Oy!

As if being a voice actor weren’t tough enough, what with every goofus with an iphone calling himself a voice talent, now comes an animated special from “30Rock” where only celeb VO’s need apply.

Many voice actors know the names and faces of our more famous voice actoing brethren (and sisteren) who star in popular American animation TV series (you could throw animated movies in there but those castings always feel more about “movie star power” than anything else).

Some of us are even good enough to be able to identify an actor’s voice in animation or commercials on the first listen.

But what about the general public – do they particularly care what these voice actors look like?

I ask the question because on the Fox News web site today they featured a section called “TV Cartoon Stars Unmasked”.

Basically it’s a slide show of cartoon characters with a head shot of the voice actor next to it. Nice and deserved recognition for the actors, to be sure, but I’m just not sure the public really cares (and that is not meant as any slam to the actors).

What do you think?

Caitlin Sanchez - Voice of Dora The Explorer; Photo courtesy of Nickelodeon-AP

This is not the first voiceover contract battle nor will it likely be the last but Caitlin Sanchez family’s lawsuit now filed against defendants Nickelodeon, MTV Networks and Viacom International is a bit more high profile than most.

It pits Viacom, one of the world’s largest communication companies and owner of many media properties including MTV as well as Nickelodeon against the plaintiff Sanchez (and her family) who was hired in 2007 as the voice of Dora the Explorer for the wildly popular and profitable cartoon series of the same name. The family

According to the article in the New York Daily News, the suit claims “Defendants used Caitlin, unjustly enriching themselves of millions of dollars in profits from the series and branded products, which Caitlin preformed and promoted,” and that Sanchez’ Dora deal promised her more than $5,000 an episode and compensation in residuals and merchandising.

After negotiations between the parties failed the lawsuit, which the defendant’s attorney claim is “without merit”, was filed.

My take on these suits is always “we’ll see”.

I came across this video produced by the design firm Chermayeff & Geismar. It’s really impressive.

It takes some of their most famous logo designs (and there are lots of them) and morphs them into a cool video montage. The video has been around a while but its new to me so maybe its new to you too.

Not only is it entertaining but it’s also effective marketing although by the looks of their clients and their great work, you’d think securing new business isn’t so much a problem.

Kenneth Sansom, who played the voice of Rabbit in the Winnie the Pooh series, recently stopped by ABC4 in Salt Lake City for an interview on Good Things Utah.

Animation Voice Director Stevie Vallance may or may not have purple hair

Animation Voice Director and Emmy Award winner Stevie Vallance has two October “Tooned In!” workshops on ‘Animation Voice-over Acting”. I know her to be a patient teacher cause she taught me.

In New York City, her Tooned In! 1-Day Original Workshop will take place on Sunday October 17, 2010 from 12:00pm to 5pm at the Edge Studios.

Crossing over in to her native Canada, Stevie’s Ottawa, Ontario Tooned In! 1-Day Original Workshop will take place on Sunday October 24, 2010 from 12:00pm to 5pm at the Raven Street Studios.

For more details or to sign up, click here.

Maybe its just me who finds entertaining these interviews with some of the voice actors from The Lion King.

I especially found interesting Nathan Lane’s interview about the dark parts of this movie which I always found unnecessary to the story (Disney seems transfixed in its movie stories with killing parents ((Bambi, Nemo, Lion King)).

But the acting stories I think are fun.

Courtesy of Doreen Mulman on Facebook, a saw a video featuring interviews with voice talent discussing the challenges of voice actor parts in animation going to celebrity actors and how that impacts their careers.

As I noted recently, sometimes animated movies get picked on for picking celebrities to voice characters primarily because they are marketable celebrities (MJ Lallo offers one funny example). In other cases (I would cite “Toy Story” and “Cars” as two examples) the celebrities chosen to voice are clearly great actors whose transition to voice acting was seamless and superb.

As usual, Pat Fraley offers some really salient insight into the benefits of celebrities working in voice over.

While I applaud the producers desire to tell the story, a little effort properly checking the spelling of the featured actors’ names for the lower third graphics would have gone a long way to making this effort that much more credible.

Sometimes Hollywood actors get crap from non-Hollywood voice actors (of course not me, because I never give anyone crap) about why they were cast as the voices in an animated film.

Well, the voices in the Toy Story series for me have always made me forget who the “big names” were behind the voices. That’s a compliment – that’s how its supposed to be.

And now, watching them exercise their craft in these two videos from Toy Story 3, you may more fully understand why their performances are so amazingly good.

Toy Story 3 comes out tomorrow. The voice actor who plays Andy, the owner of all the toys like ‘Woody’ and ‘Buzz Lightyear’ has provide the character’s voice in all 3 films.

He started when he was 7, the next movie was made when he was in his teens and now, in his mid-twenties, he’s voiced Andy for the 3rd time.

Here’s an interesting interview with voice actor John Morris.