My name is Phillippe.

I take on the challenging role of “Urban” at Ratzafratzland.

I usually start my preparation for getting into character right after my morning yoga class.

Mrs. Ilsa Broonfeld, my teacher at the Fresno Repertory Theatre, has passed on to me the secrets of the method.

I try to remember when I was the hungriest and how good a cookie would taste. I find my nose starts naturally twitching. I become the rat.

I eat very little as well. It keeps the hunger on my mind as well as keeping me in good form. There are thousands of actors ready to jump in this rat suit if I can’t fit into it.

My name is Phillippe, but for the young and the young at heart…

I am Urban.

Come soon, Come often!

Ratzafratzland - “The Rattiest Place On Earth”

…you’ve got to rearrange, who your characters are and what they’re going to be. So as I mentioned yesterday, after the voice record I realized I had to go back and revisit certain characters that I had already designed because the voice actors brought out certain new aspects that the visuals didn’t reflect.

Biggest change came to a character I named GARY GEEZER, after our handsome, talented and stoic director GARY CONRAD. I had designed him as a somewhat old character but JEFF BENNETT played him a little older, crotchety and mummified than I had expected. So it was back to the drawing board for me.

When characters are so simply designed something as simple as a line can add 20 years onto their appearance. So I made some subtle changes that I think helped make the character match the voice a little better. Yeah I know, it doesn’t look a world apart from before, but now he’s got glasses, wrinkles, liver spots and an old man’s under bite. Oh and a pocket full of Metamucil and a retirement check in his pocket. Just like Alan! Kidding big guy.

CLICK HERE to hear a snippet of JEFF’s dialogue.

And bonus points to anyone who can name what pop culture reference the title of this post is quoting.

Bloggingly yours, Manny and Alan

Our favorite interplanetary immigrant (he gave new meaning to the term “illegal alien”), a female reporter who is foolhardiness incarnate, Sammy Timberg’s psuedo-Sousa theme music, and a rampaging dinosaur that seems to triple his proportions with every succeeding shot — what’s not to love in Max Fleischer’s “Arctic Giant?” After an expository minute or two, this 1942 Superman cartoon starts to move at a pretty good clip. The title critter demolishes a godzillion dollars worth of prime Metropolis real estate before Supe even shows up (I’m not quite sure why Clark Kent has to take a taxi to Monster Central, but the cab does serve as a handy dressing room.)

Lots of action and lots of fabulous wide angle shots of the wide hipped reptile doing his destructive thing. To get her story, Lois Lane all but jumps into the critter’s jaws before being rescued at the absolutely, positively last nanosecond. And, oh yeah, this time Superman really does leap tall buildings in a single bound — in this earlyish episode, the Man of Steel spends more time hopping from point to point than actual flying.

We’re really digging our special all-Krypton, all-week “Strictly Super” film festival. What do you think? Give us a holler at ReFrederator.com.

Dave Kirwan

From left to right: Jessica Di Cicco, Annie Mumolo, Kari Wahlgren, Anne Walker, and Melissa Wolfe

And man did we have fun!!! Why, you might ask, was our record so much fun? Well, for starters, we had four of the most talented women in the business working with us. They would be Jessica Di Cicco (Gloom), Annie Mumolo (Pixie), Kari Wahlgren (Sparkles), and our voice director extraordinaire, Ginny McSwain. Then, a bit later, Kevin Michael Richardson arrived. He, in my slightly professional opinion, is one of the most talented male voice actors in the business. Score!

Besides the mega stellar super great acting abilities of the cast, there was a terrific camaraderie that I felt in the room. Call it cheese ball and cue up the string quartet, but I’m serious here, folks. The way we all clicked together was something I couldn’t have predicted, and something I am so appreciative of. I couldn’t think of a better bunch to work with (and the Geevil School Alma Mater we recorded rivaled Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in terms of heart and soul)

So cast, Anne and I want you to know that we think you are fabulous women (and man). The script and the board really came to life today, and it was amazing to get a chance to experience that. THANK YOU!

Melissa and Anne

My name is “Bob”.

When you come to Ratzafratzland, I make sure that all your little nippers get to take a picture with Squawk, the lighthearted cartoon rat loved around the world.

Oh, sometimes they may spit up on me or kick me in tender territories, but I know this is your family’s once in a lifetime chance to get the full “Ratzafratz” experience.

My name is “Bob” and I’m a happy Ratzafratzland cast member.

Come soon, Come often!

Ratzafratzland - “The Rattiest Place On Earth”

Ratzafratzland
A subsidiary of Frederator Industries.

So I just realized we didn’t finish talking about our trip out to LA. Well the day after the VO we took all the raw audio into the editing room to composite our final audio take. We blew through this in about 3 hours and turned our rough cut of 11 minutes into our final take clocking in around 5 minutes and 36 seconds.

Now since the actors vocal performances helped better define the characters and some of the actions in my original board weren’t all blocked out and the fact that we wrote new lines the morning of the record we now needed to go back to the drawing board, literally.

Next step, the whole cartoon is re-boarded to the final audio. Meanwhile I’m going back and revisiting some of the character designs as the actors VO performance brought out certain characteristics that should be reflected in the visuals.

Special thanks to Mike Petak, pictured above, who for some reason reminded me a Cajun COSMO KRAMER, who cut our audio like a Samurai!

Bloggingly yours, Manny and Alan

directement de l’interweb

That’s it. I’m done. I’m moving to France. have you seen the fantastical animation being pumped out of there? No?
Well then check out one of the films done for Annecy, it’s called Pyrats

enjoy.

-Lee

Lemme get this straight! Its not enough that the Man of Steel saves civilization from volcanoes, giant robots and skyscraper melting deathrays — now he has to chase down every penny ante crook wearing a second hand Superman costume? What’s next — jaywalkers? Does Metropolis even need a police force? I mean, what the heck do THEY do?

ReFrederator continues our “Strictly Super Week” with a 1942 episode, “Showdown” — a bit short on spectacle, but superbly directed by I. Sparber with a keen eye for exotic lighting and nice character touches. The two villains are more fully developed than usual, particularly the oily fat cat — he looks a lot like old movie favorite Marvin Miller! Of all the original Superman cartoons, “Showdown” most clearly anticipates the feel of the great 1950’s TV show, which Fred was reminiscing about yesterday.

We’re up, up and away again with a story that’s more than a little larger than life.

Dave Kirwan

Summerteeth is itchin’ to be heard. He’ll have to wait until the auditions come back later this week to get his wish, though.
As far as the rest of the cartoon, props are being, uh, “propped out” and there’s a bit of BG experimentation abrewing.
Speaking of which, this package arrived today:

~Erik