Originally posted: 4-21-2000
Son of the great voice actor, Bob McFadden.
| We were delighted to get the chance to talk to Brian, son of the great Bob McFadden who voiced cartoon characters such as Milton the Monster and Cool McCool. We have corresponded back and forth over the past few months, and when he agreed to our little interview, we were ecstatic. |
| What was it like growing in a family with someone in the entertainment industry? | ||
| It never seemed weird because it was all I knew. I thought everyone’s Dad did funny voices for a living. Show business always seemed very normal to me. | ||
| Did they bring their work home with them sometimes and include you in routine? | ||
| My dad was one of those guys who was “on” a lot of the time. He found it hard to just sit and be himself with his family. He did voices a lot. It was fun but there were times when I felt my Dad kinda used it as a defense. But I definately learned a lot about humor and what was funny from my dad….He had a great laugh and when we made him laugh we knew something was funny. | ||
| What was your favorite cartoon as you were growing up? | ||
| I was a big Johnny Quest fan. | ||
| Did you ever participate in one of the shows produced? | ||
| Although he brought me to the studio once in a while I never did any stuff for my dad’s cartoons when I was a kid… I did a few voices for commercials…Minute Maid orange juice….and also for the Big Blue Marble TV show. | ||
| Did you ever do any projects of your own? If so, what were they? | ||
| After graduating from college I started doing standup comedy, acting and working in the Voice over business doing a lot of commercials. I’ve done couple of cartoon pilots… one for the Disney channel. | ||
| What was your father like in person? | ||
| In a lot of ways my Dad was a kid who never grew up. Everyone in the business liked him. He was a sweet heart although he didn’t always find it easy being a Dad because he had kind of a rough upbringing and we had our ups and downs But we bonded a lot later on. One thing he gave me was an appreciation of doing work you loved. He always looked forward to going into the studio. My dad was truly a genious when it came to voices. They would show him a picture of a new cartoon character on one of the shows and he could immediately come up with half a dozen great voice ideas for them. He had a mental catalog of voice impersonations of old radio actors and B movie actors that nobody even remembered that he could whip out at will.That’s one of the things My dad taught me …that most cartoon voices are just impersonations of other actors with a slight change. | ||
| If you could be any cartoon character in the world, who would you be? | ||
| Al Gore………..or maybe Speed Racer | ||