It’s Frivolous List Friday!

Because people love lists! That’s why!

– ListsGalore.com lists “15 doodles by celebrities” including Pamela Adlon (King of the Hill, Big Guy & Rusty the Boy Robot), Jason Alexander (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Duckman), Tim Allen (Toy Story series), Gary Cole (Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law), Tim Conway (SpongeBob SquarePants), Seth Green (Robot Chicken, Family Guy) and John Hurt (Hellboy Animated, Valiant).

– Spike.com lists “The Top 9 Characters You Didn’t Know Shared the Same Voice” [Actually, Spike, there’s no surprises there for voice actor fans like myself. But it’s nice to see them given exposure!]

– NerdyGurlBlog.com listifys “10 Hot Geek Celebrities We Love To Love”. [Interestingly enough, all but one has done voice acting too.]

– toonzone.net members continue to list “Voice Actor Surprises.”

And one of my own lists through the blog:

The Top 10 Voice Actor Name Searches on “Voice Actors in the News”:

10. Cree Summer (Drawn Together, Codename: Kids Next Door)
9. Dal McKennon (Gumby, The Archies)
8. Weird Al Yankovic
7. Danica Lee (The Wonder Pets)
6. Tara Strong (Chowder, Drawn Together)
5. Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show)
4. Bret Iwan (Mickey Mouse)
3. Mike Henry (The Cleveland Show, Family Guy)
2. Nicky Jones (Chowder)
1. Hal Sparks (Tak & The Power of Juju, Robot Chicken)

On a technical level, Nicky Jones is actually the top-searched name on this blog when you factor in all the various searches for “chowder voice,” “chowder voice actor,” and “voice of chowder.” Congrats, Nicky!

Frivolous List Friday V

I seem to have created a trend — Listsgalore.com has credited me with “Frivolous List Friday.” (Take that, naysayers who say nay to making something “new” on the internet.)

Anyway, so here’s the latest entry in my series of frivolous lists of lists:

– Voices.com lists “101 Audio Pros on Twitter”

– VoiceActingClub.com boasts a comprehensive “Voiceover Links of Interest”

– GoldenAgeCartoons.com forum members list “Characters Based on [Then-]Contemporary Celebrities”

– WhoseVoice.org has begun keeping a running list of celebrity voiceovers in commercials (for which I’ve contributed a few entries).

– VoiceActingAlliance.com forum members vent their “Voice Acting Pet Peeves”

– toonzone.net forum members listify their “Fantasy Anime Dub Casting” picks.

– Marc Cashman shares “12 Top Voice Over Skills”

And this last one is just for kicks:
– UK Vox Master Philip Banks lists “The Top 14 Voiceoverists Tips Ever”

Next time, a few lists of my own.

Frivolous List Friday IV

Following up on the last frivolous list of lists:

– TotallyLooksLike.com sounds off on the animated doppelgangers for ABC News Anchors, Rush Limbaugh, Jim Halpert, Ron Jeremy, Randall “Tex” Cobb, Liberace, Robert Pattison, Owen Wilson and many others.

– toonzone.net forum members list “Voice Actor Surprises.”

– Funnyjunk blogger “jogz” offers a pictorial of “People vs Cartoons” (via totallylookslike.com).

– Playfire.com blogger “DrAndre” compiles a massive list of “Famous Video Game Voices.”

– Funnyjunk.com blogger “jogz” offers a pictorial of “Cartoon Lookalikes” (via totallylookslike.com).

Frivolous List Friday III

Following up on last Friday’s frivolous list of lists…

– Via NickandMore.com: Nick’s SpongeBob and Penguins of Madagascar rank among top 20 cable shows for Feb. 8-14.

– Via DivineCaroline: “Name That Voice: 10 Celebrity Commercial Voice-Overs.”

– Via TVbytheNumbers.com: SpongeBob, South Park, Phineas and Ferb rank in the top 10 “most visited sites” for cable TV shows.

– Via VoiceCoaches.com: video list showcasing animal voiceovers.

– Via WalletPop: “The Celebrity Voices Behind the Commercials.”

– Via Twitter @ Lists Galore!: From timesonline.co.uk — “Top 50 Kids’ movies for adults… films you could enjoy without kids around.”

– Via DailyFill.com: “15 Secret Celebrity Voice Overs.”

Frivolous List Friday II

Following up on last week’s frivolous list of lists:

– WhoseVoice.org does an analysis of Canada vs USA’s TV ads with Donald Sutherland and Morgan Freeman‘s voiceovers for the 2010 Winter Olympics:

– InsideTV blogger Michael Maloney proposes a list of celebrity guest hosts for Saturday Night Live, including Family Guy‘s Stewie Griffin and creator Seth MacFarlane.

– Mark Hamill tells AMCTV.com what his top 5 favorite films are:

1. King Kong*
2. Duck Soup
3. Psycho*
4. The Manchurian Candidate*
5. A Hard Day’s Night

* These do not include remakes.

– Tom Kenny, voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, makes this guy’s list of “Famous Kennys from the music world.”

– BoxOfficeMojo.com lists the highest-grossing actors of all time.

– JustPressPlay.com has a list of “The Prominent Animators of Our Era,” which includes voice actors Seth MacFarlane, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, as well as much more noteworthy and influential individuals like as Hayao Miyazaki, John Lasseter, Bruce Timm and Matt Groening.

– Also from JustPressPlay.com is a list of “The Best Career Revivals of TV and Film” which include various Hollywood on-camera actors who’ve also done voiceovers: Neil Patrick Harris, David Cross and Kevin Nealon.

– Minnesota Game Examiner lists “10 of the best video game voice actors.”

– SciFiNow features “Ten of the best showdowns” which include some voice actorish-related characters:

#7. Yoda (Frank Oz) vs Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid)
#6. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) vs Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy)
#4. Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) vs Megatron (Frank Welker)
#3. Neo (Keanu Reeves) vs Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving)
#1. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) vs Darth Vader (James Earl Jones)

– Dailymail.co.uk offers a list of Pixar in-jokes.

And while cleaning out my bookmarks recently, I found some lists from 2009 which are still worth noting:

– In July 2009, Forbes.com listed “The Top-Earning Comedians” *, not to be confused with their list of “Hollywood’s Most Valuable Comedians” from a few months earlier.

And thanks to Chortle.co.uk, we don’t have to click through Forbes’ photo countdown to view the list at-a-glance (voice acting work noted in parentheses):

1. Jerry Seinfeld: $85 million (Bee Movie, Dilbert)
2. Chris Rock: $42 million (Madagascar series, Osmosis Jones)
3. Jeff Dunham: $30 million (ventriloquist, The Jeff Dunham Show)
4. Dane Cook: $20 million (Crank Yankers, Duck Dodgers)
4. George Lopez: $20 million (Marmaduke, Beverly Hills Chihuahua)
6. Howie Mandel: $15 million (Bobby’s World)
7. Larry the Cable Guy: $13 million (Cars, Cars 2)
8. Jeff Foxworthy: $11 million (Bunyan and Babe, Racing Stripes, Fox and the Hound 2)
9. Terry Fator: $10 million (ventriloquist and singing impressionist)
9. Russell Peters. $10 million

* Based on estimated earnings between June 1, 2008, and June 1, 2009.

– Via NickandMore.com: “100 Greatest Moments in Nicktoons History”.

– In November 2009, HuffingtonPost.com commented on the video “50 Worst Moments in Video Game Voice Acting” as compiled by YouTube user dirtFilledCoffin:

…which in turn “borrowed” the clips from AudioAtrocities.com.

Previous lists:
– 2.05.2010 — Frivolous List Friday I
– 2.06.2010 — Vanity Fair’s Top Hollywood Earners of 2009
– 2.07.2010 — Super Bowl Sunday VO

Super Bowl Sunday VO

Another entry for Frivolous List Friday which I neglected to include in last week’s post, but it seems much more appropriate for Super Bowl Sunday anyway since it involves WhoseVoice.org’s “10 Favorite Super Bowl Voiceovers.”

Vanity Fair’s Top Hollywood Earners of 2009

I might have saved this one for the next edition of Frivolous List Friday except that it involves some heretofore unmentioned upcoming animated feature films and details on earnings from voiceovers — a “hot topic” here as one of this blog’s most-read articles.

Names of note on Vanity Fair’s list of “Top Hollywood Earners”:

#7. Ben Stiller: Madagascar film series
– VF: Estimated “$5 million: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (back-end bonus for voice work, and share of DVD)”

#8. Tom Hanks: Toy Story series
– VF: Est. “$15 million: Toy Story 3 (fee for voice work in upcoming “3-D-quel”)”

#12. Adam Sandler: voices in 8 Crazy Nights and upcoming Zookeeper
– VF: Est. “$2 million: Zookeeper (fee for voice work in and producing upcoming animated feature)”

#16. Owen Wilson: voices in Cars and upcoming Cars 2 sequel and Marmaduke
– VF: Est. “$1 million: Marmaduke (fee for voice work in upcoming animated film based on tired comic strip)”

#17. Nicolas Cage: G-Force
– VF: Est. “$2 million: G-Force (back-end bonus for voice work, based on worldwide gross of $285 million)”

#19. Cameron Diaz: Shrek series
– VF: Est. “$10 million: Shrek Forever After (fee for voice work in upcoming 3-D “fourquel”)”

#21. Johnny Depp: voice in upcoming Rango animated feature
– VF: Est. “$7.5 million: Rango (fee for voice work in upcoming animated film)”

#22. Steve Carell: voices in Over the Hedge and upcoming Despicable Me
– VF: Est. “$500,000: Despicable Me (fee for voice work in upcoming animated feature)”

#29. George Clooney: Fantastic Mr. Fox
– Earnings info from Fantastic Mr. Fox not available.

#31. Reese Witherspoon: Monsters vs Aliens
– VF: Est. “$10 million: Monsters vs. Aliens (back end for voice work, based on worldwide gross of $381 million, and share of DVD)”

#40. Brad Pitt: voice in upcoming Megamind feature film
– VF: Est. “$5 million: Megamind (fee for voice work)”

Related post: 4.27.2009 — How Much Do Voice Actors Earn?

Frivolous List Friday

People love lists. I’m not sure why. We seem to have a society obsessed with listing things, ranking them and then debating over why one thing is ranked higher/lower than another…often over really insignificant and ridiculous things.

Well, I don’t want to start any debates or start listing and ranking voice actors as happens on various fan forums. (I don’t play favorites publicly, and I generally stay on the objective side when reporting news.)

But occasionally lists come up in news searches which may have some relation to voice actors, but they usually aren’t noteworthy enough to merit their own news posts.

So I’m going to start collecting ones I find interesting and will begin sharing them on random Fridays as a blog feature I call “Frivolous List Friday.”

– First up is Mila Kunis (voice of Meg Griffin on Family Guy and various characters on Robot Chicken) who ranked #32 in AskMen.com’s Top 99 Women 2010 Edition.

– Behold, Voiceroy’s DVD collection: http://voiceroy.dvdaf.com/
You “hardcore” voice actor enthusiasts and animation fans will note that I favor animated titles and various live-action flicks which feature voice actor appearances.

– Macleans.ca blogger and lifelong animation fan Jaime Weinman (and fellow Animaniacs/Pinky & The Brain devotee from bygone years) wonders what today’s popular shows — such as Mad Men, Big Bang Theory, Bones and Cougar Town — would be like as 80s cartoons, and mostly voiced by Frank Welker.

(Weinman even squeezes in a subtle Pinky & The Brain reference. Nice.)

– Check out TVTropes’ list of “Pigeon Holed Voice Actors.”

Previous frivolous lists:
– 2.05.2010 — Voice Actor Doppelgangers
– 1.27.2010 — Forbes Lists ‘Most Trusted Celebrities’
– 1.12.2010 — 34 Essential Uses of Voiceover in Film
– 12.20.2009 — Blogger Follows Up on Great Cartoon Voice Actors
– 8.28.2009 — ‘Epic’ Voice Actors Photo Feature on Life.com
– 8.28.2009 — Car & Driver: Celebs Are ‘Taking Over Car Commercials’
– 8.21.2009 — Sometimes Other People Blog About Voice Actors Too
– 7.23.2009 — IFC on ‘Vacillating Voiceovers’ in Film
– 6.26.2009 — Time Lists Top 10 Pixar Voice Actors
– 4.18.2009 — Hollywood’s ‘Most Valuable’ Comedians
– 4.16.2009 — Holy Batvoice, Batman!
– 3.20.3009 — Forbes Ranks ‘Animation’s A-List Actors’