Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: It's Coast to Coast AM.
Speaker 3: Connie willis here with you, playing great music, Open lines
Speaker 3: happening a little later on. Yes, I do want to
Speaker 3: ask about the Elon Musk information and knows anybody knows him,
Speaker 3: Get him to call in, Let's go. Let's go, or
Speaker 3: at least contact him and let him know that everybody
Speaker 3: tweet him. Just tweet him like crazy and say, hey,
Speaker 3: Connie wants to talk to you. She's got your answers
Speaker 3: for your UFO and alien questions. I mean, he's just
Speaker 3: asking the wrong people. Why is he not listening to us?
Speaker 3: What's the deal?
Speaker 2: What's the deal?
Speaker 3: Who is it that always said that? I know there
Speaker 3: was a character that was to always say what's the deal?
Speaker 3: Oh maybe that's a Seinfeld thing. Anyway, tonight, we have
Speaker 3: a guy that is in here that you've probably heard
Speaker 3: his voice somewhere and had no idea about. His name
Speaker 3: is Bob Bergen, and he is he does a lot
Speaker 3: of voices. He's here with us right now. You've already
Speaker 3: heard a little bit from him. You know, Bob, I
Speaker 3: just you and I got to talk a little bit
Speaker 3: before coming on the air with me, and you have
Speaker 3: to take the acting classes. You've got to take the
Speaker 3: improv classes, whether you even know it or not at
Speaker 3: the time. But it's just because it works as well.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's definitely going to help you in the career,
Speaker 3: but it's also just fun and a part of all
Speaker 3: of it too.
Speaker 2: It just all works magically.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I had emailed daily from people who
Speaker 4: want to I want to get into voiceover. Everyone tells
Speaker 4: me I got a great voice, and there isn't such
Speaker 4: thing as a great voice. There's only good actors and
Speaker 4: bad actors. I always tell people, Look, if you want
Speaker 4: to do what I do, the very first thing you
Speaker 4: do is you study acting. Yeah, and you study improv
Speaker 4: and then you study voiceover. And you know, nobody working
Speaker 4: today at my level lucked into this. This was hard work.
Speaker 4: This is something they really wanted. And no matter what
Speaker 4: it is you want to do. I mean, I want
Speaker 4: to do voices for cartoons. Somebody else wants to be
Speaker 4: a painter, somebody wants to be a concert pianist. You
Speaker 4: need to want it more than anybody else and be
Speaker 4: willing to work harder than anybody else. There's no secret
Speaker 4: to this. You just got to work.
Speaker 3: And I got to tell you though, the improv work,
Speaker 3: to me has been the most wonderful things in my career,
Speaker 3: especially radio being a basic that was the last thing
Speaker 3: I ever wanted to do. But these are things that
Speaker 3: teach you to do things live and if you mess up,
Speaker 3: you just keep on going. You don't worry about it,
Speaker 3: you don't.
Speaker 2: Think about it.
Speaker 3: In fact, you use it and you just keep going
Speaker 3: with it. And that is like something that man. When
Speaker 3: you can perfect that and keep going and not feel
Speaker 3: like a failure and not say cut try again, you
Speaker 3: know that kind of thing, and you just go with it,
Speaker 3: it really matters, especially with auditions or even doing what
Speaker 3: you do. I mean that means you could even now
Speaker 3: you have to tell us all more about the scripting
Speaker 3: of it, but I'm sure they love when you can
Speaker 3: throw in some sort of neat little ad lib that
Speaker 3: they didn't even think about it because you're already so
Speaker 3: involved in the character that you can do that.
Speaker 4: Especially you know, like I said now my students, is
Speaker 4: if you have one check for your training, study improvit
Speaker 4: it's the greatest training.
Speaker 2: On the planet.
Speaker 4: I don't think I don't care everything as cartoons or Shakespeare.
Speaker 4: It's great training. You're right, acting is reacting. So you
Speaker 4: don't want to dishonor the writer to the point where
Speaker 4: you're trying to improve on their work by living. But
Speaker 4: you definitely want to, you know, bring something to the table,
Speaker 4: especially in the in the audition. And I tell my
Speaker 4: students the script is a skeleton. Your job is to
Speaker 4: give it up body. What does that mean? It means
Speaker 4: whatever your little creative mind wants to bring to that character. Yeah,
Speaker 4: all characters have a voice, but not all voices have character.
Speaker 4: You're creating a character, a living, breathing character. Your audition
Speaker 4: needs to sound like that character has been around for
Speaker 4: one hundred years. And it has nothing to do with
Speaker 4: the sound of that character. It has to do with
Speaker 4: the personality, the relationships in the script, the environment, the
Speaker 4: box story. Everything an on camera or a stage actor
Speaker 4: does with a character, you have to do vocally with
Speaker 4: the cartoon character.
Speaker 3: Let's hear some of your character work. Let's listen to
Speaker 3: some of the animation that you've done.
Speaker 1: My name is Sam Fisher. I used to be a hero.
Speaker 3: Now I'm wanted man.
Speaker 2: Can I put my clothes back on? And it was
Speaker 2: called how I'm.
Speaker 1: Gonna double you.
Speaker 2: Spotts my just againts and cheating. But I could never
Speaker 2: kill her.
Speaker 4: I'd be the prime respect. But if we killed each
Speaker 4: other's wives, jem, it would be that little perfect rime.
Speaker 3: Stop trying to confuse me.
Speaker 2: Your over confidence is your weakness. Faith in your mama.
Speaker 4: I said, your mama, so fat Tub of the Hut.
Speaker 3: Said, you know you aren't mental exist in the outside
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 2: Oh, it just seems somewhat undressed. Quite a fashion statement.
Speaker 2: Put me a kid, and I got a cool toy
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 4: Hi, the world's oldest Braggon proud to announce share table
Speaker 4: for two the Mama on your way to Grandma's house.
Speaker 4: I love the smell of fear the old man before
Speaker 4: he was, before he was, He said, I could escape
Speaker 4: into the light.
Speaker 2: Please help me, mister bugs, I want you to hide this.
Speaker 4: You put it.
Speaker 1: As you know. There is no one way to make
Speaker 1: a clone.
Speaker 4: Do you think I like jumping down this big dummy's
Speaker 4: throat every time he stuffs his face too much?
Speaker 2: No way, But that's is.
Speaker 1: The breaks here calls mister bomber, dropping us bombs and
Speaker 1: stuff on mister.
Speaker 2: Duckie Dr Bunson, Honeydoo here at Muppet Labs.
Speaker 3: Push, push it harder, you can get free.
Speaker 2: Don't let them do to you what they've done to me.
Speaker 1: It's so terrible.
Speaker 3: I just wish you were on and.
Speaker 2: I hate to be the bearer of bad news your airiness.
Speaker 1: But if you don't find the player, your tea will be.
Speaker 2: Fourth is not Michael is the greatest ever. That's that's
Speaker 2: my life. That's just great stuff.
Speaker 3: That's Bob Berg and the who we're talking to here
Speaker 3: on Costa Cosam tonight. Those were his voices right there,
Speaker 3: in character voices.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I just find that amazing because it's being in the
Speaker 3: world of broadcasting. You use your voice, you're constantly doing that.
Speaker 3: People can recognize you from anywhere and you can get
Speaker 3: excited or do this or do that, whatever the spot
Speaker 3: calls for. But when you do an animated character, that's
Speaker 3: just a whole nother world, and that's like the cream
Speaker 3: of the crop for somebody like me. So congratulations that
Speaker 3: you're there.
Speaker 4: You're so sweet. Thank you, Connie. And I got to
Speaker 4: tell you, I do not take it for granted. It's
Speaker 4: something I wanted to do since I was a kid.
Speaker 4: I'm still doing it, and I swear to you every
Speaker 4: time I go into my little home studio to record
Speaker 4: whatever I'm recording, I literally have a moment of I'm
Speaker 4: still doing this. I gets to do this. This is
Speaker 4: I want people to really understand that none of us
Speaker 4: who do this take it for granted.
Speaker 3: I feel the same way about being on Coast to Coast.
Speaker 4: Hey, listen, I got to tell you when I was
Speaker 4: on hole waiting to talk to you, and bidly, can
Speaker 4: I just give you a compliment?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, don't do that, don't you do you on.
Speaker 4: The air is identical to talking to you off the air,
Speaker 4: because you and I have had several conversations, and what
Speaker 4: I love about you is you're the same person i'm
Speaker 4: talking to now live Coast to Coast as you were
Speaker 4: when you were going Yes, So let's just you know,
Speaker 4: and that is that is that's a good host. That's
Speaker 4: I've talked to many hosts where they put on hosts personality,
Speaker 4: and you're just Connie and you're really good at doing Connie.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: That that is the best compliment I think anybody can
Speaker 3: get in broadcasting. So thank you. And to get that
Speaker 3: from you. Thanks so much. I appreciate that. I'm sitting
Speaker 3: in the check in the mail. I appreciate thank you exactly. No,
Speaker 3: I really appreciate that, you know, as I was trying
Speaker 3: to find my way along the way, and we've we've
Speaker 3: done similar things.
Speaker 2: It's so fun to talk with you about it.
Speaker 3: But along the way, I thought it was going to
Speaker 3: be in film, you know, and acting and all that
Speaker 3: kind of thing. But I kept getting work that was
Speaker 3: live and everybody just wanted me to be me. Hey
Speaker 3: can you host this show?
Speaker 2: Can you do this? And it's live and.
Speaker 3: So live work for me and me being me, And
Speaker 3: at one point I remember stopping and going, Wow, everybody
Speaker 3: just wants me to be me and do live work.
Speaker 3: So I guess that's my bread and butter.
Speaker 4: Yeah. You know, the hardest thing in the world is
Speaker 4: to be authentic and if you can nail that. I've
Speaker 4: talked to people who worked with Oprah Winfrey who said
Speaker 4: Oprah Winfrey was the same person on camera as she
Speaker 4: was off camera, and that is same with Dick Cavitt.
Speaker 4: You know, some of the greatest conversationalists are just authentic,
Speaker 4: and you know, authentic is what it's all about. If
Speaker 4: you're in broadcasting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's what.
Speaker 3: When that occurred to me that that's where I was,
Speaker 3: I thought, you know what, it wasn't being the movie star.
Speaker 3: I thought I might be, But I actually felt even
Speaker 3: happier because I went, No, this is really the top
Speaker 3: of all that where you just people.
Speaker 2: Just want you.
Speaker 3: So that's so sweet to hear that from somebody else,
Speaker 3: to get that confirmation.
Speaker 2: So thank you so much. I appreciate that. Yeah, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: good night. Everybody.
Speaker 3: See improv helps you to just do that and people
Speaker 3: go right along with you. Now, I want to get
Speaker 3: to a ton of stories that you have, but so
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out which one to go to
Speaker 3: for Let's go ahead and go to the man with
Speaker 3: a smile. He's always got a smile. Let's see if
Speaker 3: you recognize what I'm talking about. And I know you
Speaker 3: have a story with him.
Speaker 2: But he always spoke.
Speaker 3: And he sounded like he always had a smile, which,
Speaker 3: by the way, is more of what a teacher would
Speaker 3: teach with anybody in the broadcasting narration, ward whatever, always
Speaker 3: have that smile on your face when you when you
Speaker 3: do your work.
Speaker 4: So yes, yes, because he did. He always sounded like
Speaker 4: he was having a great jab. Yeah, Casey always had
Speaker 4: that smile, So I owe Casey case In my career.
Speaker 4: I had studied voiceover for about four years and I
Speaker 4: was graduating high school and a friend of the family
Speaker 4: knew Casey Kasem and had him send me an autograph
Speaker 4: picture for my high school graduation and I sent him
Speaker 4: a thank you. He sent it from his from his
Speaker 4: his homewas home address was there, and I sent it
Speaker 4: a note and I said, by the way, I want
Speaker 4: I want your job, and I included my phone number.
Speaker 4: And a few days after I thank you note, I
Speaker 4: get this phone call and I hear this guy say, Hi, Bob,
Speaker 4: it's Casey case and I got your note. And I said,
Speaker 4: that is the worst impression of Casey case Who is
Speaker 4: this And he said, all right, let me try it again,
Speaker 4: and he goes, Hi, Bob, it's Kasey Kayser and I
Speaker 4: got your He did the smile because he wasn't Kasey
Speaker 4: Kasem radio smile when he just called me.
Speaker 2: He's not his authentic self exactly right.
Speaker 4: So you know, he was very sweet, he said. He
Speaker 4: asked me all kinds of business questions I'd studied voiceover
Speaker 4: for four years. But nobody talked business back then.
Speaker 2: No, they still don't, by.
Speaker 4: The way they do now.
Speaker 2: But about craft, well, I was with you in that world.
Speaker 2: If that's what I knew about his craft. No, I'm
Speaker 2: talking business. I'd already bestly rich by now.
Speaker 4: He said, do you have an agent? I said no.
Speaker 4: He said, do you have a demo? I said no,
Speaker 4: so he said, he said, make me a homemade demo
Speaker 4: of as many voices as you can do, and if
Speaker 4: I like it, I'll give it to my agent. Well,
Speaker 4: he liked it, and at the time his agent, whose
Speaker 4: name was Don Pitts, was in the hospital. I don't
Speaker 4: know what has happened to Don, but he was in
Speaker 4: an oxygen tent. I think it's Cedar SINAI and Casey
Speaker 4: went with a little portable tape recorder and through the
Speaker 4: plastic of the tent played my demo, the little homemade
Speaker 4: and weeks later, Done recuperated called me up and he said, kid,
Speaker 4: I think you're very talented. I'd like to represent you.
Speaker 4: And I said, mister, I don't know what that means,
Speaker 4: but as long as it's after three o'clock, because I'm
Speaker 4: still in high school, okay, and I didn't realize I
Speaker 4: hit the jackpot with my first agent, who not only
Speaker 4: represented Casey Caseam, but he represented mel Blank and June
Speaker 4: Foray and Orson Wells and Paul Winshall and got my
Speaker 4: first Wells. I mean, and I really, I literally had
Speaker 4: no idea. It's sort of like a kid fresh off
Speaker 4: the bus and all of a sudden there was c AA.
Speaker 4: I mean, there were the top theatrical agent in Hollywood.
Speaker 4: So I just got really lucky.
Speaker 2: Connie, you did, you totally did. That's uh, I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's that's the open.
Speaker 3: That's more than luck, even though luck is full absolutely
Speaker 3: a part.
Speaker 2: Of all this, but that's that's just meant to be.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I agree with you. Luck is a
Speaker 4: is a big part of it. You know, everyone says
Speaker 4: you got to get your foot in the door, but
Speaker 4: your talent keeps you in the room.
Speaker 2: You were also ready for exactly right, Yes I was.
Speaker 4: And you know what if if? That? By the way,
Speaker 4: that little homemade demo that I said the case is
Speaker 4: also on my website. I have every tape of every
Speaker 4: class of everything I've ever done. I'm avoiding a recorder.
Speaker 2: I am too. Every time I move it costs me
Speaker 2: a ton just to move these tapes and stuff.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to digitize everything. Yes, just you know, I've
Speaker 4: got real I've got real to real demo. It's Connie
Speaker 4: from that.
Speaker 2: I do too. I do too.
Speaker 3: I've got even video that's like D two and into
Speaker 3: and what are these?
Speaker 2: I got that too.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: I don't know how it's gonna happen, where I can
Speaker 3: put on the cloud or something. But you know, nowadays,
Speaker 3: all the work that we've got piled up, we can
Speaker 3: put that up, you know, on cloud or some tiny
Speaker 3: little piece.
Speaker 2: But right now it's taken up, like I have a
Speaker 2: whole story room full of it.
Speaker 4: I also have every script I've ever done, which is
Speaker 4: really kind of cool.
Speaker 3: That is cool, That is cool. I might have lost
Speaker 3: mine or all along the way, but I got some
Speaker 3: of it. But tell me, so, tell me about that. Okay,
Speaker 3: So every dream, at least for me. But I know
Speaker 3: everybody else I knew on radio or TV, especially radio,
Speaker 3: they've always wanted to do an animated voice. Now I
Speaker 3: always thought, well, there's no way I can do one
Speaker 3: of those characters. Heck, I didn't even know if I
Speaker 3: could even do radio or TV or film because I
Speaker 3: had a speech impediment all my life. I also when
Speaker 3: it came to the cameras, I had like a congenerally
Speaker 3: missing tooth, and so you know they were spread apart.
Speaker 3: You know, you start getting all this toothwork, you know, teethwork,
Speaker 3: toothwork done. I did have more than one. You have
Speaker 3: this teeth work done, you have. You start learning how
Speaker 3: to get rid of your speech impediment. You go to
Speaker 3: college and I took a performance class and they said, okay,
Speaker 3: all of you Kentuckians here, we're not going to say
Speaker 3: I like ah anymore. You're going to say I, you're
Speaker 3: gonna sound like a midwestern You're Midwesterner. You're not going
Speaker 3: to say you You'll You're going to say you guys.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know who determined that Midwesterners was
Speaker 3: a way to go, but that's how you were going
Speaker 3: to get work. So you start training and all that,
Speaker 3: and that's enough for me. But you you got to
Speaker 3: learn like these little funky, crazy little characters that people
Speaker 3: somebody created in their mind, and even you can create
Speaker 3: some in your mind, but go beyond that, which is huge,
Speaker 3: and make it consistent and remember the syllables and how
Speaker 3: you end and start a sentence with this new creation
Speaker 3: that you've put together of this little character. But I
Speaker 3: think at least going on top of that imitating somebody
Speaker 3: else's creation like a porky pig and nailing that, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: How do you do that?
Speaker 4: I will tell you that, you know, the majority of
Speaker 4: what I do is creating new uh loney tunes. Porky
Speaker 4: Pig is, you know, just a fraction of my career.
Speaker 4: Most days I'm auditioning for something new, or I'm recording
Speaker 4: something new. So the so.
Speaker 2: You create it yourself.
Speaker 3: When you go on for an audition, they say, hey,
Speaker 3: let's play and see what you can do for us.
Speaker 4: Pretty much, so you get nice. You get the script.
Speaker 4: There's a picture, there's a description, and there's dialogue. And
Speaker 4: my job is to look at all that and create
Speaker 4: a character. And I do the same things I do
Speaker 4: with a cartoon that an on camera or a stage
Speaker 4: actor would do for an original character for a play
Speaker 4: or a movie.
Speaker 1: You look at the.
Speaker 4: First line, who am I talking to? What's my relationship?
Speaker 4: Where are we? But I have to do everything with
Speaker 4: my voice. Now, you still use your body. You know,
Speaker 4: you use your body.
Speaker 2: For emphasis a lot.
Speaker 4: With your arms to your side, you're just talking. But
Speaker 4: if you were to film. When I would take my
Speaker 4: students to a voiceover session a cartoon session I was doing,
Speaker 4: I would tell the engineer turn the sound down, and guys,
Speaker 4: watch the actors. You can tell what they're playing by
Speaker 4: their body language. Also, the microphone. When you're performing cartoons,
Speaker 4: the microphone is the ear of your scene partner. Where
Speaker 4: you are on mic from line to line, from seeing
Speaker 4: the scene corresponds with where the characters are within the scene. Now,
Speaker 4: eighty percent of doing all this, eighty percent of animation
Speaker 4: is in the imagination. You see it in your head
Speaker 4: and you vocally perform it. If it's an audition, you're
Speaker 4: by yourself in your home studio. There's nobody there to
Speaker 4: direct you. But there's nobody there to tell you what
Speaker 4: to do. There's also nobody there to tell you what
Speaker 4: not to do. The only limitation you have is yourself.
Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
Speaker 1: one am Eastern and go to Coast to coastam dot
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