Voice actor Nancy Cartwright tries her hand at improvising the voices of 8 random cartoon characters that she has never seen before.
Using a similar technique she used for Bart Simpson, Ralph Wiggum (The Simpsons), Chuckie Finster (Rugrats), and Rufus (Kim Possible), Nancy brings these characters to life.
Nancy Cartwright will reprise her voice role as Chuckie Finster on Nickelodeon’s Rugrats coming next year.
- I know my cars, thisis a '52 Chevy pickup,with a ram-jet engine,let's go, lift it up.Bring that drill over here![vocalizing drill noises]All right, let's go!Hi, I'm Nancy Cartwright,and you might not recognize my facebut you probably recognize my voice.Hi, I'm Bart Simpson,who the hell are you?[laughing]I do other voices on "the Simpsons",I'm Ralph Wiggum.When I grow up, I wanna be aprincipal or a caterpillar!Nelson Muntz,the thing about huckleberriesis once you've had fresh,you'll never go back to canned!Todd Flanders,I get to anoint their feet.Well, Maggie, there's Maggie![vocalizing baby noises]I'm also Chuckie, on "Rugrats".I hope there's not any clowns,there aren't any clowns,are there?I don't like clowns![yelling]Rufus the Naked Mole Rat.[vocalizing rodent noises]I know, I get paid to do that!It's ridiculous!Today, I'm with Vanity Fairand I'm going to be doing someimprovisations for some charactersthat I've never seen beforeand give them some personality.I mean, the first thing younotice about this li'l galis that she's messed up.I like to check out, normallyit's just checking outkind of the mouth and the jaw,'cause that helps me in terms ofdeciding the diction andif he or she has a lisp,stuff like that.She looks like Wednesdayfrom "The Addams Family",you know, gone awry.All those little nails andtacks that are stuck in her noseand her belly button andher neck and ear and headand hair and all that, I think there's,I think it's self-inflicted.She's tough, her eyesare not the same size,her tongue is stickingout, and she look so,I don't know, it'd be sorta hard to talkwith a nail, it'd behard to talk with a nailin your tongue!I don't know how she would shut her mouth!She would have to talk like that,get away from me![heavy breathing]Did you notice my earring?I do have an earring on!She might sound like that.By the time she's middle age,and I'm just kind of creatin'on this myself, I don'tsee any hints of any coffeeor cigarettes but it'd bekind of hard to smoke a,if she started out likethis as a teenager,and she can't quite closeher mouth when she's talkingby the time she's middle agedshe might be a little bitmore beaten up andperhaps you'd [coughing]talking a little bit [spitting] slower.The accent just came naturally,sometimes you just haveto trust your instinctson these things.Oh, this guy's cute.Right off the bat, I mean,obviously he's a bookworm.You know, don't mean to be stereotypicalbut he's got a tie on and he's baldso I tend to think that he's a dude.And he's smart, if he's a bookworm,I mean, the idiom means that the guys',whoever's a bookwormis like, really smart.He has, he's got histongue stickin' out too.Major key, major key iswhere that tongue is.But he's a little dude,and he's also reallysmart, but not nerdy smart.He's kinda cute smart,he's a little adorable.So I think he might sorta sound like this,he's got a little bit of a, you know,here's the deal, I just love readingand sometimes I like to lookup words in the dictionaryso if I look up a word, like, for examplethis will surprise you.The word nice, when youlook up nice, if you look upthe etymology, that meansthe derivation, of course,if you look up the etymologyof nice, this is amazing,but nice actually comes fromum, somewhere and it actuallymeans foolish or stupid.That is not me, I just am a bookworm,and I like to read, thank you very much.So if he was a professor, I would probablybring his voice down andsay, ladies and gentlemen,students of my class,here I go, and you seeI just brought the pitchdown just a little bitto make him sound a little bit older.May I please have your attention,your attention, all eyes up front!Thank you very much.This is like the baby,this is like the babyon "the Incredibles", right?It's just sort of like BabyJack, except, like, 2D.And for a baby, this baby looks like,well the blue tends toindicate that it's a boybut it could be a girl andI mean, for a little baby,sounds, it doesn't reallymatter if it's a boy or a girl.You know and there's awhole universal thingabout baby sounds, that [cooing][gurgling][babbling]Did you hear that, it wasa little pony [neighing].If this was a baby on the Rugrats,oh, like a little babyof like, say, Chuckie,say Chuckie has a little baby brother.[raspy cooing]Chuckie, Chuckie!Can't quite say Chuckie.Ducky, ducky, ducky!This is kind of a throwback, to me.I love this art, she'stough, she's kind of likeRosalind Russell, maybe, orshe could be Katherine Hepburn.She looks like a leader, the short hair,but I think she's, Ithink she's really pretty.But she's got a strength abouther, look how she's holdingher fist, there, she's got,and she's interested in fashion,she's got the necklace on,she's got earrings, she'sgot a long thumbnail.When I think of her, I kind of, kinda,all right you guys!We've got deadlines,we've gotta hit today!Hey, what are you doin' over there?Put that coffee down when I'mtalkin' to you, pay attention!We got heel ten goin' on here!We've gotta hit this byten o'clock this morning,let's go!She's kind of tough like that.But if she's a glam queen, she might say,see, for me, if I lowermy voice a little bitI don't sound so much like a kid,I've got a natural sound of like, a kid!But doing Brenda, I like her name, Brenda.Hi guys, so I'm here, hey listen, so,I was just wondering, cansomebody go out and get me coffeebefore we get started here?And if I just slow hervoice down just a little bitand give it a little bitof a breathy quality.I don't mean to bother you,but I was just wonderingcan you see the holes, I'm not wearingany earrings right now,I was just, can you seethe holes in my ears?This is Vanity Fair.That's a pretty dragon.That's a pretty dragon, but, you know,that fire and he flies, and,what I get from this is like,I get like, bad breath, I don't know, like[raspy roar][hacking][clearing throat]Wait what, there's no voice.Oh, he doesn't have a voice, sort of likeRufus the Naked Mole Rat?Oh, awesome, okay.I love her.I instantly love her.I think she's very soft-spoken,well, the glasses are kind of a hint,and perhaps stereotypical butshe's kind of a subtle geekbut I think by the time she's 20,she's gonna be a multi, multi-millionaire.She's probably gonna invent somethingon the internet or some app or somethingand, but her mouth isshut and I think she'sa little bit mousy?And I think she's sort oflike, okay, um, listen,I have an idea and Iwas wondering, you guys,I know it's like twoo'clock in the morningbut I would like to stickaround and I'm good,I'm good, just give me another coffee.You know what, I just inspired myself,I'm gonna change that.I think this is better, she goes,I'm good, I'm good.You know, I'm gonna stickaround here a little bit longerand I know it's two A.M.
Butyou know give me another coffeeor something like thatbecause I gotta stay up late,I've got this deadline that I've gotta hitand I've gotta do it byten o'clock in the morningand if I go home right now I'mnever gonna make my deadlinethank you!Oh, oo, so yeah, we can twist this,and here she's lookin'really sweet and everythingbut let's say she's been picked onand she's been a little bit victimizedand in order to defend herself,she used to be like,okay, and like, no, no,I've got a lotta things to do, and um,you know, I really don'tappreciate when you,when you talk to me like that.You know it's really kind of meanand actually you look really ugly today,leave me alone!This one looks like achallenge to me, too.He's got a cigarette in his mouthand he's also, like, blowing upso he's got somethin'and he's sort of smiling,he's sorta grimacing, and he's, you know,he looks like Edward G.
Robinson.He looks like, all right you guys,all right, hear me now, hear me now.Or maybe, soften it, all right you guys,hear me now, listen,has anybody got a light?And I don't mean for my cigarette.He could be sorta tough andlook, look when I do this,look what happens when Ido this voice, you know?When I do Ralph Wiggum, hiseyebrows go way up like thisbut when I do Nelson Muntzit comes down like that.When I do this atombomb, all right you guys,listen up, listen up all of yaI need your attention please,somebody light my fire!So, if he was a she,if he was a she,I don't know, I guess I could bring it upa little bit higher, all right you guys!I could also do it like that,make it a little bit more nasal.This is a little bit more nasal!All right, all right,somebody, somebody toss mebecause I feel a littlebit held down here,I'm about ready to blow!I'm about ready blow, I'm ready to blow!All right, this one, this monkey.He's a cute little monkey.He looks like a baby,he kind of looks likehe's just a little guy.[intense throaty crying]What's wrong, why youlookin' at me like that?And he surprises you bythe way that he talks.He's got teeth, he cries a lot.I don't have a problem!Stop it, somebody, why am I naked!But on the other hand, he'sspitting because he's justfrustrated and spit's coming out him now,but what if he's laughingbecause he could beactually really laughingand that's just, it's the samespit comin' out of his mouth.[intense throaty laughter][coughing][rasping laughter]You know, as a tip, if you'reinterested in voiceoversthere are few things thatyou can do to help yourselfand one of them is takeclasses on improvisationbecause you get hired and the producersare counting on you as atalent to be able to contributeto what it is that you're doing.Improvisation is coming upwith something on the spotthat you are inspiredby who your character isso depending upon who your character is,that little phrase orexpression or sentenceor thought that you come upwith makes your charactermore real.Way back when, some 30years ago when we were doinga table read of "the Simpsons",it was just something that Iblurted out, it was an ad lib,and I said, "eat my shorts".In high school I was in the marching bandand we would march to the cadenceof the drummers goingdun-dun-dun-dun-dun, Fairmont West,dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, Fairmont West,and one summer it changed,we were getting ready forthe fall and the drum sectionand all the trumpets andincluding me started sayingdun-dun-dun-dun-dun, eat my shorts.And people would line upon, you know, on the streetto watch us march by,they had no idea what we were sayingbut we knew that we were sayingsomething that was a littlenaughty, perhaps, back then.And that was fun and justall these years went byand next thing you know, it'son three million t-shirts.So, I'm Nancy Cartwright,and those were voicesof some characters thatI've never seen before.Hope you enjoyed it.