When it comes to the kind of subjects I get it into my fool head to interview, they generally tend to be choices that your average celeb-chaser would blink twice at and then move on, with little comprehension of the fascinating people and careers that exist outside of names like Pitt, Gibson, Cruise, or Hilton.<\/p>\n

A few years back, I decided to begin interviewing cartoon voice actors. Spurred on by a love of animation and a deep respect for the often unsung actors who bring characters like Homer, Spongebob, Bugs Bunny, Ludwig Von Drake, Fry, Tigger, Huckleberry Hound (the list could go on, and on, and on), and many more to life, I set about doing in-depth interviews with as many voice actors (who would a) grant the request and b) not hang up) as possible.<\/p>\n

Due to various delays and scheduling snafus, many of these in-depth pieces have sat on the proverbial shelf for the past few years, but are finally being presented here at Quick Stop.<\/p>\n

The first interview from the vaults is with an amazingly gifted voice actor who an entire generation is familiar with as one half of Pinky & The Brain<\/em> (the big-headed, world dominance craving Brain half), Maurice LaMarche. Suffice it to say, he’s had a fascinating and varied career, and I’d much rather leave it to the interview, and his own words, to tell you more…<\/p>\n

——————————————————————-<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Nice to speak with you. I wanted to do this from the pool of my Beverly Hills mansion, but I realized I don’t have one.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m gonna have to settle for parking on a side street in Beverly Hills and pulling out a Cuban cigar.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 I wonder if there are talent pools for voice actors, and I hope to find one.<\/p>\n

KP: So you would you prefer Maurice, Mr. LaMarche, or just Sir?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I was not farm raised or grain fed, but yes, I was raised in Toronto.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, I started life in Toronto and then immediately, almost like right out of the maternity ward, we moved to a little town called Timmins, Ontario, which is where Shania Twain is from.<\/p>\n

KP: There’s sort of a time warp aspect to the more rural areas of Canada.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes, but I left when I was four so it was still the hippest place going as far as I was concerned.\u00c2\u00a0 Except for the 25 degree below zero days in May.\u00c2\u00a0 But other than that, it was all I knew. But it did give me the hardy texture I have today in terms of dealing with cold and all… I mean, I still go out in shirt sleeves in, you know, 40 degree weather out here, and people marvel at it.\u00c2\u00a0 My blood was thickened at an early age.<\/p>\n

KP: What were the cultural aspects that you were exposed to at that time?\u00c2\u00a0 Canada at that time is a weird sort of cultural prism, and the elements weren’t exactly what we here in the U.S. would have had.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It’s a bit of a bubble, I’d have to say, culturally.\u00c2\u00a0 I think a lot of staying in. The most important thing to do when you were a kid in Canada was to somehow get home from school without freezing to death, and going right inside and watching afternoon television.\u00c2\u00a0 So you always got a healthy dose of Star Trek<\/em> and Batman<\/em> and the Commander Tom<\/em> show, which was a local cartoon host show.\u00c2\u00a0 Lots of butter tarts, which are this gooey, very fattening food which are needed to put a layer of blubber on most of us so that we can withstand the cold.\u00c2\u00a0 A lot of pain, a lot of tourtiere, which is a French Canadian meat pie.\u00c2\u00a0 Just warm, fatty comfort foods, you know, once you get in the door.\u00c2\u00a0 And a lot of Hockey Night in Canada<\/em>, which was very difficult for me, because I’m the only heterosexual Canadian male born without the hockey gene.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> There are flaming drag queens in Canada that care more about hockey than I do. And I don’t know how the hell that happened because my father palled around with the Mahovlich brothers and Al Arbor in his childhood.\u00c2\u00a0 He was from Timmins, and that’s where they’re all from, and if it wasn’t for his height, he actually might have made at least the farm teams. He was very talented as a hockey player and a natural athlete, and could skate rings around people.\u00c2\u00a0 It was actually fascinating to watch.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I just didn’t care.\u00c2\u00a0 It just didn’t register.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t appear as a blip on my radar.\u00c2\u00a0 It was none of my business.\u00c2\u00a0 The game going on at the Maple Leaf Gardens was no more my business than the fight my neighbors five doors down were having.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It is, absolutely, and I was ostracized.\u00c2\u00a0 Even from my father.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 He couldn’t figure me out.\u00c2\u00a0 He thought it was blasphemy that here I was this French Canadian kid and I didn’t care about hockey.<\/p>\n

KP: I can’t imagine how you would try and relate to the other kids then.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 So hence I went into my own little world of cartoons and sixties television. There was a show on local TV there called Tiny Talent Time<\/em>, and much like Bobby from King of the Hill<\/em>, I remember going to my parents and telling them I wanted to go on Tiny Talent Time<\/em>, and be a comedian.\u00c2\u00a0 And all they had was kids from the age of four to eleven doing their talent. It was a really cheesy show.\u00c2\u00a0 And I remember my grandmother said, “You wanna be a what?\u00c2\u00a0 A comedian? Oh, I can’t imagine anything so frickin’ ridiculous.”<\/p>\n

KP: So not only did you lack the hockey gene, but you wanted to be an entertainer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes. Now, my family were all natural entertainers.\u00c2\u00a0 My grandfather on my mother’s side was a master mimic.\u00c2\u00a0 He wasn’t professional, but he was well known in his group of friends for his impressions of Maurice Chevalier and Adolph Hitler.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, you’ve got to realize this was pre-holocaust in the war.\u00c2\u00a0 He was just sort of this mean guy in Germany.\u00c2\u00a0 After the Nuremburg Trials the true horror of what he had done really began to spread through the world, but before that, he was just looked at as this aggressive SOB over in Europe and it was really none of anybody’s business.\u00c2\u00a0 So my grandfather did a great Hitler, a great Maurice Chevalier.\u00c2\u00a0 And my mother also could mimic any one of her friends.\u00c2\u00a0 She didn’t do famous people, but she would relate stories of conversations she’d had with her friends, and play all the friends in the conversation. You knew exactly who was talking, and four people were talking in this story. She kept it very, very distinct and separate and spoke in their voices, and she was a wonderful storyteller and joke teller.\u00c2\u00a0 My father had a very sardonic sort of sense of humor and just ridiculed everything.\u00c2\u00a0 So the two of them… my father couldn’t tell a joke to save his life, but my father denied the two main rules of comedy – which is brevity is the soul of wit and… well, this is more of an anti-rule – the joke is always about somebody else. It’s always about two Jews walk into a bar.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t say, “I happened to walk into a tavern with two men of the Judaic faith.” My father would always cast himself as a character in the joke, completely ruining it.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, God rest his soul, but I don’t know…<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Absolutely.\u00c2\u00a0 But let somebody cut him off on the freeway, and my father could launch into a string of expletives – understated expletives – sarcastic, cutting references to the person that would have you on the floor laughing.\u00c2\u00a0 So my father was unintentionally funny whenever he tapped into his anger.\u00c2\u00a0 My mother, wonderful raconteur and mimic… and these two things missed me entirely.\u00c2\u00a0 No, I guess they sort of came together in me and formed whatever sense of humor and comedy that I have.<\/p>\n

$\"mo-02.jpg\"$ QS: Did you get a sense at that point that the mimicry ability and humor was not something that everyone had?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes. I felt like I’d escaped from the bottled city of Kandor.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes indeed.\u00c2\u00a0 And coming here, it’s like going back into the bottled city of Kandor because I meet people like Billy West and Jim Cummings and Jess Harnell and Jeff Glen Bennett, and… who else am I leaving off the list that I think is absolutely brilliant?\u00c2\u00a0 Rob Paulsen, of course.\u00c2\u00a0 A whole passel of people that can do what I do.\u00c2\u00a0 So it’s like Brainiac beamed me back in the bottle where I’m with all these other people with super powers.\u00c2\u00a0 So I’m just sort of ordinary here.\u00c2\u00a0 But yeah, it made me stand out, and I guess people didn’t quite know what to make of me.\u00c2\u00a0 I was sent to school psychologists because I wouldn’t stop doing these voices and acting out these cartoons and playing all the characters.<\/p>\n

KP: Was it an inclusive thing, where you were the class clown, or did you create your own little world and it was an “everyone else be damned” kinda thing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> In earlier life, absolutely it was my own little world. Only in my junior year in high school did I learn to harness my powers for good instead of evil.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, I learned to turn it outwards.\u00c2\u00a0 The turning point for me was 10th grade and the high school variety show.\u00c2\u00a0 I was schticking around in the cafeteria with a couple of the seniors, and they said, “He’d be great.”\u00c2\u00a0 This one guy, Harry Van Bommel turns to Steve Barton – I know you know these guys, so that’s why I’m telling you – and said, “He’d be great in the variety night.”\u00c2\u00a0 Steve Barton said, “Yeah.”\u00c2\u00a0 I said, “But what would I do?\u00c2\u00a0 All I’m doing with you guys is just floating lines from television shows.” And Steve Barton said, “Don’t worry, I’ll write you an act.”\u00c2\u00a0 So he wrote a little three minute long standup, “celebrities as waiters.”\u00c2\u00a0 And I actually used that bit.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean obviously I refined it, tweaked it, but I used that bit up until the very last day I did standup.\u00c2\u00a0 It remained a cornerstone of my act.\u00c2\u00a0 And lo and behold, I got a standing ovation at the variety night, and everything changed.\u00c2\u00a0 The next day I came to school, I was no longer the outcast.\u00c2\u00a0 I was a hero, people were treating me special and nice as though somehow or other this thing that I’ve always been able to do, that got me ridiculed, was now something to be admired.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a bit heady.\u00c2\u00a0 I imagine at an early, early age… it’s like those athletes that peak in high school.\u00c2\u00a0 I had, like, this degree of celebrity within the microcosm of my school, and it kind of sent me into a bit of a headspin kinda space.<\/p>\n

KP: Were you able to accept and enjoy it, or was it something you were suspicious of?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, I accepted and enjoyed it a little too much and began to think a little too much of myself.\u00c2\u00a0 But I quickly snapped out of that when I entered the real world.\u00c2\u00a0 I took my little high school act down to New York and open mic night at the Improv when I was… how old was I when I did that?\u00c2\u00a0 I was 18.\u00c2\u00a0 And when they didn’t ask me immediately to become a regular and move down to New York and – quite the opposite – they just totally ignored me…<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> That would be the summer of 1977.\u00c2\u00a0 So I’m mistaken – I had just turned 19.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: That period was quite a heady time within the comic community.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes it was.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe the best thing I could have done was to actually move down to New York at that time, but when I walked past Silver Friedman and she… you know, I didn’t make a blip on her radar, and she said, “Well, come back next month I guess.” I went back to Toronto with my tail between my legs.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’d gotten my first taste.<\/p>\n

KP: Was there a sense, growing up in Canada, that entertainment originated outside the country?\u00c2\u00a0 That you had to go elsewhere?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, we had our own entertainers.\u00c2\u00a0 They weren’t very entertaining, but they were there. Actually, there were some very good people.\u00c2\u00a0 Second City was getting going then.\u00c2\u00a0 And I think because of developing in the bubble, it developed its own kind of humor.\u00c2\u00a0 Very self-deprecating, much along the lines of the Canadian national character at the time.\u00c2\u00a0 References upon references, somewhat unstructured.\u00c2\u00a0 Not Pythonesque, but almost.<\/p>\n

KP: Well, the comedy kinda combined the best aspects of both British and American humor, didn’t it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I think so.\u00c2\u00a0 But again, I think in both cases, neither of those styles is as culturally referential as, say, some of the stuff Second City did… for instance, that Fantasy Island<\/em> routine that became a Bob Hope routine.\u00c2\u00a0 Just constantly going inside itself.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that was uniquely Canadian.\u00c2\u00a0 Other than that it’s really hard to nail down what Canadian humor is.<\/p>\n

KP: It’s almost comedy in search of an identify, isn’t it? <\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, but it’s finding itself.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s finding itself. The Kids in the Hall, and Second City of course, and now all those guys are becoming the grand old men of comedy.\u00c2\u00a0 The new Burroughs.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> You were actually shunned if you did that.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember… let me think here.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, here it was.\u00c2\u00a0 I was watching Jeopardy<\/em> last night in the restaurant – it was the high school edition of Jeopardy<\/em> – and I turned to the person I was with and I said, “Look at this.\u00c2\u00a0 Alex Trebek has come full circle.”\u00c2\u00a0 And the person, being American, had no idea what I was talking about, so I explained that when I first started out, I had a little job at a TV station in Toronto when Alex Trebek was doing Reach for the Top<\/em>, which was a high school student quiz show.\u00c2\u00a0 And I, at the time, had just landed my first job in show business, which was hosting a local variety show. Kind of like Tiny Talent Time<\/em> except they feature high school students.\u00c2\u00a0 And me being just out of high school, they thought I’d be a good host for it.\u00c2\u00a0 So when I was negotiating my contract, I was getting a big $175 per episode.\u00c2\u00a0 And I remembered saying to my friend last night, at one point Alex Trebek and I were making the same money – because my producer of this show explained to me that that’s what Trebek gets for Reach for the Top<\/em>: $175.\u00c2\u00a0 And when Alex Trebek came down to California to host High Rollers<\/em>, everybody at that local station turned their noses up at him as though he’d sold out to the great American entertainment Satan.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It wasn’t about the $175, it was about the fact that he was doing a high level quiz show for high school students, and that that should be his calling in life, and that this should be okay.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, that he should be satisfied with that.\u00c2\u00a0 I guess there’s the sense of, in Canada, “Who do you think you are to go beyond the ceiling?”\u00c2\u00a0 This is actually part of the reason I hate socialism and why I’m not living there today, amongst other factors, the prime of which is that I’d never want to put my back out shoveling another friggin’ driveway.\u00c2\u00a0 But the idea that there’s this cap and it’s actually this ceiling that’s actually quite low that you should never try to break out of, otherwise everybody looks at you saying, “Who the hell do you think you are to try to be better than the rest of us?”\u00c2\u00a0 It’s dangerous.\u00c2\u00a0 And I absolutely heard at least three people talk about Trebek that way.\u00c2\u00a0 That he…<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Absolutely. And why should anybody try to… don’t rock the boat, we’re all getting our health care taken care of, it’s free… Of course it’s not free. It comes from the astronomical taxes that the Canadians pay, but they all think their health care’s free.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, 66% of their money’s going away.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the free health care.<\/p>\n

KP: Ironic that the show they shunned him for leaving was called Reach for the Top<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 It should have been called Reach for the Middle<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 No, they wanted him to return to Reach for the Top<\/em>, and you know what, to Trebek’s credit, he actually came back and did Reach for the Top<\/em> for the same $175 for another season while they were paying him $10,000 a week down in the states to host the first season of High Rollers<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 He still came back. He felt a moral duty and a sense of purpose that he was quizzing high school students and keeping the bar high in terms of educational standards.\u00c2\u00a0 Finally though he said it’s just not worth coming back to Toronto to do this.\u00c2\u00a0 I assume.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh yes, absolutely.\u00c2\u00a0 When I left and made the attempt to better myself, the comedians at the comedy club, two or three of them wished me well, but most of them told me how tough it would be and why are you going there, you’ve got a good thing going here, you’re a big fish in a small pond here, stay in the small pond.\u00c2\u00a0 I just didn’t see it that way.\u00c2\u00a0 I saw it as my job to make the best of my lot in life.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got this talent and let’s see what I can do with it.\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s take it all the way.\u00c2\u00a0 Now a few things… I had a few bumps in the road and I did retire from standup… retire… I left standup after my dad was murdered, but… this isn’t a very linear interview, is it?<\/p>\n

KP: No, they never are, and that’s usually for the best. <\/strong><\/p>\n

KP: I’m not gonna limit the conversation is what I’m saying.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Okay.\u00c2\u00a0 But as I said, there were a few bumps in the road, and… but my point is I still saw the States as that old clich\u00c3\u00a9, the land of opportunity.\u00c2\u00a0 You can become anything you want to be here.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why I still love this country.<\/p>\n

KP: When you’re actively making that decision, how difficult… you talk about your first foray down to the Improv.\u00c2\u00a0 That didn’t go as you had hoped, and when you returned, does it harden you and make you even more resolved to go back, or is it something that turned you off for the immediate future?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, no. I absolutely wanted to come back and try and do better.\u00c2\u00a0 I actually had a little anxiety attack when I got back from Toronto, which manifested in my chest so everybody thought I’d had a heart attack, and I actually went to the hospital.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course with the free health care… free health care that my parents’ taxes were paying for, I stayed in the hospital for three weeks for observation.\u00c2\u00a0 For having chest pains at 19 years old.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, because why not?\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got all this money to spend on health care.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I’m not trying to hit you over the head with it or anything.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: What were you thinking, laying there for three weeks under observation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I was thinking I wish I’d just belched and gotten the damn gas out of my chest or whatever the hell it was.\u00c2\u00a0 No, actually, what I was thinking truthfully was, “Oh my god there’s something horribly wrong with me.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at all this attention I’m getting!\u00c2\u00a0 Hey, maybe I can parlay this into getting laid.”\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what I was really thinking.<\/p>\n

KP: If you hadn’t had an anxiety attack, would you have thought about going back into the fold and saying, “I gotta get out of here…”?<\/strong><\/p>\n

$\"mo-03.jpg\"$ LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Actually, if I hadn’t had the anxiety attack, I probably would have told my mom and dad “I’m moving down to New York this week.”\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ve always regretted not moving to New York.\u00c2\u00a0 I came straight to Los Angeles three years later, and I always… afterwards, in retrospect, I thought it was a mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that a couple of years in New York would have made me a stronger comedian.\u00c2\u00a0 I think nobody… there’s an earthiness to New Yorkers that makes you funnier.\u00c2\u00a0 That gives you a bit more of an edge.\u00c2\u00a0 And I think by forestalling for three years, I got to L.A., you know, without much refinement.\u00c2\u00a0 And I think that would have been a baptism of fire that would have refined my comedy muscles a little more.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> My act?\u00c2\u00a0 They used to describe me, “He’s like Rich Little on speed.”\u00c2\u00a0 I used to do very rapid fire impressions.\u00c2\u00a0 My downfall as a comedian, or my shortcoming rather as a comedian, was that I never had great material.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t think I was clever enough to write great material, and I never really… apart from one really great writing session with a guy named Josh Goldstein who went on to create Fresh Prince<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 He wrote on Fresh Prince<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 He co-created the one that was on Saturday nights about the Kennedy era, American<\/em> something.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> American Dreams<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 He co-created American Dreams<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Anyway, Josh and I paired up for like two days and wrote about 10 strong minutes, but I had 30 minutes, so the 10 strong minutes in my act were from the Josh session, and the rest of it was just me kinda demo-ing my voices.\u00c2\u00a0 Sort of the high point of my career was I got to be on the 1985 HBO Young Comedians Special<\/em>, the 9th Annual Young Comedians Special<\/em>. And I watched it the other day, and I thought to myself, you know, I was about two years away from becoming really good, and probably about five years away from becoming great, because the problem with impressionists is we don’t say anything from the stage.\u00c2\u00a0 We just put on these little skits.\u00c2\u00a0 Putting celebrities in wacky jobs and weird situations and implying a homosexual relationship between two well-known characters.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, those little devices, but we don’t come from anywhere.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 And I think I was about five years away from figuring out that I could be the only impressionist that actually comes from somewhere. That has something to say. But you know, unfortunately in 1987 my dad’s best friend thought it would be a good idea to resolve a little argument they were having by shooting him in the chest, and I went into a tailspin of depression.\u00c2\u00a0 I began drinking and that became problematic.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, I was in therapy, but it’s tough to work through therapy when you come in smashed.\u00c2\u00a0 You absolutely must go through therapy sober.\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise it’s not gonna work. It’s like turning on the air conditioning and a space heater in the same room. You’re not gonna get anything.\u00c2\u00a0 So I eventually did get sober in 1989.\u00c2\u00a0 I stopped drinking on January 20th, 1989, and haven’t had a drink since.\u00c2\u00a0 By then I’d lost so much momentum, and I realized there were still Reagan jokes in my act.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just tough to get… after falling off the horse and staying off of it for a full two years, I just never quite got back on.<\/p>\n

KP: Can you define the spark that disappeared?\u00c2\u00a0 Was it your heart wasn’t in it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> In 1987 when my dad died, I remember thinking that I… this is the one thing… don’t forget, we got the hockey thing still hanging there.\u00c2\u00a0 The idea that my father was ashamed of me. And this was the one thing he was truly proud of me for, that I’d found my niche in life and I was doing this thing and I was doing it quite well.\u00c2\u00a0 In spite of my own critique of myself and my material.\u00c2\u00a0 I was opening… the outside world was treating me okay for it. I was the opening act for Rodney Dangerfield for a year and a half.\u00c2\u00a0 The Temptations and the Four Tops had me on the road with them.\u00c2\u00a0 I opened for George Carlin, David Sanborn, Donna Summer.\u00c2\u00a0 I was playing Las Vegas, Atlantic City.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh no. God no.\u00c2\u00a0 It was actually tough to split my time between this new career that I’d started, as sort of a part time job in voiceover work, and this full time schedule of traveling around the country opening for famous people, and doing quite well in front of them.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I was an extra.\u00c2\u00a0 I was just this little extra… you know, the appetizer for them.\u00c2\u00a0 But they got this 20 minutes of funny impressions and stuff like that.\u00c2\u00a0 But my father used to fly in from wherever he was in the world – and he was quite the world traveler, especially in his later years after he’d made money.\u00c2\u00a0 And he would surprise me, come in from Europe just to watch me in Las Vegas… because Las Vegas was sorta his town, you know.\u00c2\u00a0 So for him to see his boy’s name on the marquis in big letters at Caesar’s Palace -because Rodney was very generous with billing… He absolutely insisted on giving his opening act 50% billing, which are huge letters when you come right down to it.\u00c2\u00a0 That was just such a thrill for him, and it was the one thing I’d done that had made him proud. And when he died, I made a decision that it wasn’t worth making anybody laugh ever again if I wasn’t going to get to make him laugh and make him proud of me.\u00c2\u00a0 So I made a conscious decision to abandon this thing, because it would just be too painful to look out at the audience realizing that I’ll never see his Camel nonfilter cigarette burning in his hand in the third row, where I can just barely make out his silhouette.\u00c2\u00a0 So there was that. Then there was just the inevitable self-pity that came with being a drunk, and finally after being two years out of the game, just feeling as though I was out of touch with the scene, and that I didn’t know how I would ever be able to get on the bike again…<\/p>\n

KP: There’s a quote attributed to you that Sam Kinison said in a Rolling Stone<\/em> interview…<\/strong><\/p>\n

KP: That “You can make them laugh, but you can’t make them happy…”<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> When we were both doing standup.\u00c2\u00a0 We both had gotten quite smashed one night, and Sam was actually very sad.\u00c2\u00a0 He was actually in tears.\u00c2\u00a0 His girlfriend was consoling him because he was wondering about whether what we did meant anything.\u00c2\u00a0 And he said, “Maurice, we help people, don’t we?\u00c2\u00a0 We make ’em happy?”\u00c2\u00a0 And I said, “No Sam, we make them laugh but we can’t make them happy.”\u00c2\u00a0 He went, “Yeah, yeah,” and he kept balling because he really felt like his life was meaningless. (laughing)\u00c2\u00a0 Mr. Cheerful helping Sam out!\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s the reality.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a huge difference between fun and happiness.\u00c2\u00a0 Fun is momentary.\u00c2\u00a0 Fun happens in little short spurts and then it’s over.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: When you’d get up on stage as a comedian during that period, who were you getting up on stage for?\u00c2\u00a0 Yourself or others?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, that really became a turning point for me.\u00c2\u00a0 I realized I was doing it for myself. And the couple of attempts that I’d made at getting back into it, a good friend of mine, Mike Binder said – I don’t mean to drop names, but here… because Anthony Hopkins told me never to do that – but Mike Binder’s a very funny comedian… He created the series Mind of a Married Man<\/em>. He said, “Before you go up on stage, Mo, say a prayer to god that you’ll be of service to the audience. That you’ll be able to make the one guy laugh who was there because he’s had a rough day, rough week at the office or he’s got a sick child or something like that, and he really needs to get away from his problems, and you’ll bring a laugh to that guy.”\u00c2\u00a0 Because I actually made a very, very short lived attempt to get back into standup in 1990. And tragically enough – and I’m not saying these two things coincide – my little sister was killed in a car accident in September of 1990 at the age of 18 and I just, you know… at that point I just threw up my hands and went, “Oh, that’s it.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t have any funny left in me.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m done.”\u00c2\u00a0 But in that little period there where I tried to come back to it, that stayed with me, and of course when one recovers from alcoholism one has to live one’s life on a more spiritual basis, so I tried to adapt that, and I did fine. It was a better feeling getting up on stage, praying that prayer, “God, help me bring a laugh to somebody who really needs one today.”\u00c2\u00a0 It definitely… there was a turnaround there and it felt better.<\/p>\n

KP: But prior to that, would you say you were doing it more along the lines of sort of a lingering feeling of how you felt in high school when you first got that big rush?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, it was absolutely all about me.\u00c2\u00a0 Mm-hmm.\u00c2\u00a0 No question.<\/p>\n

KP: If you were to look at your plans in the mid 80s, where did you see yourself going and what aspirations did you have?\u00c2\u00a0 Because obviously that was during the comedy boom as well, and you – as you said – were doing quite well touring and opening for major acts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh sure. And you know, doing the Young Comedians<\/em> special was the entr\u00c3\u00a9 to sitcom-dom and… I mean, if you look at the special I did, six of the nine comedians on there became anything from household names to just extremely well-liked and well-established comedians.\u00c2\u00a0 There were only three of us… one of the others that became a household name became a successful comedy writer, and I don’t know what happened to one other guy. And me.\u00c2\u00a0 I do know what happened to me, but nobody else does.<\/p>\n

KP: Was the ultimate goal at that time to get into Hollywood?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Get the sitcom. That was absolutely what it was about, was to get the sitcom. I absolutely saw myself… and by the way, so did the William Morris agency at the time.\u00c2\u00a0 We had a meeting and they said, “You know, we see you” – and don’t forget, this was pre-Batman<\/em> and pre-Castaway<\/em> or Philadelphia<\/em> – they said, “We see you in kind of a Tom Hanks\/Michael Keaton mold. A sort of comedic leading man.”\u00c2\u00a0 At the time I was slim and good looking and had decent enough timing, and they were sending me out on feature film auditions, and I came very close on a couple of things.\u00c2\u00a0 The biggest thing I didn’t get was Moonlighting<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 I was actually I think their third choice for Moonlighting<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 I got four callbacks for Moonlighting<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 But, of course, the right guy got the job.\u00c2\u00a0 They were seeing me that way.\u00c2\u00a0 And that was absolutely the plan. That was what was supposed to happen. And perhaps in some alternate universe where we occupy the same time but different space or the same space and time and a different vibration, maybe there’s a Maurice LaMarche and the show’s called Everybody Loves Mo<\/em> instead of Everybody Loves Raymond<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t know.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> (laughing) Yeah, and this guy Bruno is still waiting tables in New York.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t think so.<\/p>\n

KP: When you look at that period and the aspirations, how close did you feel that you were coming to attaining that?\u00c2\u00a0 Was it palpable to you, and were you feeling good about how close you were, or was there still some kind of sense that this might be illusory?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, I absolutely… I felt really close to it. I felt unworthy of it because I thought I hadn’t done enough training – neither did my manager at the time, and certainly not my wife at the time, or my girlfriend who then became my wife.\u00c2\u00a0 She also felt that I should be in class all the time.\u00c2\u00a0 A real actor’s in class anytime you’re not working.\u00c2\u00a0 She was in Milton Katselas’s class – who, you know, everybody in the class was like a major star who kept their chops up while not working, and I had this sort of seat of the pants laissez-faire kind of approach of, you know, “I’ll get my marks, read my lines and I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”\u00c2\u00a0 To a degree I still work that way.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s only because any time I really prepare for anything, it doesn’t work out. It sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 So I just kind of… I kind of go with the flow even now.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t look at the sides for The Brain until I got in the studio.\u00c2\u00a0 I looked at his picture, thought “Orson Welles,” opened my mouth, and out came the voice. And apparently, I was the first and last guy they saw for The Brain.\u00c2\u00a0 The auditions started at 9 a.m.\u00c2\u00a0 I was the 9 a.m. slot, and Andrea Romano, the director, told me later on that, “We just stopped looking.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody else read Brain after you did.”\u00c2\u00a0 They just concentrated on finding Pinky.\u00c2\u00a0 So sometimes that seat-of-the-pants thing serves me well.\u00c2\u00a0 But I guess in the big time world of live action, I was on a path for something that I ultimately didn’t deserve and ultimately didn’t get.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps if I had started working harder again, the fork in the road, the decision to quit after my dad’s killing and of course the decision to take up drinking as my personal national pastime, had not occurred, maybe things might have been different.\u00c2\u00a0 But they aren’t, and there’s no point in what if-ing ourselves to death.\u00c2\u00a0 “So what, now what?” is the watchword of the day.<\/p>\n

KP: Who were the people you were closest to and would commiserate with about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, Kinison was a dear friend.\u00c2\u00a0 I was friends with Jim Carrey.\u00c2\u00a0 Jim actually stayed on my couch the first three days he came out to L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 Howie Mandell was actually the guy who originally talked me into moving out here.\u00c2\u00a0 He was sort of a trailblazer, and the reason I know that the attitude about me moving out was that “Who do you think you are” kind of thing, was because that’s what we all said about him when he came down to L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 “Who the hell does he think he is?”<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I was innocent in the sense that I stood by and listened and didn’t say anything, but I admired what Howie was doing. And I think once or twice I may even have said, “Hey, come on, the guy’s taking his shot.”\u00c2\u00a0 Rocky<\/em> was the movie at the time, so it became sort of a cultural theme of the underdog getting a shot at the title.\u00c2\u00a0 And I remember once or twice stepping up to the plate and saying, “You know, lay off him. He’s trying it and he’s doing it. You’re just jealous.”\u00c2\u00a0 A bunch of the guys were like, “Ah, he’s gonna get his ass handed to him. That’s the big time.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t belong there.”\u00c2\u00a0 So after a year down here Howie called me up and said, “Mo, Mo, Mo!\u00c2\u00a0 No wait!\u00c2\u00a0 Mo, you gotta come down!\u00c2\u00a0 Whoa!\u00c2\u00a0 Wait! Mo!\u00c2\u00a0 What?\u00c2\u00a0 What?\u00c2\u00a0 No!”<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Nowhere near.\u00c2\u00a0 Nowhere near. He’s truly… in fact, his germphobia is so bad I caught it from him.\u00c2\u00a0 I now Purell my hands constantly, wash my hands after I touch soap that other people have touched – I have to wash my hands.<\/p>\n

KP: Or is that just a function of living in LA long enough?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I don’t touch doorknobs.\u00c2\u00a0 I use my sleeves.\u00c2\u00a0 I use paper towels… I mean, I’m not Monk, but I do have certain OCD traits, I have to say.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Exactly.\u00c2\u00a0 “Is this sock new? Is it a new wind sock?”<\/p>\n

KP: How would you compare the community of comics with the community of voice actors?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, let me just say this as a compliment to voice actors – they’re the least egotistical group of people you’ll ever meet in your life.\u00c2\u00a0 For performers, there’s virtually no ego, if you consider it’s performers.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ll all be on auditions and we’ll not only wish each other well, but actually say, “You know what, you’re more right for this than me.”\u00c2\u00a0 We’ll recommend our friends for jobs.\u00c2\u00a0 If I know that somebody else does a better impression of Richard Nixon, I’ll say, “You know, you really need to get Billy West.\u00c2\u00a0 His Nixon is flawless, man.\u00c2\u00a0 Unbelievable.”\u00c2\u00a0 Or Jeff Bennett with his Christopher Walken.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve done that. And I know others have done it for me.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s nothing to have an ego about because your face isn’t associated with it.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, we’re very protective over our faces.\u00c2\u00a0 Our faces are our identities.\u00c2\u00a0 So since we’re faceless, we’re also egoless.<\/p>\n

KP: Do you think it’s also a matter of you know casting directors will cast until they find the right voice, so there’s really nothing that you’re fighting over?\u00c2\u00a0 That it’s all going to come down to what their decision is?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> That’s true for on-camera people, too.\u00c2\u00a0 At least at the scale level.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe when it comes down to big stars it becomes who your manager is and what deals can be made, what packaging can be done. But you know, my ex-wife has a terrible story about being deliberately tripped in an audition when she and another actress were going up for the same commercial. It was a two shot, and she knew the other actress had tripped her.\u00c2\u00a0 Not to mention constantly upstaging other actors.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, there’s little shitty things that actors and especially actresses do to each other to take the focus away from you and put it on themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 Voice actors don’t do that.\u00c2\u00a0 We help each other out. It’s the Second City rule of comedy – make yourself look good by making the other person look good.<\/p>\n

KP: Do you think that sense of camaraderie is because the voice acting community is really a very small community?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It’s not small enough, actually, Ken. I’ve got to tell you, I’m thinking of shrinking it a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 No, I’m kidding. It used to be a lot smaller. I mean, literally it used to be you could count on all your digits the number of people working in voiceover back in the 50s and 60s. And it would be the same voices.\u00c2\u00a0 Paul Frees, Daws Butler, Mel Blanc, Herschel Bernardi, and June Foray doing all the women, and that would be it.\u00c2\u00a0 And you know, these people all made staggering amounts of money because all the work just came to them.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s still a relatively small community and it’s a well thought-of community.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s truly about the work.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about what comes out of that little area beneath your nose, which stops at your chest bone there. Your… what is that, your sternum?\u00c2\u00a0 The top of your chest?<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> There we go.\u00c2\u00a0 Quoted smoothly though.\u00c2\u00a0 It comes from the bottom of your nose and ends at the top of your sternum.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what it’s all about.<\/p>\n

KP: The community being still relatively as small as it is, have you noticed within the last couple years an increase in competitiveness for roles within it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No.\u00c2\u00a0 No, I don’t think so.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: Or is there an aggravation factor with the encroachment of the…<\/strong><\/p>\n

KP: Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 Billy’s campaign and soon to be manifesto, I hear.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Ha!\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Well, they cast the wrong guy in the movie Conspiracy Theory<\/em>, let me tell you. That’s all I’ll say.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> God bless Billy.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, there’s nothing to do about it except wait for it to pass as a trend.\u00c2\u00a0 And there may be something to it.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps casting big stars in these Disney and Dreamworks animated features does allow mom and dad to say, “Well, okay, at least I’ll sit my ass down next to junior, and at least I’ll get to hear,” you know, fill in the name of huge star, “in a cartoon role.\u00c2\u00a0 That might be interesting to me.”\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas mom and dad might not give a flying acid rolling donut if Maurice LaMarche and Billy West and Tress MacNeille voiced those characters.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though the end result may be just as good.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, we don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 Not to take anything away from the big stars, because so many of them are truly talented actors.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: But when a star comes in, they’re generally doing one voice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Right.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re usually playing the main character.\u00c2\u00a0 And usually playing some kind of romantic character.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, Cummings was actually… there’s some sort of index or database on the internet that you can input a star’s name, and the grand total of the box office take of all the movies he’s been in.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody in the top 10 is a major star except for one, and that’s Jim Cummings.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Jim has been in so many killer Disney movies that have grossed, you know, nigh on a billion dollars.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, Frank hasn’t been in as many movies, though. They don’t count Frank because they don’t count his creature sounds.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, even just Indiana Jones – Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/em> alone should put Frank way up there.\u00c2\u00a0 Frank does every creature effect in the known universe… (as Shatner) and parts of the unknown universe, Mr. Spock.\u00c2\u00a0 You go see the movie, even if it’s a dog barking, it’s Frank. Because you can get the sound of a dog barking. You can shoot footage of a dog barking. But you cannot get that dog to emote the right kind of bark.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t get the dog to act the bark you want.\u00c2\u00a0 So…<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> … Frank Welker will weigh in the emotion that you want for that dog to bark.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> You get Frank.\u00c2\u00a0 You shoot the dog and get Frank.<\/p>\n

KP: The amount of characters that Jim has done is just astounding.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Absolutely.\u00c2\u00a0 Absolutely. And he’s a stunningly talented man.\u00c2\u00a0 And a nice human being, too.<\/p>\n

KP: Even within the community, there are tiers. There are smaller levels, and there’s the go-to guys.\u00c2\u00a0 People like you, Billy, Jim… that people will call when they need a whole bunch of something.\u00c2\u00a0 And they don’t know what, but they want people who can be versatile enough to play multiple parts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, I hope I don’t sound like I’m being falsely humble, but that’s ’cause we’re fuckin’ genius.<\/p>\n

KP: I wouldn’t find anything falsely humble in that at all ! I’m interested to know, though, what exactly was your first foray into voice acting?\u00c2\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Ask me any question… yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 “Miss Foray, I think you’re trying to seduce me Miss Foray.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh really?\u00c2\u00a0 Hokey smokes!” What was the question?<\/p>\n

KP: What was your entr\u00c3\u00a9e into voice acting?\u00c2\u00a0 Because you said it was during your standup period that you first started dabbling in it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, okay, if you want to talk my true entr\u00c3\u00a9e – actually this was probably more of an appetizer – in 1979 I did two specials for Nelvana Films in Canada.\u00c2\u00a0 One was called Easter Fever<\/em>, and it was about a roast of the Easter Bunny starring Garret Morris as the voice of the Easter Bunny, and Catherine O’Hara as a chicken.\u00c2\u00a0 I played two of the roasters on dais.\u00c2\u00a0 Steed Martin and Don Rattles.\u00c2\u00a0 So Steve Martin is a horse and Don Rickles as a rattlesnake.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I can’t remember.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s funny too, I was just singing… I was driving over here to my agent’s office, where you’ve caught me, I was… for some reason, that great closing song to his first album popped into my head.\u00c2\u00a0 The one where he goes, (as Martin) “I see people goin’ to college for 14 years, study to be doctors and lawyers.\u00c2\u00a0 I see people get up at 7:30 every morning, going to work in the drug store to sell Flair pens.\u00c2\u00a0 But the most amazing thing to me is, I get paid for doing this.” I was just thinking about him, and I was thinking, every actor needs to have those song lyrics up in his house behind whatever awards he’s won.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to remember – we were born in a time when doing what we do wins us awards and gets us paid really well, when in other centuries the best we could have done was court jesters and gotten burned at the stake as a witch for doing other people’s voices.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Exactly.\u00c2\u00a0 So it’s just amazing, the people that actually work really, really hard for a living don’t make a tenth of what some of us make for flapping our gums into a microphone.\u00c2\u00a0 So how dare I get any ego about it.<\/p>\n

KP: You need to put that on business cards and just pass them out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 “I get paid for doing this.”<\/p>\n

KP: When are we going to see that initial movie released on DVD?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 It may already be available. I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 Look it up on the IMDB.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh god, in 1978 when I recorded it. And then I can’t remember the second one… oh, Take Me Up to the Ball Game<\/em>, and then… again, two specials and then nothing for about seven years.\u00c2\u00a0 And then I was lucky enough to get on the second season of Inspector Gadget<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 And I played The Chief.\u00c2\u00a0 And dovetailing on that, you know, one right on top of the other was Ghostbusters<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Real Ghostbusters<\/em>, and I got the part of Egon.<\/p>\n

KP: When you talk about that audition process, were they asking you to do a Harold Ramis?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> They asked me not to do Harold Ramis and I still did it.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I didn’t know anything else to do with the character.\u00c2\u00a0 So everything at that point that I’d done was derivative and I had absolutely no original thoughts or voices. So the only thing I could do was Ramis.\u00c2\u00a0 So I did it, and for some reason it was the only voice that sounded like the original voice from the movie.\u00c2\u00a0 They decided they could let that slide and Egon was such a specific character they really had to honor Harold Ramis’ unique take on that character.\u00c2\u00a0 After 65 episodes, apparently legend has it Bill Murray finally came forward and said, “How come Harold’s guy sounds just like him and my guy sounds like Garfield?”\u00c2\u00a0 And they said, “Well, Bill, that’s because the guy who does the voice of Garfield is doing your character.”\u00c2\u00a0 Now, Bill’s not asking him to be fired or anything.\u00c2\u00a0 But this one comment from Bill Murray, and with them having Ghostbusters 2<\/em> in the works, somebody in the machine said, “You know what?\u00c2\u00a0 Bill’s unhappy.\u00c2\u00a0 We got to get a guy who sounds like him.”\u00c2\u00a0 And so Dave Coulier took over the part after 65 episodes and Lorenzo Music lost the part, and it was a very strange transition because I loved them both, and thought both they did a great job with the character.\u00c2\u00a0 But the irony – the huge irony – of it is that now with the Garfield movie, Bill Murray has taken over the part originally voiced by Lorenzo Music.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I don’t know, but I’m gonna make sure he does.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I am going to make sure that Joel or Brian Doyle, who I see at voiceover auditions all the time, both of them, both his brothers, I want to make sure that they get the message back to him.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I did one episode.\u00c2\u00a0 I did the last episode of Transformers<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Yeah. That was the longest session of my life.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> The director of the show had an unusual directing style.\u00c2\u00a0 He line read you 72 times on each line. He just made you parrot back what he did into the microphone.\u00c2\u00a0 And you always… in fact, that director is the reason there is now a four hour recording session rule in the SAG basic contract for animation.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it used to be 8 hours.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, nobody was there 8 hours, but that was the allowed minimum.\u00c2\u00a0 Until this guy came along and started directing Transformers<\/em>, and all of a sudden, you were there 8 hours.\u00c2\u00a0 And the way voice actors make their money is volume.\u00c2\u00a0 As my friend Rob Paulson is fond of saying, “Volume baby. Volume.”\u00c2\u00a0 So even though you’re booked for four hours, if they know you’ve got a 2:00 and you’re in there at noon, they’ll get you out for 2:00 because they know you want to get on and make another session fee.\u00c2\u00a0 The one thing that you’ll find in our business is most of us work for scale.\u00c2\u00a0 The idea is how many times a day do you work for scale.\u00c2\u00a0 But this one director, who I won’t name, would just keep you there.<\/p>\n

KP: But you’ve done enough projects that you would have noticed if he was still within the animation industry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t worked with him in a good long time. And I like him personally. Personally, he’s a very nice guy, but it was difficult to work with.<\/p>\n

KP: Compared then to now, how do you look at somebody giving you a line reading?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Uh, if they’re good at it, I have no problem with it. In fact, if I don’t give you the reading you want within four takes, please line read me. I have no ego about it.\u00c2\u00a0 Tell me what you hear in your head. The problem is, some people just absolutely don’t have a facility for doing that.\u00c2\u00a0 Taking the line the way they hear it in their head and speaking it.\u00c2\u00a0 I especially like to hear it from the writer, because the writer wrote the line.\u00c2\u00a0 When you’re writing, you’re having a conversation in your head, so I’ll say, “How did you hear it?”\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes – and this has pissed off a couple of directors – I’ll actually, if the writer’s in the studio, go, “What did you hear in your head when you wrote this?”\u00c2\u00a0 And then they’ll give me the line the way they heard it, and then I’ll ape it… after the director has stopped glowering at me.<\/p>\n

KP: How difficult is it when you’re coming to a project, like you did with Ghostbusters<\/em>, where there’s a pre-established voice? Or something like Dennis the Menace<\/em>, where there’s an idea in people’s heads of what a character should or shouldn’t sound like.\u00c2\u00a0 Or could sound like.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, is there a difference when you’re coming to a blank slate with something like, say, The Brain, or coming to something that is a pre-established character that people might a preconceived notion of a voice?<\/strong><\/p>\n

$\"mo-08.jpg\"$ LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well yeah, you’re trying to please them.\u00c2\u00a0 In the case of Brain, even though it was 80% Orson Welles, 20% Vincent Price, it was still my unique blend.\u00c2\u00a0 My mixture.\u00c2\u00a0 My recipe.\u00c2\u00a0 And actually, that became problematic for me because those old ego muscles began to flex again.\u00c2\u00a0 I began to think of him as mine, and began to fight for certain readings.\u00c2\u00a0 To me, I thought everything Brain should do should be said very flat, very slow. And a lot of beats and arched eyebrows.\u00c2\u00a0 In animation, the idea is to move it along because, after all, we’re only looking at six drawings per second here.\u00c2\u00a0 So it’s not as interesting to look at as live action.\u00c2\u00a0 So we really need to move this thing along, folks.\u00c2\u00a0 I would do these very, very lovingly sarcastic reads that had billionths of a beat built into them, that if you altered it even by that much I felt that the joke was going away. So I actually got very proprietary over the character and got a reputation, I think, as somewhat of a pain in the ass.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone who didn’t take direction.\u00c2\u00a0 So sometimes it’s better to just treat it like a job and go with it and that’s easy to do with somebody else’s character.\u00c2\u00a0 Interesting sidebar about the Ghostbusters<\/em> thing, as I was the only guy to do a voice that sounded like the actual guy from the movie.\u00c2\u00a0 When we were auditioning, I walked in initially to the studio and there on the couch was Arsenio Hall – who was a buddy, another guy I palled around with from standup. And just walking in, right behind me, was Ernie Hudson, the guy who’d played Winston Zeddmore in the movies.\u00c2\u00a0 So I looked at Arsenio, he looked at me, and it was like, he mouthed the words, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here.”\u00c2\u00a0 And I shrugged and went, “uh-UH-uh, sorry pal. It’s a job.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Arsenio got the friggin’ job, and Ernie Hudson went home without a paycheck.\u00c2\u00a0 It still stuns me to this day.<\/p>\n

KP: But, really, does it surprise you?\u00c2\u00a0 As much as you’ve seen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No.\u00c2\u00a0 There used to be a comedian… oh god, his name is gonna escape me now… oh, goodness.\u00c2\u00a0 Alan Bursky.\u00c2\u00a0 Alan Bursky was Freddie Prinze’s roommate, and there’s well documented stories about him and Freddie in the big Playboy<\/em> article about Freddie Prinze, and the book The Last Laugh<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Anyway, when they finally decided to make the Freddie Prinze story for TV, Bursky read for the part of himself, and didn’t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 Mike Binder got it.\u00c2\u00a0 And Bursky just wasn’t Bursky enough for them… That’s what they said – “You’re just not Bursky enough.”\u00c2\u00a0 So no, it didn’t surprise me.<\/p>\n

KP: There’s also the thing that it really is two completely separate disciplines for on camera acting and voice acting.\u00c2\u00a0 So, I mean, there could be somebody that is the character, but isn’t able to emote behind a microphone.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you think that’s the case?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, because I think you’ve got to bring 110% of whatever it is. You know, whatever the -ness of it is, the N-E-S-S of it is, you’ve got to be able to bring it 110% because, as I said before, you’re only looking at six drawings per second.\u00c2\u00a0 So it’s got to be a little larger than life, and if you’re acting is too flat or even too real, it ain’t gonna translate.\u00c2\u00a0 So maybe we’re a bunch of over-actors, but that’s part of the craft, I guess.<\/p>\n

KP: Do you think that actors trying to make the transition into doing voiceover… you’ve obviously seen many of them come into sessions over the years…\u00c2\u00a0 Do you think that there’s a steep learning curve that they’re not prepared for?\u00c2\u00a0 Not just acting skills, but even mic technique…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I think a lot of them, unless they’re booked to play the lead in the latest Dreamworks or Disney feature, come to it, do a couple of episodes, and realize that when you’re in a room with Welker and Cummings and Harnell and West, and you know each of them are doing six voices per episode – they stand there with their mouths agape, checking their back pocket to make sure that their $70,000 paycheck for their sitcom is still there while they’re on the way to the bank.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re amazed at what we do.\u00c2\u00a0 And you know, they take their hats off to these guys.\u00c2\u00a0 But they sort of realize, well, this was a fun little foray, and now I’m going to go back to the set and do what I do.<\/p>\n

KP: How do you treat a newbie that comes into the room?\u00c2\u00a0 Is it some kind of hierarchy where you’re at the cool table and they have to work their way in? What is the acceptance level?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Usually with a hearty congratulations, at least… I’m thinking particularly about Jeff Bennett.\u00c2\u00a0 The first time I worked with him was on Bonkers<\/em>, and it was like… I turned to my left and there was this new blond guy, sort of lanky blond guy, and I was like, “Oh, who’s this guy?”\u00c2\u00a0 to myself.\u00c2\u00a0 And myself answered, which worried me.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> (laughing) I just went, “Oh, who’s this guy?\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve never met him before.”\u00c2\u00a0 And all of a sudden he did, like, three characters in the episode and they were all great characterizations, and I went, “This guy’s good!\u00c2\u00a0 All right!”\u00c2\u00a0 So my thing was to put out my hand and say, “Hey buddy, you’re great!\u00c2\u00a0 Welcome!\u00c2\u00a0 Welcome to the club.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re gonna work again. This is amazing.”\u00c2\u00a0 And sure enough, he can buy and sell me today.<\/p>\n

KP: Is there a tiered sort of thing where they have to earn a level of respect, when you compare it to the celebrity that comes in for two or three episodes then disappears?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> The work speaks for itself.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no test he has to pass, but when a guy’s as good as a guy like Jeff, you know there’s nothing to do but welcome him into the community and go “Hey, welcome to the bottled city of Kandor.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, you’re another guy with the super powers.\u00c2\u00a0 Nice to meet you.”<\/p>\n

KP: So there is something of an initiation rite that one has to go through though to be seen as that by you all, isn’t there?\u00c2\u00a0 Either a dedication or a talent level…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah – being good. That’s the initiation. Being good.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you don’t last long in our business unless you got the goods.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: How awkward is it in a room, sitting with someone who doesn’t have the goods?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It doesn’t happen very often. They rarely get past the casting process.\u00c2\u00a0 The same seven casting directors have been doing animation in this town for as long as I’ve been doing it, and they know talent when they see it. Marsha Goodman as much as any other.\u00c2\u00a0 I always single Marsha out because she not only is the one who gave me my break on Ghostbusters<\/em> and Inspector Gadget<\/em>, but I would have to say that I was sort of… there was a dinner for her a while back, and it was sort of tallied up, the number of people she gave the first shot to.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a laundry list of a who’s who of voiceover.\u00c2\u00a0 So she’s great.\u00c2\u00a0 She has a wonderful eye for talent, especially new talent and giving them a chance.\u00c2\u00a0 But I mean, Tara Strong, Billy West, Townsend Coleman.\u00c2\u00a0 Myself.\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s see, who else?\u00c2\u00a0 I know there’s more people on that list, because we were marveling at it, but there’s just a handful of people.\u00c2\u00a0 The only mistake she may have made is that when it came down to casting a character named Capeman for the second season of Inspector Gadget<\/em>, it came down to Townsend Coleman and some kid from Toronto named Jim Carrey.\u00c2\u00a0 And Townsend got the part. But you know what?\u00c2\u00a0 He may have done a better job with the part. Who knows?\u00c2\u00a0 And if Jim had fallen into the comfort zone of voiceovers, maybe he wouldn’t have worked so hard to break into movies.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 But Marsha always laughs about that one. But she took green, new talents, and she gave them their first shot.<\/p>\n

KP: For someone who started out as an impressionist, there’s very few times that you’ve dipped into mimicry. And there’s only a couple times that you’ve done voices that originated with other actors, like Popeye.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, yeah, true enough.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, I have a rule about that, though. I don’t step into the shoes of any actor who’s still alive and still wants the job.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: Something similar to the situation with Jim Cummings and Paul Winchell…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes. Okay, here’s a quick story. I was at a writer’s conference and Harry Shearer was on the panel. And after the panel had cleared and everybody had sort of gone their ways, Harry spotted me in the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 He actually stayed on the stage, and motioned me over, and said, “I want to thank you.”\u00c2\u00a0 And I said, “What for?” Because Harry Shearer has never really spoken to me before.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s sort of got his own group of people, very intellectual people that he talks to, and he said, “Our mutual agent told me what you did regarding The Simpsons<\/em>, and how you turned down the opportunity to audition for all of my parts and all of Hank’s parts, and I want to thank you, because you started a trend that a lot of other actors followed and we were able to get the raises that we wanted.”\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s exactly true.\u00c2\u00a0 Bonnie Pietila came to me first after The Simpsons<\/em> cast staged their power play for higher salaries.\u00c2\u00a0 Bonnie, knowing my work from The Critic<\/em>, basically offered me through my agent the chance to do any number of the characters, and I told my agent, “No. Those are their jobs, and they’re trying to better themselves right now. They’re trying to get paid what they’re worth.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe get paid what we’re all worth.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m not going to step on that by undercutting them. So no.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though I could step into The Simpsons<\/em> probably fairly easily, I’m not gonna do it.”\u00c2\u00a0 And when several of my voiceover friends, top guys, called me up – guys we’ve mentioned in this conversation but whom I won’t mention in this part of the conversation – called me up to say, “Well, what are you doing about this?\u00c2\u00a0 What are you doing?” I vociferously stated my case of, you know, “We don’t undercut each other.\u00c2\u00a0 Those guys are still around to do the job and they just want to get paid what they’re worth, so don’t go in for it.”\u00c2\u00a0 And so a bunch of really talented guys – I don’t know how much influence I had, but I know that a bunch of them stayed away from it and, as a result, they went, “Well, this cast is irreplaceable,” so they got the money they were looking for.\u00c2\u00a0 When the red M&M thing came along… when it was originally Jon Lovitz and John Goodman, once again, that same agent called me up and said, “They want you for the M&M.\u00c2\u00a0 Jon Lovitz is asking for too much money.” And I said, “I won’t do it.” Because they’d seen me imitate Jon on an Entertainment Tonight<\/em> segment when we were both doing The Critic<\/em>, and knew that I did a flawless Jon Lovitz…<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> (as Jon) Oh really?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, well, well,\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll have you know you’re talking to Jon Lovitz right now.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve just been imitating Maurice Lamarche. Ha ha!<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0 Thank you.\u00c2\u00a0 Listen, Lovitz actually tells directors that he doesn’t want to do his own looping, and to get me to do his looping. So at any rate, it did come my way, and I had the chance to literally walk into the red M&M.\u00c2\u00a0 And again, I said, “You know what? I gotta check with Jon and see if he’s actually walking away from this part. That he doesn’t want it.”\u00c2\u00a0 And I called Jon at home and told him what was going on and he said, “No, I’m in negotiations for it.\u00c2\u00a0 Thanks for telling me, Maurice.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t tell you not to take it, but I appreciate you doing this.”\u00c2\u00a0 So again, I turned down the chance to walk into the part.\u00c2\u00a0 And it went the way it went.\u00c2\u00a0 Jon still asked for too much money and they had a big round of casting for somebody to replace him but not doing him, and funnily enough, I didn’t get a chance to read.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t that amazing?\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0 They didn’t say, “Well, let’s see what else you can do with it, Mo.” They went, “No, Mo didn’t play ball, so Mo doesn’t get a chance.”\u00c2\u00a0 So I didn’t get the chance to read for the next round and it went to some guy… Billy something. I don’t know.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, right.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s named after a direction.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 Billy’s been a pal for years.\u00c2\u00a0 Billy is not only an amazing talent, but he was a true friend.\u00c2\u00a0 When I was going through my struggles with the drink, he was there for me.<\/p>\n

KP: Well, he obviously went through his own struggles with the very same thing, and to a greater degree.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> And in so doing, he lent his experience, strength, and hope to me and helped me get on the road.<\/p>\n

KP: Is it important that someone in that kind of thing steps forward in a support role? Because I talked to Billy about his struggle, and he mentioned how important that was to him and how certain friends fell away by necessity because of having to go down that path.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, I think with real alcoholics, the only way we help ourselves is by helping others.\u00c2\u00a0 And adopting a spiritual way of life. So, you know, for me it’s a big part of my life to try and help other people who have a drinking problem.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t come my way every day, but certainly I have a community of friends who’ve all been through the same thing, and we help each other and try to help out a new person who’s trying to stop them.<\/p>\n

KP: It’s interesting when you talk about your early years, growing up and such, and sort of living within your own world, and it almost seems like either through the standup comedy arena or when you moved to voice acting, there seems to be this need to establish a bottled city of Kandor around yourself of people you can trust and who understand you, and vice-versa. Do you think that’s the case?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 Yeah, in terms of our voiceover community, absolutely.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re very… we’re somewhat insular, and we support each other.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes we even socialize, but within the community of what we do, you know, we’re very protective over each other and realize what we do is special. So yes.<\/p>\n

KP: If you look at what happened with the Simpsons<\/em> situation, not very many other divisions within the acting profession would have circled the wagons like that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

$\"mo-05.jpg\"$ LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No. No, no doubt.\u00c2\u00a0 No doubt.\u00c2\u00a0 Although there are wonderful stories.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a very famous story about My Fair Lady<\/em> where they were gonna make the movie from the Broadway play, and of course Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews had done the play, and they’d already taken it away from Julie Andrews and given it to Audrey Hepburn, with somebody doubling her singing voice, and they wanted Cary Grant.\u00c2\u00a0 And they went to Cary Grant and said, “We want you to play the character,” and he said, “Not only won’t I play Henry Higgins for you, but if you don’t get Rex Harrison I won’t go see it.”\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Absolutely.\u00c2\u00a0 And you know the great story of Leslie Howard refusing to make The Petrified Forest<\/em> without Bogart as Duke Mantee.\u00c2\u00a0 Howard was the huge film star, and it was his on a silver platter, but he refused to make the picture unless they also got Bogart, who was nobody but had done it on Broadway and was brilliant in it.<\/p>\n

KP: But generally the people that need to be stuck up for are not of a high enough level, or don’t have the supporters of a high enough level to back them up, within the acting profession.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at a show like Everybody Loves Raymond<\/em> a few years back, when Brad Garrett was making a play to at least be treated equally, and how close he came to being axed from the cast.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s almost like this very odd “exception that proves the rule” bubble in the voice acting community.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, as I said, I think the less ego that is involved, the better.\u00c2\u00a0 The more altruistic one can act.\u00c2\u00a0 Because your face is not on the line and your ego isn’t on the line, there’s nothing to get too worked up about.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re able to be a human.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: Within the community, do you recall the time when you felt you had become one of the go-to guys?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No.\u00c2\u00a0 I still don’t see myself that way.\u00c2\u00a0 When you say go-to guys, I definitely think of Cummings, I definitely think of Billy.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, Rob Paulsen.\u00c2\u00a0 But I still see myself as number 11 on a list of 10.<\/p>\n

KP: If only you could master doing John Wayne, you could break the top 10.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I’ve never been able to do that voice well enough to perform it for anybody.\u00c2\u00a0 I can do a bass-ackwards John Wayne that’s about as good as your John Wayne, but I can’t get it any better than that.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s so weird.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a tough voice to do.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> (as Jon) “Circle the wagons, pilgrim! But I don’t. I don’t care. I’m rich.”<\/p>\n

KP: And obviously that was based around a necessity to get you to stop doing your Orson Welles before recording began, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I think that was an added benefit.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn’t think of Welles or a Welles voice for the character. It was based on a guy named Tom Minton, a writer who’s still writing for Warner Brothers animation.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> For Pinky.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither of them talked like the characters.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve met them both.\u00c2\u00a0 I actually became rather friendly with Minton. I’ve only met Eddie once.\u00c2\u00a0 Eddie’s just very high energy and very positive.\u00c2\u00a0 I think he only says “POINT!”.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that’s the only thing he actually really uses.\u00c2\u00a0 Peppers his conversation with.\u00c2\u00a0 But it makes sense the way Eddie does it because he’s, you know, he’ll go, “Well, there you go, and then ‘POINT!’ nothing’s there.\u00c2\u00a0 It makes sense. He’s just using cartoon sound effects.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas Pinky, it’s almost like he has a sort of cartoony Tourette’s Syndrome.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But as to the Welles thing – they didn’t create the character thinking, “Ah, here’s an Orson Welles sounding character that’ll get Mo to stop doing the Orson Welles.”\u00c2\u00a0 But they did think it might be an added side benefit. “Well, at least you won’t have to do that friggin’ Orson Welles thing in between takes now.”\u00c2\u00a0 Wrong!<\/p>\n

KP: I know the tape quite well, but where did your fascination originate from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh, from one of the nightmare sessions of my life, actually.\u00c2\u00a0 Phil Proctor and I and BJ Ward were on this session from hell, dubbing a French live action puppet show called Bots<\/em>, where the actors got in these robot costumes and had these adventures. And we had to dub the damn thing one line at a time. I came to the session dressed up for New Year’s Eve.\u00c2\u00a0 The session was on New Year’s Eve day.\u00c2\u00a0 I was promised I’d be out of there by noon, and I had a 1:00 flight to New York, which was gonna get me there by 10 PM and I was gonna get right off the plane and go to the MTV party, because my pal Howie Mandell was hosting the MTV party that year so I had entr\u00c3\u00a9.\u00c2\u00a0 And I thought, “This will be cool, I’m gonna be partying with Sting New Year’s Eve, it’s gonna be great”… You know?\u00c2\u00a0 And wouldn’t you know, the session lasted until 9:00 at night.\u00c2\u00a0 The folks that were running the session said, “What are you complaining about?\u00c2\u00a0 You’re getting overtime.”\u00c2\u00a0 And all I could think about was, you know, my New Year’s Eve is completely dashed to ruins.\u00c2\u00a0 But as a consolation prize, because Phil and I, Phil Proctor from Firesign Theater and I, it’s the first time we ever met, and as a way of commiserating, he gave me this tape of all these wonderful outtakes and he said, “Here. When you go home tonight, listen to this.\u00c2\u00a0 This’ll make you laugh.”\u00c2\u00a0 And the first cut on the tape is the famed frozen peas session, and I couldn’t believe it.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just… I was stunned with his absolute honesty and his brilliant wit in taking down these two poseurs and…<\/p>\n

KP: When you take somebody down through the use of proper grammar…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant.\u00c2\u00a0 And I couldn’t stop listening to it, and I put it in my tape player in my car and literally listened to the thing. I had auto-reverse, so I just never took it out.\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever I started my car, no matter where it was, I listened, and of course learned to ape it perfectly. And from there, there was one time – the first time that I was in a session that was going too long, and I just went… jokingly, I went, “What is it you want?\u00c2\u00a0 In your depths of your ignorance, what is it you want?”\u00c2\u00a0 And they looked at me for a second.\u00c2\u00a0 The director looked at me for a second. The engineer stared. And all of a sudden they burst out laughing and went, “Oh, you’re doing that tape!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, it’s great!”\u00c2\u00a0 And really, I was like just expressing myself, wishing I was Welles, wishing I had the facility to… this guy’s not gonna let me in. I’m driving while we’re having our interview because I’m going to an audition.\u00c2\u00a0 No, he didn’t let me in.\u00c2\u00a0 I have to go one exit past my exit and double back.\u00c2\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

KP: Well that pretty much sums up living in LA, doesn’t it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes it does.\u00c2\u00a0 Where are you calling from, by the way?<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Ah!\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody ever cuts anybody off on the freeway in North Carolina.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Exactly. So hence, that’s the evolution of my love for that character.<\/p>\n

KP: Was that the first time that you had even attempted doing the voice?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Out loud?\u00c2\u00a0 No, I would do it in my car all the time.<\/p>\n

KP: No, but prior to the tape, had you thought of Welles as someone to mimic?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes, and yet only, you know, only one line.\u00c2\u00a0 My friend Steve Schuster in Toronto, from my Toronto Comedy Club days… a great club called Yuk Yuks – where Howie got his start, where Jim Carrey got his start… Steve had a great line in his act.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve Schuster, son of Frank Schuster of the famous Wayne and Schuster comedy team of Canada.\u00c2\u00a0 Also brother of Rosie Schuster, head writer of Saturday Night Live<\/em> and ex-wife of Lorne Michaels.\u00c2\u00a0 He had a great line in his act, but he couldn’t do impressions.\u00c2\u00a0 He would… in fact, (laughing) that was part of what made the act so funny, is that he had absolutely no facility for doing impressions, but he would still do the characters, and not change his voice one iota.\u00c2\u00a0 So he’d go, “Good evening, my name is Orson Welles and I’ll narrate anything.”\u00c2\u00a0 And I just thought that was a great line, so I began to study his voice, but I never really locked into it the way I did once I got the outtake tape.\u00c2\u00a0 And I kept offering Steve, you know, as much money as I could afford for that line, and he said, “No, I really don’t want to sell it.\u00c2\u00a0 I like that line.”\u00c2\u00a0 I said, “Yeah, but if you gave it to a guy who could do impressions, it’d be…”\u00c2\u00a0 “Nah, I like the line.\u00c2\u00a0 Not for sale.”\u00c2\u00a0 “Okay.”<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean, I won’t take a line that doesn’t belong to me.\u00c2\u00a0 Some guys out and out steal.\u00c2\u00a0 Then there are the guys who stuff a $20 in your pocket or a $50 in your pocket and just take the line and consider you paid.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t do that.\u00c2\u00a0 I gotta look at myself in the mirror.<\/p>\n

KP: Do you think that that was one of the positives of being a mimic, was that there’s very little they can steal from you without the facility to do that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, I’m probably one of the only people Robin Williams never stole from. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I’ve never heard any of my lines in his act.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: When you look at the success of something like The Brain, is it surprising to you that the character took off like it did?\u00c2\u00a0 And how much of it, in your head, is based in Orson Welles’ voice?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Unless Welles were actually playing the part, there’s not much more Welles-ness I could bring to it apart from imitating his voice.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a lot of Maurice LaMarche in that part.<\/p>\n

KP: It reminds me of what Daws Butler would do with the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.\u00c2\u00a0 That it wasn’t an impression as much as a distillation of the actor applied to a cartoon character.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 I would say we distilled Welles’ voice, and like I say, that little dash of Vincent Price for some color and highs and lows.\u00c2\u00a0 We distilled Welles’ voice, but Phil did it through me, the distillery, and my own frustrations of not being able to take over the world of standup comedy.\u00c2\u00a0 Remember those ambitions we talked about before, of coming to this town and getting my own sitcom and then going onto movie stardom, and, you know, stuff that happens to just about every friend I have but not me?<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> None whatsoever.\u00c2\u00a0 But it served me well in terms of Brain, you know, because he had gigantic ambitions.\u00c2\u00a0 And there was no way he was ever going to achieve them, but I was able to channel that part of me that wants to take over the world, and at the end of the episode, that dusting himself off and saying, “Back to the lab to prepare for tomorrow night.”\u00c2\u00a0 That part that was heading back to the lab to prepare for tomorrow night is the part of me that heads back to Toronto to prepare for the next time I come down to the States and try and take over the world of standup.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No part of me wishes I was Pinky. Not even my pinky.<\/p>\n

KP: There’s a sense of enjoying the moment in Pinky.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you able to enjoy the moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0 I’m better at it than I used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 It used to be, for me, all about the great someday and getting there, wherever there is.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ve trained myself to get more into the moment and just appreciate the hot second I’m in right now.\u00c2\u00a0 No, right now… No, right now. No – this one.\u00c2\u00a0 No… this one.\u00c2\u00a0 So yes, in that way, being more Pinky-like… but if it’s at the sacrifice of IQ points, no.\u00c2\u00a0 And the joke of it is that Rob Paulsen’s actually an extremely bright man.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s probably brighter than I am.\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly quicker.\u00c2\u00a0 But I think you have to have that many smarts to play somebody that dumb and to hit all the right beats.<\/p>\n

KP: You need to do a two-man show.\u00c2\u00a0 Take it out on the road.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I’ve actually proposed that.\u00c2\u00a0 We did a staged reading of a Pinky & The Brain<\/em> script at the Comic-Con.\u00c2\u00a0 We forgot how funny this thing was because we never read it on its feet in front of a live audience of 200 people.\u00c2\u00a0 We couldn’t get through it because the audience was laughing to hard.\u00c2\u00a0 We had to adjust our timing.\u00c2\u00a0 So I’ve actually though it’d be a fun thing to do to just take a Pinky & The Brain<\/em> script and go on the road with it.\u00c2\u00a0 Do a Q&A, then read one like it’s a radio show and do a little Power Point presentation.<\/p>\n

KP: Well, you guys would certainly be a hit on the college circuit with that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 This is something that I need to run by Rob.\u00c2\u00a0 You know actually what just popped into my mind, is this would be a great way to entertain the troops.\u00c2\u00a0 Because a lot of those boys were little kids watching our show ten years ago.<\/p>\n

KP: Does it shock you that that kind of generational thing has already happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Nah.\u00c2\u00a0 Nah, I’m over that. It used to.\u00c2\u00a0 The first time a twenty-something person came up to me and said, “I used to watch your show when I was a kid,” I went, “What do you mean?\u00c2\u00a0 Aren’t we the same age?”\u00c2\u00a0 I kinda looked at my drivers license, and went “No, dude, you’re getting older just like everybody else. And don’t worry – that young dude’ll be 45 someday, too.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, you’ll be 65 or dead!”<\/p>\n

KP: Mel Blanc was attached to Bugs Bunny, or Daws was attached to Huckleberry Hound or Yogi Bear – and now you’ve got your own character that generations to come will attach to you.\u00c2\u00a0 And honestly, you are attached to a character that’s lasted over the years that people do love.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> And that still stuns me, because in my mind, much like Shatner would say about Star Trek<\/em>, it’s just a job we do.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a TV show I acted on for three years.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was over and then I went and did regional theater.\u00c2\u00a0 I really understand what Shatner… the first time I read his autobiography – actually, I listened to it on tape because I just love his voice, so I’d listen to the book on tape.\u00c2\u00a0 I was like, “What are you talking about?\u00c2\u00a0 You were Captain Kirk.\u00c2\u00a0 You were an icon.” And now I understand.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, yeah, we had fun doing that.\u00c2\u00a0 I probably had more fun doing that show than just about any other show I’ve done.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, The Critic<\/em>, Futurama<\/em> and Pinky & The Brain<\/em> are the top three shows in terms of the fun they were to do.\u00c2\u00a0 They also ended up being the three best things I did.\u00c2\u00a0 But I just looked at it as, “Okay, it’s this job we did,” and when I watch it on TV, I went, “Wow, this came out really well.”\u00c2\u00a0 And then you sorta carry on and go, “Okay, what’s next in terms of putting some steak on the table?”\u00c2\u00a0 But yeah, it always stuns me when anybody even knows what the show is.\u00c2\u00a0 In my mind, we did it then. We haven’t done a new one in six years.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s over. But my son reminds me because he TIVOs Pinky & The Brain<\/em> and wants me to sit down and watch it with him. And even though he knows that was Dad’s job, he refers to it in the present tense and he loves the character as though it’s its own thing, not Daddy doing a voice.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: And as you said, that’s the kind of thing you could take on the road with the USO and entertain troops with.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It’s an interesting thought. I wonder how you go about doing that.\u00c2\u00a0 I literally just came up with that in this conversation.<\/p>\n

KP: I’m sure you’d just see if Rob was up to it and contact the USO’s talent office.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Then, of course, there’s that self-deprecating part, that self-effacing part that says, “Oh, they just had Drew Carey down there, what do they want me for?\u00c2\u00a0 Why do they want two cartoon hambones?”<\/p>\n

KP: Yeah, but I think the key comes down to, sure Drew Carey’s funny, but that’s an adult connection, whereas you’re tapping into something much closer to their hearts because here’s a piece of their childhood.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, maybe so.\u00c2\u00a0 You know what?\u00c2\u00a0 Let me talk to Paulsen about this.\u00c2\u00a0 We could make this happen. Because I’d love to be of service in some way.<\/p>\n

KP: When you talk about the fact that Critic<\/em>, Pinky & The Brain<\/em> and Futurama<\/em> were three of the best shows that you worked on and the most enjoyable shows, what makes it an enjoyable job for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Working with super talented people, and super funny people who are just funny in the moment, and the stuff that happens between takes is as funny as the stuff that’s on the script. Very often what’ll happen is you’ll be on a show, the script will be very average, and then the snide comments that come after we stop rolling tape are the funniest thing.\u00c2\u00a0 But the quality of these shows was great, and we just had a ton of fun.\u00c2\u00a0 The fourth most fun show I ever did was a show called the Chimp Channel<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 A show that was really well-written, brilliant cast, strong characters.\u00c2\u00a0 Probably laughed more on that show just in terms of sheer, oh my god my guts are starting to hemorrhage from laughing, but the show just didn’t translate, because they didn’t go to the expense of putting CGI lips on the chimps and it just became like Lancelot Link<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 And you can only watch that so long.\u00c2\u00a0 It was actually a distraction away from the terrific writing of the scripts.\u00c2\u00a0 What would have made that a funny show would have been a show about a bunch of actors recording the lines for a show about chimps, because the scripts themselves were hilarious.\u00c2\u00a0 We all had a tremendous time.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’d never been on something that was so much fun that didn’t translate.<\/p>\n

KP: What’s a bad job for you, or a job you don’t enjoy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Really high-pitched voices that have to talk very cutesy-wootsey, and sell toys that are based on the principal of turning a sock inside out.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Gee, what do you think?\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll give you 15 guesses, and the first 14 don’t count.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> That’s right.\u00c2\u00a0 Listen, Marsha already knows that I hated The Popples<\/em>. That it was the job from hell.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I had to come in every day and just be ultra cute and be “bishi, boffo, hoo hoo hoo!”\u00c2\u00a0 And I wanted to vomit at the end of every session.\u00c2\u00a0 I would sooner have sold my body on Santa Monica Boulevard than go back for another one of those.<\/p>\n

KP: That’s obviously a character-based reason why a job’s not enjoyable. Is there a situational based reason why a job isn’t enjoyable for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, you know, apart from the previously stated, you know, over directing, keeping the actor the entire time needed and just line reading them backwards and forwards, I tend to make the best out of every situation. And there are just directors who are an absolute joy to work with, and who know comedy and who understand timing and story and characters and, you know, there are some that are a little bit more, you know, workman-like, and that’s okay. You try and help them.<\/p>\n

KP: What percentage of comfortable to uncomfortable do you deal with when you’re doing jobs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh it’s 99% comfortable.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, I’m almost never uncomfortable in a job. Like I said, the last bad experience I could relate to you came from well over 14 years ago, and that was that GI Joe<\/em> thing.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything since then has been pretty terrific.<\/p>\n

KP: And now there are contractual reasons why that other thing won’t happen again.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh absolutely, yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 Yeah, I mean, the entire union rallied around that one, because we had all at one point or another worked for this director.<\/p>\n

KP: Talking about making that transition to live action, one thing I do have to ask is how did the Ed Wood<\/em> “voice cameo” come about.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It came out of the blue, man.\u00c2\u00a0 It was unbelievable.\u00c2\u00a0 I later found out that being an animator, Tim Burton is very much in touch with all things animated, as it were, and animation.\u00c2\u00a0 Being an animator, Tim Burton was aware of Pinky & The Brain<\/em> and, of course, he had a relationship with Spielberg, and he just heard the voice and went, you know, love what Vincent D’Onofrio did physically with the part, but the voice… D’Onofrio made an odd choice, especially considering he’s not a high-voiced man, but he chose to effect this sort of effete, reedy pitched thing for the character while physically doing Welles perfectly, down to the way he pursed his lips around a cigar.\u00c2\u00a0 He did it like, (high-pitched) “How do you do, I’m Orson Welles.”\u00c2\u00a0 I have the dailies still, somewhere in my collection of 2,000 videotapes. They sent me the dailies and said, “Do you think you could loop this in the Welles voice?”\u00c2\u00a0 So, you know, “Absolutely.” But it came from Burton’s awareness of Brain, of Pinky & The Brain<\/em>, and the way I do the voice.\u00c2\u00a0 So they actually flew me up to San Francisco, and I did the session with Burton in the room, and he directed me, and you know, he just… he was surprisingly normal.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d heard all these stories… “Ooh, you’re gonna work with Tim Burton. Oh, he’s weird, he’s so out there, he’s so bizarre.” The most bizarre thing is that as he sat in the chair, he pulled his knees up to his chin and had that kind of like scrunched up kinda thing.\u00c2\u00a0 But other than that, he was incredibly focused and knew exactly what he wanted, and I just thought he was an incredibly bright man.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Faster.\u00c2\u00a0 Make it match the lip flaps.\u00c2\u00a0 Obviously in looping that’s the key direction. It’s the unspoken one. Just as when you’re directing an on-camera actor in film, the unspoken direction is, “Make it seem like it’s really happening.”<\/p>\n

KP: Did you in any way feel self-conscious coming in and re-voicing an actor?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I hoped that when he saw this he wouldn’t be pissed off.\u00c2\u00a0 I really wasn’t aware of D’Onofrio. I hadn’t seen Full Metal Jacket<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d not seen him in that, and he was not an actor I was aware of.\u00c2\u00a0 But I just thought, “Whoever this guy is, god he got the look down, and I just thought I hope it’s okay with him.”\u00c2\u00a0 I know I would feel strange being replaced on something, or at least just having my voice replaced.\u00c2\u00a0 But what I really wanted to bring to it was as accurate a dub as possible, because this has got to look seamless.\u00c2\u00a0 Burton and D’Onofrio had come so far in perfecting the physical side of the character, and I just felt like I’ve got to bring my portion to the table and really make this fit and suspend disbelief that Orson Welles is actually back from the dead and sitting in a booth at Musso & Frank.\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently, that’s the only apocryphal scene in the entire picture though.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything else is based on fact.\u00c2\u00a0 As far as anyone knows, that meeting never took place. It’s the only dramatic license they took.<\/p>\n

KP: It’s quite something to go from listening to the tape in your car to bringing it to Brain to essentially playing Welles in a film.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, this whole thing has become a cottage industry, and I feel beholden to Phil Proctor for having given me the tape in the first place.\u00c2\u00a0 But on the other hand, screw ‘im.<\/p>\n

KP: That also brings up a question of live action.\u00c2\u00a0 Has that ever been an area that’s intrigued you to cross over into?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, apart from my slobbering egomania of coming here in the first place to get the big sitcom or the big movie career, I’d have to say in the last couple years it really has fallen off my to-do list.\u00c2\u00a0 It used to intrigue me, and I’ve done it. I’ve done a handful of things on camera.\u00c2\u00a0 And you know, now I’m sort of philosophical about it.\u00c2\u00a0 Just very laissez-faire.\u00c2\u00a0 If it comes my way, great. If not, oh well. I was speaking to Rodger Bumpass today, who plays Squidward on SpongeBob<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 And he was telling me he’d just finished doing two movies in a row, on camera, and he’d never ever pursued it in his life, but it happened the director was a friend and gave him a small part in this one Hallmark Channel movie. It’s about chefs, called Just Desserts<\/em>, and it stars Lauren Holly, as I recall. And he said he came off of that and went right into a murder mystery with the same director, and it just so happened the guy was a friend and said, “Hey, you’d be good in a bit part in this.” And then went, “Hey, you’re good,” and gave him a bigger part in the murder mystery.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometime before I die I’m sure some pal o’ mine will take a chance on me on camera and that’ll happen.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’m not busting any doors down to get on camera, so I can play Ray’s friend #3 in the Italian restaurant scene of Everybody Loves Raymond<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t thrill me that much to see my puss on television.\u00c2\u00a0 I had my little time doing that, where I did a couple of guest stars and a mess of talk shows and the Young Comedians special, and I know what I look like.\u00c2\u00a0 But if it was something really special or a favor for a friend – or, you know, the part of a lifetime – great.<\/p>\n

KP: What is your view of the work you did on Mark Hamill’s Comic Book: The Movie<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I’ve not seen it yet.\u00c2\u00a0 He was nice enough to put me in it.\u00c2\u00a0 Just basically playing myself, and it’s part of the special features on it.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought it was great of him to make the movie in the first place.\u00c2\u00a0 Many years ago when I first met him, and he would… our first meeting was actually hilarious and surreal to anybody on the outside looking in, and to me.\u00c2\u00a0 Batman<\/em> was wrapping up the morning session at this studio we used to work at, and Animaniacs<\/em> was coming in, and Mark was walking out to his car and talking to Andrea Romano, and I was walking up the steps to the studio, and Andrea said, “Oh, Mo.\u00c2\u00a0 Have you ever met Mark?” And Mark puts out his hand and goes, “Oh my god, Maurice LaMarche. Oh my god what a pleasure to meet you.\u00c2\u00a0 I love your work.”\u00c2\u00a0 You know, before I could get out the standard, “Hey, I love your movie, I’m a big fan of Luke Sky…” – you know, all this.\u00c2\u00a0 He was a fan of mine!\u00c2\u00a0 He is an archivist.\u00c2\u00a0 He loves standup comedians.\u00c2\u00a0 So he knows the work of nearly every standup comedian who’s ever put anything on videotape. And he had all my appearances in his library already, and was quoting my act to me.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, but he loved the “tribute to me” thing that I did on the Young Comedians special.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just bizarre.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s a man who has starred in movies that have grossed a billion dollars, and he knew me, and was doing the sort of fan thing with me!\u00c2\u00a0 And who am I?\u00c2\u00a0 I’m a voice guy.\u00c2\u00a0 So that was really nice, and from there we just developed a friendship, and he gave me his home phone number right there and then.\u00c2\u00a0 “Anytime you want to come out to the house, I’d love to have you.”\u00c2\u00a0 I just met the guy and I have Luke Skywalker’s home phone number in Malibu.\u00c2\u00a0 So he said early on, not long after this, he said, “You know, I think you guys are the most talented people in show business.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody can do what you do. I think it’s a shame nobody knows what you look like.\u00c2\u00a0 I am gonna make a movie. I’m gonna put all my voiceover friends in it.”\u00c2\u00a0 And sure enough, the guy was true to his word.\u00c2\u00a0 There was almost nothing in that movie except established voiceover actors.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody he used, except for the celebrity cameos, are established voiceover actors.<\/p>\n

KP: What’s stunning is people looking at that and not realizing the talent there – the industry almost views voice actors as some kind of weird, bastard step-children.\u00c2\u00a0 That they’re not real actors.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh, I know.\u00c2\u00a0 And I don’t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 I truly don’t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 Here we are, we’re doing the closest thing to rep theater you can get, where in an episode of The Critic<\/em>, for instance, I played upwards of 20 characters every episode.<\/p>\n

KP: Does your record still stand, that you set with The Critic<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 Mike (Reiss) and Al (Jean) have not told me otherwise, but yeah, I believe that was the record.\u00c2\u00a0 I beat Harry Shearer by one voice.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, 29 characters in a 30 minute episode.\u00c2\u00a0 Luckily each character didn’t have a full minute of screentime, or it would have been The Mo Show<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 (As Lovitz) “The Critic<\/em> starring Jon Lovitz.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, well, smell.”<\/p>\n

KP: Yeah, we know there’s an episode out there that Jon didn’t work on.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, there’s one line out there that’s me as The Critic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I can’t tell you.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sworn to secrecy.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> By Jon.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m a man who keeps my promises.\u00c2\u00a0 The one line slipped in.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> (laughing) He always felt… I guess he was a tad annoyed.\u00c2\u00a0 Entertainment Tonight<\/em> did a story on The Critic<\/em>, and they wanted Jon, obviously.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s the star of the show.\u00c2\u00a0 Jon was off shooting City Slickers 2<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, we had our second season premiere coming up and we were lucky enough to have ET<\/em> wanting to cover the show.\u00c2\u00a0 We wanted to get off to a good start on the new network.\u00c2\u00a0 So they said, “Come down and shoot our number two guy.\u00c2\u00a0 Shoot Maurice LaMarche, who’s the impressionist on the show who does all the movie parodies, and he plays Jeremy Hawke and the butler character.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s entertaining enough.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not Lovitz, but it’s the next best thing.”\u00c2\u00a0 So they did.\u00c2\u00a0 The came down and shot me, and we had a lovely time with it, but in it, I subbed Jon, as we did for the five episodes he was away making City Slickers 2<\/em>. I played Jay for temp track purposes, and then Jon came in… actually Jon didn’t come in.\u00c2\u00a0 They flew out every week to Utah with a whole digital audiotape thing and recorded him in his hotel room doing the lines.\u00c2\u00a0 At one point the mixer got mixed up and left in one of my temp track lines, because he thought it was Jon.\u00c2\u00a0 So it stayed in there.\u00c2\u00a0 But when they shot me, he came back from Utah and he called me up and he said, “Oh great,\u00c2\u00a0 Now everybody thinks you’re the Critic. They think you’re the one that does most of the shows and I just lend my name to it and do the odd episode.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, wish you hadn’t done that, Maurice…”<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah. Like I set out to deceive the world into thinking I’m the Critic.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, his whole take was, “I hope this doesn’t make me like Jim Backus.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t want to be remembered as Mr. Magoo.\u00c2\u00a0 Did all this body of film work and Saturday Night Live<\/em>, and everybody’s gonna remember The Critic<\/em>. I\u00c2\u00a0 don’t want it to be like that.”<\/p>\n

KP: You should have just convinced them that you were Jon after plastic surgery.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Of course, I’d be happy if anybody remembered me for anything.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if it is The Brain.<\/p>\n

KP: Oh, that’s bull.\u00c2\u00a0 People remember you, and people know you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> That’s what I’m saying, and I’m happy about that. If 20 years from now, if my son’s kids are watching Pinky & The Brain<\/em> on whatever medium is available… you know, whether they have it beamed directly into their brains… television will be a thing of the past.\u00c2\u00a0 You just download entertainment into your brain and it’ll replace dreams.\u00c2\u00a0 But whatever it is, I’d be happy if my kids’ kids watch Pinky & The Brain<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 What a thrill.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I only have one boy, but he does that now.\u00c2\u00a0 He’ll just come out with it too. It’s like, you know… I can’t tell whether he’s proud of it or embarrassed about it, but it’ll just kinda be this non sequitur in a given conversation with a new friend, he’ll just go, “My dad’s The Brain.”\u00c2\u00a0 Just tosses it off like, “Oh yeah.”\u00c2\u00a0 Like, “I have an edge, and my dad’s…”<\/p>\n

KP: (laughing)\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how he’s gonna get girls in future years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh geez, I can’t… please, he’s nine years old!\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t want that visual.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Nah, that’s alright.\u00c2\u00a0 In nine more years that’ll be inevitable.\u00c2\u00a0 Such a handsome boy, thank god.\u00c2\u00a0 He got his looks from his mother.<\/p>\n

KP: And looking at the fact that you do have a legacy, do you often think of that?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Or at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I want my legacy to be peace in the middle east…<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I don’t think about it.\u00c2\u00a0 I think about it as… hopefully, this is all going into my retirement plan, and I won’t be broke when I’m 65, but I don’t think of it as this great… the way Mel Blanc’s legacy is Bugs Bunny. It just doesn’t occur to me that anything of that magnitude, that pop cultural magnitude, is tied to me in any way.\u00c2\u00a0 Weird.<\/p>\n

KP: Can you envision a time 50 years from now when someone goes to resurrect Pinky & The Brain<\/em> and someone has to come in and do Maurice LaMarche doing The Brain?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, I’m envisioning that in, like, five years, because I still want to do the voice and I want to ask for a whole shitload of money for it.<\/p>\n

KP: Then you get the phone call that Harry Shearer is doing it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah! (laughing) That is exactly the way this town works. I tell you, you’re wasted over there in the Carolinas.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes, but the $150,000 an episode he’ll be making on The Simpsons<\/em> by then will not be enough.<\/p>\n

KP: “Why does Brain sound like Mr. Burns?” That’s what they’ll ask…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> A la the Garfield turn of Bill Murray playing Garfield. Of course, if Lorenzo were still alive, I wonder if that would be the case.\u00c2\u00a0 It might be.\u00c2\u00a0 My dread is that if they ever do Pinky & The Brain: The Motion Picture<\/em>, it’ll be Kelsey Grammer and Eric Idle.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: No, I’m sure they’ll give it to Bill Murray to do The Brain. You would love that, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> They would do celebrity versions of us.\u00c2\u00a0 “We can’t get the original guys – who knows who they are.\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s get Kelsey Grammer because he’s an intellectual sounding guy and let’s get Eric Idle ’cause he’s a wacky cockney, or wacky Englishman, and that’ll be the new Pinky & The Brain.”\u00c2\u00a0 So I don’t sit there fantasizing about Pinky & The Brain<\/em>, the feature film.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I have heard tell – and this is only rumor, mind you – that Steven… not Seagal…<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 That Steven has thought of doing a Pinky & The Brain<\/em> motion picture.\u00c2\u00a0 And each time that he’s ordered a pencil test or a CGI test of a computer generated mouse, which is redundant, he makes something else.\u00c2\u00a0 Like I heard Mousehunt<\/em> started out as him investigating the possibility of a CGI Pinky & The Brain<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 And then he went, “Well, you know what, I’m in bed with Warner Brothers on that one, and it’s too much money, it’s too weird to divvy it up.\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s just make a whole independent thing.”\u00c2\u00a0 And so he made Mousehunt<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the rumor. Strictly rumor.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It was never meant to be.\u00c2\u00a0 It was never mine.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Hey listen, it took them how many years to make Scooby-Doo<\/em>, the motion picture?<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 Eugh.\u00c2\u00a0 Thank you. Thanks for putting it all in perspective for me.<\/p>\n

KP: And you certainly do have a fanbase out there. Something like your appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con a few years back, which caused a bit of a ruckus because it’s not something you had done prior to that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well it’s funny, I’d done one before that, but it was a very smallish one. It was for Gordon Bressack, my dear friend who created Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 So I had been there before and had done an appearance, but it didn’t garner as much attention as that one. Futurama panels are 5,000 strong.\u00c2\u00a0 We fill the entire large auditorium at the San Diego convention center.<\/p>\n

KP: It always seemed to me that Fox had a personal vendetta against Groening when it came to Futurama<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It would seem that way, wouldn’t it?\u00c2\u00a0 If one were a conspiracy theorist or paranoid.<\/p>\n

KP: Or able to look at the evidence. There was a very concerted effort to kill that puppy through scheduling.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It must have been Krypto the Superdog, because it took them four years to do it.\u00c2\u00a0 What do you know, another Superman reference.\u00c2\u00a0 Second only to Seinfeld in Superman references.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, actually… I didn’t know Seinfeld really well.\u00c2\u00a0 But one of my best friends in the world is Mark Schiff, who is the voice of the little stupid dog in Two Stupid Dogs<\/em> and possibly the funniest standup comedian I know.\u00c2\u00a0 And Mark and Jerry and Paul Reiser and Larry Miller are all great friends.\u00c2\u00a0 They all moved out here from New York together back in, like, ’78, and they made a vow that every New Year’s Day they would have lunch together.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’ve kept that vow for almost 30 years.\u00c2\u00a0 No matter where they are in the world, they all fly into New York, have lunch at the River Caf\u00c3\u00a9 in Brooklyn, and then walk the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan.\u00c2\u00a0 No matter how friggin’ cold it is. And they do it. They had a close relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 My relationship with Jerry basically amounted to doing him for him before anybody else was doing him.\u00c2\u00a0 Back in 1980 we both did Evening at the Improv<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 I watched his act, and watched it when it came out on TV and learned his voice.\u00c2\u00a0 I just thought it was an interesting voice.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody knew Jerry was gonna be anything. At the time we were just, you know, both two guys starting out and we were both on the first episode of Evening at the Improv<\/em> with Howie Mandell. And one day I did him for him.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually I did him… the doorman, Harris Peete at the Comedy Store says, “Hey Seinfeld, you gotta come here. This guy does you.\u00c2\u00a0 Go ahead, do it.”\u00c2\u00a0 And I went, (as Seinfeld) “Bob, you’re fattest man in the world.\u00c2\u00a0 This guy could lose 2, 3 hundred pounds, wouldn’t even make a dent.” Jerry goes, “That’s good.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody’s ever done me before.”\u00c2\u00a0 And that was the extent of our relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 That and just, “Hey Jerry.”\u00c2\u00a0 “Hey Maurice.”<\/p>\n

KP: When you talk about that group, is that part of your regret for not making the move out to New York?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, I mean, getting in with that group wouldn’t really… it would just mean I know those guys.<\/p>\n

KP: Do you think that same kind of solidarity didn’t exist within the LA crowd at the time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It depended.\u00c2\u00a0 The solidarity existed amongst the Toronto comics.\u00c2\u00a0 Howie Mandell and Lou Dinos and Mark Gluckman and, you know, other people you’ve never heard of, the Toronto connection, we all hung together.\u00c2\u00a0 We had that same solidarity.\u00c2\u00a0 But you know instead of that, it would have been the New York connection.\u00c2\u00a0 But I certainly wouldn’t look at it as a means to an end, you know, “If I become better buddies with Seinfeld, I would have ended up on the show.”\u00c2\u00a0 Mark is still Mark.\u00c2\u00a0 Mark is still the Little Stupid Dog, and admittedly, by all of the other three, they all tell him, “You’re the funniest one amongst us.” You know? And he is.\u00c2\u00a0 Schiff is hilarious.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, because he’s every man’s comic.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, the common man loves him too.\u00c2\u00a0 He just never… you know, and he’s not dead yet.\u00c2\u00a0 It could still happen, but he just never hooked in with a hit.\u00c2\u00a0 But he’s a terrific comedian.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: Were there ever any thoughts you entertained, especially in Toronto at that period, of going the Second City route?<\/strong><\/p>\n

$\"mo-07.jpg\"$ LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I liked, at the time, the high wire aspect of standup comedy and the fact that if it didn’t go badly, I didn’t get to blame anybody else.\u00c2\u00a0 You know?\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t say, “Well, you know, Peter Aykroyd didn’t pick up his cues, and that’s why it sucked,” or “Catherine was off tonight, you know, and that’s why I…” When you’re up there and it’s just you and that microphone, you know – when it’s great, you know it was you… and when it sucks, you know it was you.\u00c2\u00a0 I never held with, “Oh, they were a crappy audience.”\u00c2\u00a0 What, did they all stand outside and get depressed?\u00c2\u00a0 Skip their Prozac en masse out in the line before coming into the comedy club?\u00c2\u00a0 No. It’s all on you.<\/p>\n

KP: Is that also, to a certain extent, wanting to keep the adulation to yourself and not have to share it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh, absolutely. When it went well, it was my fault.\u00c2\u00a0 So I got to pat myself on the back and go, “Hey, that was all you out there tonight, baby.\u00c2\u00a0 Listen to that applause.”\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t have to share that with anybody.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

KP: What’s it like for you, as a performer, when you’re in a recording studio and working together as an ensemble? Is the energy different when you’re sitting in a room…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh yes, absolutely.\u00c2\u00a0 Cartoon work is all about… I’ve gone from the most egotistical thing you can do to the least ego-feeding thing you can do.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s been very psychologically healthy for me.\u00c2\u00a0 And I probably made a lot more money.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh it’s not easier.\u00c2\u00a0 Standup comedy is the hardest job there is.\u00c2\u00a0 In show business, anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 And maybe shit-eater is somewhat more difficult, although I don’t know what company is hiring for that.\u00c2\u00a0 Being a standup comedian and being a good one is a tough, tough thing.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, being good at it’s tough.\u00c2\u00a0 Like, achieving goodness at it is a difficult thing…<\/p>\n

KP: But you said you can be an incredibly funny person and make the audience laugh, but not be financially successful.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> That means nothing. I\u00c2\u00a0 still say Mark Schiff is the funniest comedian I know, and he makes a very good living, but you don’t know his name like you know Jerry Seinfeld’s name.\u00c2\u00a0 But he’s still the funniest comedian I know.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s hilarious.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean absolutely hilarious.\u00c2\u00a0 Side splittingly… “Oh my god, I have to stop laughing or I’m gonna vomit” kinda funny.<\/p>\n

KP: So your definition of being a success is based on the artistic aspect…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah. Heck yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 Absolutely. That’s all that counts in comedy.<\/p>\n

KP: Would you say that the acts that you saw where that wasn’t the case, where success is the brass ring and the art is hollow, was there a difference in the tenor of their acts and their career? Would you say that there is a difference in the type of performer that you are and what you considered being a success, to the type of performer who might just see it as a financial exercise.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> And you’re saying is there a difference between financial success and the kind of success I seek?<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I seek both.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, obviously I love financial security. Obviously I’d love if we could move the decimal point over two places to the right.\u00c2\u00a0 And get voiceover people paid the way sitcom people are paid. Goodness knows our product is maybe more valuable, because you can recycle it every six years.\u00c2\u00a0 You know?\u00c2\u00a0 A new audience is spawned all the time, so episodes of Spongebob Squarepants<\/em> are evergreen. There will always be little kids ready to turn on Spongebob Squarepants<\/em>, ergo the product becomes more valuable.\u00c2\u00a0 However, you know, Three’s Company<\/em> is dated.\u00c2\u00a0 So you can watch it as a curiosity from a particular time, but it’s not timeless.<\/p>\n

KP: Even the dreck of the animated lot is still playing well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 So, you know, to have people that are integral in churning out that evergreen product that’s gonna make the networks millions upon millions upon millions of dollars and pay them scale, the bare minimum you can legally pay a performer, is somewhat criminal.\u00c2\u00a0 That being said, you know, I love the work and I still do it, but I’d love to see us paid $60,000 an episode rather than $600.<\/p>\n

KP: What are the blocks towards that, besides just a lack of respect for the craft?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Let me continue answering your original difficult to understand question.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, that’s okay.\u00c2\u00a0 That being said, obviously I’d like to see that, but the true success for me is, will anybody will remember, as you say, Pinky & The Brain<\/em> in 50 years, the way we’re watching 1950s Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny cartoons -which has as much to do with Chuck Jones as it does with Mel Blanc?\u00c2\u00a0 And being as entertained by them today as they were 54 years ago, because I wasn’t around. And will people still watch Pinky & The Brain<\/em> in 2054, and say, “Gee, this was great,” and laugh out loud, and will they have Pinky & The Brain<\/em> on Broadway at the Hollywood Bowl with a live orchestra beneath it?\u00c2\u00a0 Obviously, I don’t think it’ll be that grand – but I mean, if it’s still around, yeah… whether I make, you know, $100,000 a year or a million or ten million a year is, you know… that won’t matter in 50 years anyway, except to possibly my son and grandson.\u00c2\u00a0 But whether or not people are watching the work and still enjoying it, that’s a greater success.\u00c2\u00a0 And did I attach myself to, or help bring to fruition, a character that’s got some legs on it?\u00c2\u00a0 Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a mark of success.\u00c2\u00a0 Is it good work?\u00c2\u00a0 Is it making people laugh?\u00c2\u00a0 Are the folks at home laughing?\u00c2\u00a0 I wish I could monitor it, but I’m hoping they are.<\/p>\n

KP: Well do you think that by attending something like a convention, do you think that’s a way of monitoring just how much of an impact you’ve had?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, to the point that it actually surprises you.\u00c2\u00a0 You go, “God, I had no idea that we were this funny.”\u00c2\u00a0 You know? And then you start questioning it.\u00c2\u00a0 You go, “Is some of that acceptance?\u00c2\u00a0 Is some of that because it’s built-in that they love the show and they love the characters, so they’re gonna laugh at anything we do?\u00c2\u00a0 Or is it just that the darn thing works?”\u00c2\u00a0 Still hard to tell.\u00c2\u00a0 I still second guess myself on that.<\/p>\n

KP: You second guess yourself even within audio commentaries on the DVDs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, I kinda made a decision to be a little bit obnoxious about that. I don’t know if you noticed on those commentaries, I’m always going, “Hey, am I in this one?”\u00c2\u00a0 Or, “Shhhhh, quiet. I want to hear the show.”\u00c2\u00a0 I just decided that my character would be an annoying pain in the butt.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, the guy that’s always going away from what everybody else is talking about and making it all about him.<\/p>\n

KP: Well, on the Futurama<\/em> set, it almost seemed like you were slightly uncomfortable being there.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, I’m always… (sigh).\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not that I was uncomfortable, but I was intimidated.\u00c2\u00a0 The obvious brightness of our writing staff and of Matt, and I just felt, you know, as though I was a chimpanzee sitting in a room full of MIT professors.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t feel bright enough to be there.\u00c2\u00a0 So if that’s picked up on, that was why.\u00c2\u00a0 I just kept saying, “Oh god, I wish I’d say something as bright as David Cohen just said.\u00c2\u00a0 Or the insight of…<\/p>\n

KP: There must have been at least one point that you considered that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> (laughing) Talking about an in-the-moment guy! John is so in the moment.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s great.<\/p>\n

KP: Is there anything that you look at and you think, this is one thing that I still want to accomplish? You said there are some things that don’t concern you, but what does?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> World domination.\u00c2\u00a0 No, I’m kidding. That’s the gag answer.\u00c2\u00a0 Now the real answer.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, it’s sad.\u00c2\u00a0 I would love to do The Tonight Show<\/em> with Johnny, which is impossible.\u00c2\u00a0 That was another dream that had sort of fall by the wayside.<\/p>\n

KP: Maybe you can just do a set in front of the curtains, wherever they are…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, I actually did a couple of impressions in front of that curtain.\u00c2\u00a0 I was the announcer on Howie Mandell’s talk show, and he actually had that curtain hanging off to the side, and he used Johnny’s multicolored curtain for guest intros and that sort of thing.\u00c2\u00a0 So I actually got in front of the curtain and did a Carson impression, of Johnny, and Howie put the camera on me for 15 seconds while I did that, and that was sort of fun.\u00c2\u00a0 Howie did his show out of the same studio Johnny did.\u00c2\u00a0 But that… yeah, that would be… in a rub the lamp and have a genie grant me a wish kind of sense, it would be that.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, the first thing that comes to mind is that, and the second thing that’s still possible, doable, would be to maybe one day get on that sitcom. You know?\u00c2\u00a0 Like I said, I don’t pursue it, because bit parts don’t really interest me, and playing the neighbor in an episode of, as Rob Paulsen says, Who’s Cooking the Soup<\/em> – that’s Rob’s great name for every generic sitcom that’s out there – doesn’t interest me.\u00c2\u00a0 But you know, if one day I could ever end up in a show where I was the main banana, that would be great.<\/p>\n

KP: But it’s not something that you’re going to actively pursue.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, because it’s such a brass ring, that happens to so few people, that I can no longer… it’s like I said, put all my eggs in that basket.\u00c2\u00a0 What I’ve got to do is just show up and be the best me I can be.\u00c2\u00a0 Be the best cartoon voiceover guy I can be and just trust that if that’s supposed to happen, there’s no way I’ll be able to avoid it. You know, as long as I keep putting my best me forward.<\/p>\n

KP: Is it almost a self-fulfilling prophecy by not going out for those roles?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Maybe so.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe so.\u00c2\u00a0 Like I said, it’s the type of thing that, if it happened, it’d be great. It would also be a friggin’ miracle.\u00c2\u00a0 But, you know, if I was to go back to standup comedy, it might happen, and that’s something I still toy with. You know, somebody asked me once, and maybe this is the answer to your question… We were having that standard what-if conversation. “What if you won the lottery?\u00c2\u00a0 Would you keep the job?\u00c2\u00a0 Would you do what you’re doing?”\u00c2\u00a0 And I said, “You know what I’d do? I would leave one day a week open for servicing the contracts of people that can’t do without me.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, where I play the character for them, an ongoing thing like Toucan Sam or anything like that.\u00c2\u00a0 One day a week for that.\u00c2\u00a0 The other four I would take all the millions and millions of dollars, and I would hire the best writers in town.\u00c2\u00a0 Pay top dollar, get them all away from whoever they’re working for by doubling their salaries, and write the strongest 45 minutes I could, and go back out and do standup.”<\/p>\n

$\"mo-10.jpg\"$ QS: But it’s obviously a dream, to do stand-up again, that you keep coming back to…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I don’t have the resources right now, nor the time.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m what you call… I’m in the category of what’s known as the barely rich.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, I’m just a scooch on the other side of that line that the democrats want to raise the taxes on again and take that obscene amount of money from us.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’m just a scooch, you know? ,<\/p>\n

KP: So going back to standup is strictly a financial affair for you now.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Financial and time.\u00c2\u00a0 I make just enough money to support my somewhat, as I said, barely rich lifestyle.\u00c2\u00a0 I drive an entry level luxury car but not the top of the line luxury car.\u00c2\u00a0 I have a nice three bedroom little tract house in Sherman Oaks with a pool, but I don’t have a 17 room mansion in the Hollywood Hills as some friends of mine who are on sitcoms have.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> That bastard.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, I’m in that level where I need to work five days a week making the very handsome living I make just to support this lifestyle.\u00c2\u00a0 So I don’t have the kind of money to lure all these top writers away from the comics they’re already writing for. And I don’t have the time to write a brilliant act for myself because I don’t believe I’m that brilliant.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> But an impressionist especially, I think, needs to be brilliant.\u00c2\u00a0 Needs to come from somewhere. Needs his point of view to be a unique place that… you know, because the best comics are the guys that maybe have said things you’ve thought of but they’re saying things in a way you’ve never thought of saying it.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Exactly.\u00c2\u00a0 And god bless Rich Little. He’s made a nice little niche for himself, and he’s made a lot of money, but I don’t think he’s made me laugh since the Carter administration.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, it’s more like the Kennedy Administration.<\/p>\n

KP: So does that mean we’re not gonna get the one man Mo Show<\/em> with you doing all your impressions as various characters in a given scenario?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, not anytime soon.\u00c2\u00a0 That was pretty much a cheat. For a voice demo tape I just sort of took the Hamlet soliloquy and just every two lines I switched characters.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was… at the time I didn’t have any demo… it was my first demo tape. I didn’t have any commercials to put on there or anything.\u00c2\u00a0 I just said, “Well, just show the folks how well I do impressions.” So I just kept rapid fire celebrity Shakespeare.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Never.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got all known copies.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve spent my barely rich fortune retrieving all copies of it.<\/p>\n

KP: You’re one of the few voice actors that don’t have a website.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, I also didn’t get a computer until 1996.<\/p>\n

KP: Give it a few years and your son will launch it for you. “MyDadTheBrain.com”<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes, I’m not a genius – I just play on one TV.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know what the title of my autobiography would be, but I know the title of my one man show.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Don’t You Hate When Someone Murders Your Dad<\/em>.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 I just know that’s the title.\u00c2\u00a0 But I know it wouldn’t be a necessarily funny show.\u00c2\u00a0 But it would come from everywhere I come from. Including that mean old republican place of truth in sentencing laws and pro death penalty. And lower taxes.<\/p>\n

I got a chance to catch up with Maurice a few weeks ago, to “bring things up to date,” as it were…<\/strong><\/p>\n

$\"mo-11.jpg\"$ QS: I was just going through the interview we did, and I guess the big question is, what’s happened since then?<\/strong><\/p>\n

KP: I’m assuming that you haven’t yet been offered a part on Who’s Cooking the Soup<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, no parts on Who’s Cooking the Soup<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 No, nothing like that.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing’s come up on the on-camera world.\u00c2\u00a0 The return of Futurama<\/em> is the most exciting thing.<\/p>\n

KP: Which is huge.\u00c2\u00a0 Not entirely unanticipated…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, it’s one of those things that you just think, “You know, is it really possible?\u00c2\u00a0 Could we really rise like a phoenix from the ashes?” And then you think to yourself, “Nah, not us. That happens to other people.\u00c2\u00a0 That happens to Seth MacFarlane and that happens to, you know, other folks – but not to me.” And then it happens to me.<\/p>\n

KP: And then it happens.\u00c2\u00a0 So it must have been a bright shining moment when that happened.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It’s nice to know. I mean it still feels that there’s enough that could happen to scotch it in the next two weeks, but no, if all goes according to plan, we’ll be in the recording studio the first week of August.<\/p>\n

KP: I mean, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for the whole “animation resurrection” trend to take off, because the great thing about animated characters is they never age.\u00c2\u00a0 As long as the actors are still around, why not go back in, if the demand is there, to do something like this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Mm-hmm. It always seemed as though the show never quite got its due, and it shouldn’t have happened to it.\u00c2\u00a0 You know, it was a great show, good viewership.\u00c2\u00a0 I think one of the things that’s changed is the way that the industry looks at whether or not a show is successful, with the advent of DVD sales as opposed to Nielsen ratings. They can really track a little more accurately how much enthusiasm there is behind a show – and with that, realize how many butts are gonna be on a couch watching the commercials.<\/p>\n

KP: Plus the solidification of online fan bases, and the arrival of the show in syndication and the ability to build an audience that way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

KP: It was surprising that it got snatched away from Adult Swim by Comedy Central.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, although I don’t know that Adult Swim could have bid high enough to cover the expense of making new episodes.<\/p>\n

$\"mo-12.jpg\"$ LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I just don’t know if they had it in their budget.\u00c2\u00a0 Comedy Central, I think, may actually have deeper pockets.<\/p>\n

KP: But I also think that they’re looking to use this as a cornerstone in build their own animation block, which they’ve been trying for years to do.<\/strong><\/p>\n

KP: Which is a definitely vote of confidence for the series.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 May it last a good long time.<\/p>\n

KP: And not just Futurama<\/em>, you’ve also got the resurgence of Pinky & The Brain<\/em> thanks to the DVD release.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I think that, you know, maybe if it sells as well as we hope, maybe we can see if we can bring that back, too. If you’re gonna go by that, Brisco County, Jr.<\/em> should come back before us, because apparently their DVD sales are even ahead of ours.<\/p>\n

KP: What would be the trigger for Pinky & The Brain<\/em>‘s return? Is that more a Warner issue, an Amblin issue, or a combination of the two that would have to be propelling that forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, you know, I’m not one of the business cats.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t have a good business head, but it would seem to me that both Amblin and Warner Brothers would have to be up for playing for it to work. We have to see how it does. I mean, presales have been terrific. Somebody has to decide that we can make some money if we bring this back.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe it will mean it comes back in the form of a feature film, although my big fear has always been, if it comes back as a feature film, they would recast our voices with the voices of celebrities.<\/p>\n

KP: Surely they wouldn’t do that.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s never happened before.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, no, of course not. But it’s certainly a possibility. I don’t want to jinx the thing or put an idea in anybody’s mind.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Kevin Spacey would probably like to play The Brain.\u00c2\u00a0 Kevin Spacey, from everything I’ve heard, is a big fan of Pinky & The Brain<\/em>.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, I’m sure he’ll start lobbying, and Eric Idle will play Pinky, and\u00c2\u00a0 Rob and I will do cameos of sort.<\/p>\n

$\"mo-13.jpg\"$ QS: Yes, they can put in the IMDB that the original voices of Pinky & the Brain were featured in a brief background scene as pigeons.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

KP: I mean, at this point, who would you say is the character that’s closest to you, that you hold most dear of the ones you’ve played?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> That I hold most dear is definitely The Brain.\u00c2\u00a0 In terms of closest to me, I would say the Garbage Man from Dilbert<\/em>.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, I’m most like him.\u00c2\u00a0 I really… I’ve got these little pearls of wisdom and a Zen like way of making things work in life that shouldn’t…<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 I always liked him.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know if I’m really truly like him, but I always liked the character.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 Somebody said he’s the guy that exemplifies inner peace and wisdom, and yet all wrapped up in that package that you just never expected. You just never expect anything to come out of him other than, “Try to put the green stuff in the green can, Mac, and the recycling in the blue one, and the garbage in the black one,” but instead he comes out with these pearls.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes they are.\u00c2\u00a0 And I like him.\u00c2\u00a0 I like him.\u00c2\u00a0 Uh, I’m probably closer to Yosemite Sam, actually.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, especially since I quit smoking.\u00c2\u00a0 If I’m close to any character that I’ve voiced, it’d be Yosemite Sam since I quit smoking.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe closer to Yosemite Sam Kinison, actually.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah. The way I see it, I’m either quit or I’m not.\u00c2\u00a0 So today, today I’m still quit.\u00c2\u00a0 And will endeavor to be so. By the time of this seeing print, I mean to still be a quit guy.\u00c2\u00a0 As of this writing, it’s 123 days without having lit up.<\/p>\n

KP: Well, that’s quite a stretch.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s usually a little bit beyond the drop-off for most easygoers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> It’s a third of a year.\u00c2\u00a0 Just.\u00c2\u00a0 Yesterday marked a third of a year.<\/p>\n

KP: So you’re still in the desert of emotional swings at this point.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah… I don’t know, though.\u00c2\u00a0 I think nicotine addiction is the toughest one of all, because there’s still that sense of euphoria.\u00c2\u00a0 Euphoria recall, anyway, where you remember how good lighting up after a meal felt.\u00c2\u00a0 The wonderful sense of, “ahhhhhhhh.”<\/p>\n

KP: Was it something that you always connected?\u00c2\u00a0 Was it that sort of visceral connection, or was it a functionary thing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, it’s a little of both. I was just a cigar smoker.\u00c2\u00a0 Never smoked cigarettes.\u00c2\u00a0 But Welles smoked cigars, and since I was doing a Wellesian character, it sort of gave me a crumb crisp coating on my larynx that allowed me to get that rumbly deep voice that Welles had. But the truth of the matter is actually my voice has got a little more range and gotten a little deeper since I quit, so I guess I’m wrong with that.\u00c2\u00a0 But, you know, I had a very visceral connection. Let me put it this way – I did not not have a cigar in my mouth if it was legal for me to do so.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, if I’m in my car, and in my home – Yes. Not in a bank, not in a closed restaurant – although I’d always ask for a patio table. I was as addicted to cigars as some people are to drugs. If I was allowed to smoke, I was smoking.<\/p>\n

KP: You mentioned the Welles connection.\u00c2\u00a0 Did you come to see it as almost a crutch for finding a character? I mean, some actors will latch on to some iconic thing, like a pair of socks or something like this or that. Did you come to see smoking, in some ways, as a key into that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No, I was just – I was weaned off the nipple at a young age. I had my pacifier taken away from me when I was 2.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that’s what it came from.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 An attempt to… it was an oral fixation.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, I did start smoking cigars because of one or two of the characters and the impressions I used to have in my stand-up.\u00c2\u00a0 My first impression was Peter Falk as Columbo, so whenever I’d do my stand-up, I’d buy a cigar and have it in my hand, and I’d never light it. Then one night I lit it, and… “Oh, it’s pretty good.”<\/p>\n

KP: Did you ever fear that, being a voice actor… that is your primary instrument, your vocal chords and your lungs…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 I did.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet continued to do so, which speaks to it being an addiction. It certainly can’t be terribly smart of me to be sucking on the fumes of smoldering leaves, you know?<\/p>\n

KP: What percentage of voice actors today are still smokers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 Not too many, although… (sigh), you know, I wouldn’t like to name names, but I know of at least one very, very prominent voice actor who insists on smoking cigarettes because he thinks it helps his voice.<\/p>\n

KP: But it definitely is not a prevalent trend… Compared to the past, when you look at the 30s, 40s…<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Oh, I would say, in terms of percentages, maybe five percent.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> There are no regular smokers in the group I’m with.\u00c2\u00a0 In the lobby of the agency I’m with, almost nobody smokes.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Thank you, thank you. And my fellow voice actors who tended to get trapped in small rooms with me also are quite happy.<\/p>\n

KP: I’m sure your fellow Futurama<\/em> actors are gonna be thrilled.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yes, yes… We’re all stoked for very many reasons.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s been so great to work with those people. Not only my fellow actors, but the writers. To work with Matt (Groening) and Dave Cohen. I’m not sure who else is back on the project but, we got quite a few of our original guys… Eric Kaplan, Patrick Verrone…<\/p>\n

KP: Well, it’s great that it’s one of those shows that engenders a loyalty and affection, so that people would come back because of the experience they had originally. I mean, there’s certainly some shows where people go, “I’m never going back to that thing.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> No.\u00c2\u00a0 No, it was definitely a situation where we all had fun together.\u00c2\u00a0 We knew we were putting out a great product for the folks at home. And if you wanted to go deeper and, you know, solve the mystery of the runes and the language, and go frame by frame and catch all the inside jokes – the background, foreground, midground…<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, you have to learn some rudimentary physics just to watch the show. Just to get beyond the “Shiny Metal Ass” jokes. It was a rich show for all of us.<\/p>\n

KP: So what other projects are you currently working on in addition to that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Well, the Nick film Barnyard<\/em>, which has yet to be released. The series already has the go ahead on Nickelodeon, so I hope I’ll be in it. My character is a big jersey cow. There are three jersey cows there which sort of get the main character to walk on the wild side a little bit, and quit being such a straight laced guy. The other two are played by John Di Maggio and Scott Bullock, and we actually talked like we’re from Jersey. I’m also currently working on DVD special features for Pinky & The Brain<\/em> and Animaniacs<\/em>. It’s a little bit exciting.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m hosting the Animaniacs<\/em> DVDs, both volumes one and two.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> I hope. I haven’t seen it yet, but I hope I did an okay job.<\/p>\n

KP: Is there any one that you didn’t get a chance to speak to that you wish you could on a future volume?<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> On a future volume, we’d hoped to get more of the writers involved, so in\u00c2\u00a0 future volumes you’ll actually see mini writer’s roundtables, where I’ll be interviewing groups of four of the writers of Animaniacs<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 There are 12 writers in all that get interviewed but we broke it down to four, four, and four.\u00c2\u00a0 So that’s something you’ll see in future volumes.<\/p>\n

KP: It’s a shame that Steven couldn’t do an on-camera for it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, you know, that’s something that at this point in time hasn’t happened yet.\u00c2\u00a0 We haven’t wrapped up on volume three of Animaniacs<\/em>, we’re still keeping our fingers crossed, but we’re not holding our breath.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s okay to get cramped fingers, but we wouldn’t want to asphyxiate.<\/p>\n

LAMARCHE:<\/strong> Yeah, there’s always that, as well.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s a very busy guy. It’s understandable. It would be lovely if it could happen. As I said, we ain’t done yet.<\/p>\n

$\"mo-14.jpg\"$ <\/div>\n
\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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