Posted by Mr. Beaks

To those unfortunate adults who never knew him as The Tick, Patrick Warburton will forever be Elaine’s boyfriend Puddy from Seinfeld.  For children, however, Warburton is the voice of Buzz Lightyear on the animated Toy Story spin-off Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.  Or he’s the burly, dimwitted Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove which has also, as is Disney’s wont, been spun-off into a direct-to-DVD sequel and a television show.  As of this Friday, it’s likely he’ll also be known as The Wolf provided kids take to the irreverent fairy tale spoof, Hoodwinked. 

Best described as Shrek meets Rashômon, the computer animated Hoodwinked, the product of brothers Cory and Todd Edwards’ imagination, replays the attempted eating of Little Red Riding Hood (Anne Hathaway) and her Granny (Glenn Close) from the vantage point of the saga’s several key players.  In this retelling, The Wolf fancies himself an investigative reporter in the mold of Fletch, though he’s actually several degrees less competent than his inspiration.  The other characters in this oft-told drama include the Schwarzenegger-ian Woodsman (Jim Belushi), Detective Bill Stork (Anthony Anderson), chief investigator Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers), and the a-little-too-fluffy-and-lovable Boingo (Andy Dick). 

Warburton recently sat down for a roundtable interview at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, where he discussed his latest virtuosic feat of voiceover, his love/hate relationship with Family Guy, and the joy of being Kronk.

I can’t help but notice that you’ve done a ton of voice stuff since Seinfeld.  Was that by design?

I just thought it would be fun to do.  Certain opportunities presented themselves at that point.  Because of the success of Toy Story, you’ve got the Buzz Lightyear TV series, and Tim Allen’s not going to do that, right?  So, you need your poor man’s Buzz.  “Hey, here I am!   I’ll do it!”  (Laughter)  And around the same period of time, I read for The Emperor’s New Groove.  That was fun.  I felt fortunate to have that opportunity at that point because I’d always wanted to do a Disney movie.  I didn’t know what a Kronk was.  And you don’t get anything from Disney – just a few pages.  That’s it.  I didn’t know what the story was about… and I didn’t really know what it was.  What’s a Kronk?  An alien?  I didn’t realize it was just this big dumb guy.  A little irony there.

When did you realize this was a lucrative business for you?

I wouldn’t say “lucrative”.  I really wouldn’t.  There’s not a fortune to be made doing voiceover work unless you’re one of the main voices on The Simpsons.  There’s The Simpsons, and then there’s everything else.  And that’s sort of understood in the voiceover world.  You can make a lot more money doing corporate stuff.  If you’re the voice of a big company and doing ads on the radio, you’re going to make money.  But doing the cartoons you really don’t.  You’re usually making somewhere between scale or triple scale, somewhere in that range.  You don’t make a fortune doing cartoons.  It’s a lot of fun, it keeps you busy and it’s better than a kick in the pants, but doing voiceover work doesn’t make you rich.  It just doesn’t.

Does the ad for American Express (in which Warburton voiced Superman opposite Jerry Seinfeld) fall into “corporate”?

That fell somewhere right in the middle.  That was fun.  I’ll work with Jerry Seinfeld any day of the week.  You do it for free just to be associated with that man.  He’s a great guy.

Were there any particular challenges on Hoodwinked after doing so many voices in other films?

I wouldn’t say “challenges”, but certainly surprises.  This is a very little independent project.  There was no money on the table with this thing; it was like, “Hey do you like it?  Do you want to do it?  Am I doing anything else this week?”  I met these guys, and I loved the idea that the wolf is an investigative reporter who fancies himself as Fletch.  That just was funny to me.  So, you go in and you record a few sessions.  And it’s always a long process with these films.  Usually with an animated film, even a studio picture, it’s four or five years from the time they record some voices to the time they have the premiere.  [Hoodwinked] was about two-and-a-half years ago.  It was supposed to go to DVD or something, but it turned out really nice, and The Weinstein Company picked it up.  Now, it’s going out on 1,800 screens.  Great for these guys.  The Edwards Brothers were working out of a one-room apartment, I guess.  They had to get independent financing.  I don’t want to say they lucked out because they didn’t.  They’re just really talented, they worked hard, and they ended up with a really nice film.  I’m glad to be a part of it.

Anthony said it was mostly done when he did his session.  Was that the case with you, too?

No.  They had originally recorded all the different characters and done the film.  Then, when The Weinstein Company picked it up, they replaced most of the voices in the film. 

So, you were one of the originals.

I was.  As was Andy Dick.  Have you had the pleasure of sitting with Andy this morning?

He’s not here.

He’s not here?  Was he supposed to come today?

No.

Wow.

Do you know something we don’t?

I spent the last few years working with Andy.  I’m sure I know a lot about him.  (Laughter)

Anything you’d like to share?

No.  That would have to be off the record.  (Laughter)

Did they actually put you two in the studio together?

Not when we did this.  Although we did record together one day.

I can’t imagine he sticks to the script.

Well, I think that he pretty much did.  Though he probably added or brought something to it from the mind of Andy Dick.

What did you do to find your inner wolf?

I know a lot about wolves now.  They’re pack animals.  They carry packs around (mimics a fanny pack, elicits laughter).  I went to a west coast college, so I did study.  I watch a lot of nature shows.  They’re so fascinating.  They’re actually not that large of an animal.  They’re smaller than a coyote – about the size of a schnauzer – but people are intimidated by them. 

But my inner wolf.  Fletch was dry, so the wolf was going to be dry.  It’s like a lot of voices I do.  I’m not really a chameleon, am I?  (Laughter)  I wasn’t really thinking dangerous or mean.  He’s not that dark of a wolf; he’s sort of an inquisitive wolf.

Do kids recognize your voice when you talk?

Yeah. 

Who do they recognize you as:  Kronk or Buzz?

I think that my youngest son, Gabriel, has got to be the most curious and interested by it all now.  He’s five, and he discovered less than a year ago that that’s actually what daddy does for a living.  So, now, with the culmination of all the stuff from the last six or seven years, and he’s been watching it, it’s like “Wow, daddy’s in a lot of these cartoons.”  He’s been watching Buzz for years, and if I were to come in the room and do Buzz… it was his favorite show.  He’d turn around and tell me to be quiet.  (Laughter)  He’d have this stern look in his eyes like I was making fun of Buzz, and he didn’t like that.  Then, I would shamelessly try to convince him that [that was me], which he probably thought was really sad.  Now, he seems pretty interested by it all.  He was excited to go to the Hoodwinked premiere.

Can you tell us about working on Family Guy, and the experience of coming back after cancellation?

My participation is minimal on Family Guy.  It’s fun to be around there because everybody plays a lot of ping pong over at the Family Guy; they’ve got a big ping pong table set up, and most of us go in, play ping pong, and then record for five minutes.  (Laughter)  Now, I’m creating the impression that they don’t work very hard.  Seth [MacFarlane] has got to be the hardest working guy in town, but he loves what he does.  And it was nice to see them get some vindication, seeing [Fox] get bullied and have to bring back a show.  I was a part of a show that suffered a different fate.  We seemed to have our fans, or, at least, a number of them, but we didn’t get to come back.  It was called The Tick.  Do you remember The Tick?  (Everyone responds warmly)  That was my favorite show.  I loved being The Tick.  How did we get on The Tick?  Oh, I brought it up.

Has there been any discussion about trying to set it up on another network?

I’ve heard encouragement from people and whatnot, but I’ve never been approached about it.  But whether I do it or someone else does it, they’ll bring The Tick back.  It’s just a great concept.  I think Ben Edlund is a genius, and today is a wonderful time and place for The Tick, as it was, I thought, five years ago.  But whatever – back to Family Guy!  (Laughter)  It’s fun to do that show, it’s fun to be a part of it, but I have a thirteen year-old son who’s been begging to watch it for a couple of years.  And I just started to let him watch it because I didn’t want him to be the only guy in his school who wasn’t allowed to watch it.  Still, it kind of bothers me.  I find the show, at times, absolutely horrible.  And as a parent, I’m very conflicted. 

Is it the taste of the humor?

Yes.

For your kids or for you?

For my kids and for anybody, I think.  There are times when they’ve really crossed the line, where it’s so bad.  There was stuff the other night that was so bad I had to turn it off.  It was really bad, and I didn’t think it was funny either.  The Bachelor episode… they want to see how Quagmire’s date is going.  He drops a pill in this girl’s drink and she passes out.  I’m sorry, but that’s when the TV goes off.  That’s not funny.  That’s happening everyday.  I mean, we laugh out of discomfort, right?  It’s so weird.  You know, there’s a pedophile on the show, so now we’re talking about that.  And, you know what, maybe it’s good you saw that.  They are out there.  Your grandpas are good men; they’re not like this old freak.  But there’s too much weird crap on there.  And kids shouldn’t be watching it.  When I turned thirteen, would I have been allowed to watch it?  Not in a million f-in’ years.  But the times have changed.  Now, from the computers to the iPods and their little flip-phone calculator – I just said “calculator”.  What’s that?  (Laughter)  But you can watch a movie anywhere; you can pull a movie out of their back pocket.  The media is all around them.  We can’t shelter them, so we have to have much better communication with our kids these days.  So, I’ll sit with my son, and I’ll say, “I don’t think you should watch it, but you’re thirteen and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders.  As long as you know this show is horrible, and that it will cross every boundary there is.”

And that works, right?

Yeah.  Even the religious stuff, if something is blasphemous, you can tell that he’s bothered by it.  The old pedophile dude really creeps him out.

Working on Family Guy, have you ever had anything where you’ve stopped and said, “I don’t want to record this”?

I haven’t gotten to that point yet. 

Would you ever?

I have to believe that there’s a certain line I wouldn’t cross, but it hasn’t been put there yet.

Not even with [Stewie Griffith – The Untold Story]?

Joe wasn’t in the Stewie Griffith movie.  Joe’s one of the most normal characters on that show.  Certainly the most sensible.

Is there going to be an Emperor’s New Groove show?

There is a show, The Emperor’s New School, that’s coming out in a couple of months. 

And Kronk’s New Groove just out on DVD.

Yes.

What’s the show about?

It’s really fun.  It’s Kronk and Kuzko, and there are a few new characters.  It goes back to a lot of the conflict that Kronk and Yzma had with Kuzko.  Yzma’s always trying to attain more power, and Kuzko, although he’s just in school now, he’s still the emperor.  I don’t know… it’s all silly stuff.  (Laughter)

Silly, but fun.  And respectful of a child's intelligence.  And that’s important.  Maybe you’ll find the same is true of Hoodwinked, which opens this Friday nationwide.