EDITOR’S NOTE: The life of a character voice actor is rarely dull because one is often playing other people. Sometimes more than on “people” in the same day.
For MVO: The Voice-Over Guys’ multi-talented ROWELL GORMON (he’s the guy in the black hat being hugged by Oscar The Grouch with the legendary puppeteer Carroll Spinney (aka Big Bird) standing in the background), he’s been doing character voices (and also just “versions” of Rowell in commercials, movies and animations for many years.
His stories are as legendary as his voice-over characters. He’s too humble to tell you just how much amazing voice work he’s done (but we’re not!). He’s just a quick sample of some of the cool work Rowell has done.
It’s difficult to cite my Most Unusual Voice Job, since I’m not “usually” cast as the type of voice you “usually” hear, even when it’s a straight-ahead script.
I’ve been a grouchy germ in an employee training video, complaining about all the things Sonic Restaurants do to keep their place clean. I was a world-weary seaman narrating a series of animatic pitches to the U.S. Navy for disney i.d.e.a.s. I voiced several jubilant “toes” for a New Balance radio spot…did an old coot chicken farmer in a series of animated TV ads for Taco John’s (even sang the jingle in one of them).
There was that crazy Ludwig von Drake-style professor I did in a narration for IBM…and the “real person” old widower character I did for a Hospice radio spot that nearly got all of us in the session a little “misty”. I am even the voice of “The House” in an audio tour of the Vanderbilt Family’s summer mansion, “The Breakers” in Newport, Rhode Island.
Ironically, the most unusual job of my career so far had little to do with my voice/voices: serving, literally, as a “hired hand” on two movies with Jim Henson’s Muppets. The company was using the Wilmington, NC movie studios, and put out a call for regional puppeteers to help with crowd scenes and other work. My previous stint as a puppeteer on a local TV kiddie show had prepared me for the Muppet style of working with a video monitor, and I made the cut with an audition using one of the six puppet characters I performed and voiced on that program.
We didn’t get a lot to do (we nick-named ourselves “The C-Stand Puppeteers”), but were always welcome on set, had our own trailers and everything. On “Elmo in Grouchland”, my visiting daughter was more impressed with meeting “Maria” than what Daddy was doing. Most of us were invited back for “Muppets From Space” the next year with Kermit & Company. Of course, except for any surviving “crowd walla”, anything we said or sang with our assigned muppets was later overdubbed by the Henson pros.
It’s not everyone who can claim they were a voice on the cutting room floor. But, as the Frog is fond of saying: “What the hey….”