- I've been doing voices as long as I can remember. When I was little, I could pick up on sounds and then I discovered you could distort what you hear and make people laugh or disrupt a class.
- I was voted by my high-school senior class as most likely to recede.
- I like looking at the characters. Seeing them always brings up some voice or attitude. I am much more visual, and that works so much better than having someone tell me what the character is all about.
- I have worked alone and with a cast and enjoy the process both ways. There is more back-and-forth with a full cast, and you can feed off the other actors' performance.
- Normally, I play dads, good guys and little animals.
- I have this peculiar ability to be able to anticipate mouth movements on screen and fill them with words or sound.
- One thing that seems to surprise the studios is finding out later my willingness to audition. Under the right circumstances, I actually enjoy it very much.
- [his views on education in children's programming] Education has its place on television but kids, like adults should have entertainment. Children should go to school all week, get their lessons from their parents, watch PBS and Big Bird and learn how to add and then turn over and watch Fall-Apart Rabbit's head fall off.
- [his views on cartoon violence] I'm not sure that children's television is where we stop violence in America. I think gratuitous violence in any form is unnecessary. But when characters smack each other with pillow and powder puffs, I'm just not really convinced that that is harmful. But I make noises - I'm not a psychologist.
- [on Transformers] I think for me, Megatron, for obvious reasons, is my favorite, followed closely by Soundwave.
- Early in my life, I probably abused my voice more than I should have. It is an instrument. You need to take care of yourself. If you have a session the next day, go to bed early, do vocal warm-ups on the way to the studio, that's just about all you can do.
- When you have a cast, you kind of play off each other. You can build ... almost like a play, because obviously you read it as a play, so you have this nice interaction. When we did the Transformers series, standing next to Peter Cullen was always a benefit because you really get into it. You're going hand-to-hand, but physically, you get the feeling of that person being there.
- [on Scooby-Doo] In our business to have a show that goes 50 years, let alone to be part of that in the entertainment business, is kind of unheard of. So I feel lucky.
- If you get any of the Transformers films on the Blu-ray version, which I just did; I finished my house and made a little theater in there with all my sound equipment. When you use the Blu-ray, Peter Cullen will actually take the dust off your wall and the paint begins to crack. That's the kind of voice this guy has. The color and the sound, oh my gosh.
- On the Scooby gang: The audience sees what they want with the characters, and that's always good. You want your audience being involved! But I think the simple formula and the clean characters tends to resonate the most. I think we on the creative side tend to want to get a little rambunctious and make sure we keep their interest by doing new things and changing this or that. But as long as the group is basically the same, each generation can relate to it.
- [About Fred Jones in the Scooby-Doo series] Fred was the only one who had a license, so I drove the Mystery Machine, right? As long as nobody took the van away from me, that gave me four-wheel power.
- I'm kind of a comedian goofball, so it was a little bit hard being restricted, but I was just happy to be a part of the gang. And, of course, being the leader! Joseph Barbera would tell me that Fred's the leader of the gang, and I would say, 'I guess you're right.'"
- Joseph Barbera said that Fred Jones (in Scooby-Doo) was the all-American hero type and that I should just do my own voice. I was like, 'I never saw myself as the hero type, but OK!'"
- On succeeding Scooby-Doo's original voice actor Don Messick: "What Don did is that he allowed for this wonderful goofiness between Shaggy and Scooby: It was almost like he had a mouth full of marbles and a heart full of gold. My idea was to maintain that relationship, and also keep him honest, lovable and funny. When I saw it from the perspective of being respectful of Don and the audience, I went after it enthusiastically. I always visualize Don's face when he was doing Scooby - he really was that dog. Any part of that I can keep is important."
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