the show—they’re in New York. It depends on availability.
It seems like it might be more fun to do the voices next to others.
It’s nice to be able to react to your scene partner. But to record a half -hour show is a four hour process. Sometimes you have to do it piecemeal, so as not to go over budget.
What is your typical day like?
I wake up early, pour a cup of coffee, and go into my home studio to do anywhere from five to 20 auditions. I leave to do auditions at my agent’s office studio if it’s a partner read with others, but usually, I’m doing them from home. Then I might work on some of the jobs I already have. Or, if it’s slow, I might just do the laundry.
What kinds of voice work do you do?
Cartoons, radio and TV commercials, promos, games, toys, narration for industrial films or cable channels, announcements for amusement parks… Voiceover encompasses a lot of different things, but the majority of my work from day to day is TV and radio commercials.
I understand much of Mel Blanc’s work was sped up after recording, and they do that to your cartoon voices sometimes, too.
Mel was not the first guy to do Porky Pig. The guy who created Porky Pig had a real stutter. Mel did a good version of Porky, but they sped it up to make it sound like the other guy, and also because cartoons are short. Daffy Duck and Sylvester are very similar voices, but Daffy is sped up. Speedy is sped up. Tweety is sped up. Speeding-up is a tool that Warner Brothers has used since the ‘30s. Sometimes they speed up my Porky, sometimes they don’t. If they speed it up, they only speed it up by 5 percent, though.
How do you maintain the same voice for a character over a stretch of hours or months or years, even?
It’s not about the voice, it’s about the person. All characters have a voice, but not all voices all have character. Every character has his or her own voice, posture, body language, hand gestures, et cetera. If you do each one different physically, you can remember exactly what you did. If you wrinkle your nose, you automatically sound nasal. I also tell my students to write down everything they’re doing; it can trigger a memory. It’s about acting. Sometimes you have to do multiple characters, and you can successfully have a two- or even a five-way conversation with yourself.
That’s what you teach your voice students.
That it's all about acting. It's about character and acting. It just happens to be on a cartoon. This is my number-one mantra that I teach my students. It came from Daws Butler, which is that if you physically play the characters, the voice will follow. Watching Daws do Yogi Bear, he became Yogi Bear. Watching Daws do Snagglepuss, he became Snagglepuss. From head to toe, his face, everything. He physically became the characters.
Your voice has been recorded for use in electronic, noise-making toys.
That’s kind of fun. In fact, I have this Tweety on a birdcage, and I can always tell when we’re gonna have an earthquake in California because when it moves, it tweets.
A lot of people would be amazed to hear you are working on the new Looney Tunes Show with June Foray, the original voice of Granny, Tweety Bird’s owner. She was also the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Natasha in Rocky and Bullwinkle, and she’s 93 years old.
I’ve known he since I was 14, and we’ve been working together for 30 years. The very first Looney Tunes job I did was Tiny Toon Adventures, with her. She’s a treasure.
You’ve done some voices for Japanese animation. That seems odd, with the characters phrasing Japanese words, and then your English version dubbed over that.
That’s the challenge. With anime, you have to conform to the “mouthflaps” of the characters. Some of the anime voiceover actors are the best in the business. For Looney Tunes and all other animation, you record the voice first, and then they animate to your work.
Wow, I hadn’t realized that. It sounds like an ego stroke, in a way.
I never thought of it that way. That’s how animation has always been done. You’re basically a road map. And you give inspiration to the animators when you work. When you do an animated feature, they have cameras, and they film you, and incorporate your gestures and facial expressions into the characters, too. In Space Jam there was a little scene where Michael Jordan is holding Tweety in his hand, and Tweety has a dimple, and I’ve got a dimple. It certainly came from my face.
Do you resent movie stars getting voiceover work?
Yes and no. There’s a lot of voiceover people who resent any celebrity doing a cartoon. I’ve never been the lead in a Disney animated feature, but I’ve played bugs in A Bug’s Life, and fish in Finding Nemo, and monsters in Monsters, Inc. Would I like to be the lead? You bet. Pixar does it right, though. They look for a person who fits the character. Ellen DeGeneres was brilliant in Finding Nemo, but the script and characters are what brought in the box office. They made me audition for Space Jam, and they told me they were thinking about Jack Lemmon for Porky Pig. They said, well, he stammers. They said lots of people have played James Bond. I said, “James Bond is not a cartoon,” but the bottom line is, there’s lots of work for everybody.
What’s it like doing Robot Chicken?
Working for the ShadowMachine guys, Seth Green and that crew, they are probably one of the nicest production companies, with the best-written material, to work for. And Seth Green is one of the best voice directors in the business, because he’s very good at describing and explaining what he wants, and that’s because he’s an actor.
Who have you voiced for them?
Luke Skywalker, Porky, Roger Rabbit, and tons of incidental characters for them. I’ve done about a dozen episodes.
You’ve been to both Pixar and Skywalker Ranch—which is cooler?
Oh my god, that’s like saying, “what’s better, milk or dark chocolate?” Both are equally cool, but in very different ways. Skywalker Ranch is this gorgeous workplace, with a gorgeous ranch, plus a gift shop with Star Wars merchandise. Pixar is a gorgeous, colorful playground of the happiest employees I’ve ever seen in the business. They’re equally enjoyable. The cool thing about Skywalker Ranch, is that for all three premieres, we each got a lightsaber as a gift. On Southwest Airlines, we flew home all carrying lightsabers on the airplane. When we left the plane, the flight attendant said, “Thank you for flying Southwest—may the force be with you” over the PA.
Is the golden age of cartoons over?
I don’t think people know they’re in a golden age until years later. Chuck Jones was at my very last audition to become Porky Pig. I asked him what the greatest thing about back then was, that we didn’t have any more. He said that it was that nobody from corporate looked over their shoulders, they just made things that were funny, to entertain themselves. Pixar is in a golden age -- they’ve never had a failure, and they believe in character and story first. Every time I go there, I’m amazed. It blows me away. They keep that quality, that golden age going. But for the most part, no matter what the medium, it’s not ‘til years later that you appreciate it.
In your private moments with friends and loved ones, does Porky ever say sick and disturbing things?
Let’s be honest, we’re all human, and we all like to joke around, but I’ve never done “Porno Porky” or anything like that. I have a lot of respect for the integrity of the character. I’ve never pushed the envelope with the pig. (Laughs.) But I do have a friend who calls me up every once in a while and says, “Do the pig.” The last time he called me I was literally at a funeral in St. Louis. It was my fault for not turning off my phone.
Have you ever dressed up as Porky?
I got a phone call from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and they said a little boy wants to have a picnic with Porky Pig. It happened to be 110 degrees, an August day in Griffith Park in L.A., I show up, and this woman opened this van and there’s a giant Porky Pig costume. I said, “Oh.” She said, “Do you mind?” I got in the costume, it didn’t fit well, the kids come, they all only speak Spanish. From inside the costume, I sound like I’m in a cave. I tried to do it. I probably lost twenty pounds that day. Hopefully the kids had a good time, I don’t speak Spanish, I’m not sure. There is the occasional Halloween party where I put on a snout on a rubber band. I also got a call last year asking if I would marry someone as an officiant, using the Porky Pig voice, and I had a conflict, I couldn’t do it. But if anybody wants Porky Pig to officiate their wedding, I am now qualified.
