TOS Voice-Over Actor?
- Thread starter cblmc1296
- Start date
^^ For years, I thought Bartell LaRue did the voice on the Mission: Impossible tapes, but it turns out it was a voice actor named Robert Johnson. He was frequently heard as the voice of a creature or alien on the original Outer Limits series.
Nice catch on that, Scotpens. Yeah, playing the voice of the Guardian of Forever in my head followed by the announcer in "Bread and Circuses" comes to a complete match for Bartell LaRue. Also, as the lead Provider in "Gamesters of Triskelion." Heh, I feel kind of silly that I never made the connection.
Here's what Memory Alpha shows:
About Doohan being mistakened for Trelane's father, I can understand it... but what I'd originally thought to be Bartell LaRue was James Doohan as the announcer at Mission Control in "Assignment: Earth".
I really like how James Doohan did so many voices for TOS. His Scottish accent for Scotty was so realistic, it's easy to believe that this was his true accent and that he didn't have any others. There's something about his voice articulation as M5 that hints it was Doohan, but I'd never have guessed it for the others.
Funny thing about Vic Perrin... he was the Control Voice in "The Outer Limits". He speaks a bit faster than he did on Star Trek, but you can hear the timber of his voice. He was also the voice for Nomad. Again, it sounds like he changed his vocalizations just a little from what he did as Tharn, more sterile and thus robotic in quality. He definitely did not do Balok, though.
Here's what Memory Alpha shows:
- "The Squire of Gothos" as Trelane's father (voice). This role had been credited for decades to James Doohan, but it is actually LaRue's voice, as confirmed by Doohan in Starlog Magazine in 1988
- "The City on the Edge of Forever" as the Guardian of Forever (voice)
- "Bread and Circuses" as an announcer (voice and on-screen)
- "The Gamesters of Triskelion" as Provider 1 (voice, uncredited)
- "Patterns of Force" as an Ekosian newscaster (voice and on-screen)
- "The Savage Curtain" as Yarnek
About Doohan being mistakened for Trelane's father, I can understand it... but what I'd originally thought to be Bartell LaRue was James Doohan as the announcer at Mission Control in "Assignment: Earth".
I really like how James Doohan did so many voices for TOS. His Scottish accent for Scotty was so realistic, it's easy to believe that this was his true accent and that he didn't have any others. There's something about his voice articulation as M5 that hints it was Doohan, but I'd never have guessed it for the others.
Funny thing about Vic Perrin... he was the Control Voice in "The Outer Limits". He speaks a bit faster than he did on Star Trek, but you can hear the timber of his voice. He was also the voice for Nomad. Again, it sounds like he changed his vocalizations just a little from what he did as Tharn, more sterile and thus robotic in quality. He definitely did not do Balok, though.
I've read that Walker Edmiston overdubbed some of actor Harry Townes' lines in "The Return of the Archons." This might have been due to Townes' pronounced southern drawl. Perhaps the producers felt that an inhabitant of Landru's planet shouldn't sound like a good ole' boy. I don't believe Edmiston was ever credited on-screen for his work on TOS.
Listen to Billy Connolly or Craig Ferguson if you want to know what a real Scottish accent sounds like. Whatever accent Jimmy Doohan was doing, it sure as hell wasn't Scottish.
But then, I've never heard a Russian speak English the way Walter Koenig did when he played Chekov. "Keptin, the alien wessel just wanished!" WTF?
And he was Enik in the original Land of the Lost. Although I don't know if he was voiced over, or if that was actually him in the suit.
Bob Johnson (the M:I tape voice) did sound a lot like Bart LaRue, and several TOS voices traditionally credited to LaRue were actually Johnson, according to Memory Alpha. It credits him with the following:
That wouldn't have been Harry Townes (Reger), but Lev Mailer aka Ralph Maurer (Bilar), the bowler-hatted fellow who first greeted the landing party on their arrival. Bilar's voice was a nasal tenor like Edmiston's, totally unlike Townes/Reger's fuller baritone. Also, his voice was rather blatantly dubbed, as were all the voices in the scenes shot outside on the backlot -- a standard practice in Hollywood since outdoor conditions, wind, aircraft noise, etc. can make it difficult to get a clean voice track. Probably they used Edmiston for the looping session because Bilar had no indoor scenes. Since every one of his lines had to be dubbed over anyway, there was no need to use the actor's real voice, and it was probably more convenient just to give those lines to Edmiston (perhaps in the same recording session as his lines in another episode) rather than hire Mailer to come in and do it.
That wouldn't have been Harry Townes (Reger), but Lev Mailer aka Ralph Maurer (Bilar), the bowler-hatted fellow who first greeted the landing party on their arrival. Bilar's voice was a nasal tenor like Edmiston's, totally unlike Townes/Reger's fuller baritone. Also, his voice was rather blatantly dubbed, as were all the voices in the scenes shot outside on the backlot -- a standard practice in Hollywood since outdoor conditions, wind, aircraft noise, etc. can make it difficult to get a clean voice track. Probably they used Edmiston for the looping session because Bilar had no indoor scenes. Since every one of his lines had to be dubbed over anyway, there was no need to use the actor's real voice, and it was probably more convenient just to give those lines to Edmiston (perhaps in the same recording session as his lines in another episode) rather than hire Mailer to come in and do it.
Are you sure? I could have sworn the voice of "Balok" was done by Ted Cassidy (who also played the andriod "Rok" in What Are Little Girks Made Of and of course is famous for playing the butler "Lurch" in The Addams Family TV series.)
I did learn later that it isn't very accurate... but it sounds very natural and effortless, like it's his own accent. That's the impression he made on me, anyway.
The voice of the fake, scary Balok featured in most of the episode was Ted Cassidy, yes, unmistakably. But the voice of the real childlike Balok seen at the end of the episode was Edmiston (dubbing over Clint Howard).
Jimmy Doohan actually talked about that quite frequently. It was his take on what a Scotsman might sound like 300 years in the future. He discussed it at some length with Tom Snyder on the Tomorrow Show in a 1976 appearance that also featured Koenig and De Kelley
I don't know, Ferguson sounds very hybridised to me, he's clearly lived in the States for years and its rubbed off on his voice, resulting in a slightly odd accent that I'd say sounds less convincingly Scottish than Doohan.
But then, real life accents often are much more bizarre than anything you'd ever hear in films or telly.
Doh - my bad - I see where my confision came from (and it's my fovorite Star Trek episode too
)
Depends on "best known" to whom. Perrin was a regular guest star on the long-running Gunsmoke radio show (he also was a writer on maybe five episodes).
Hence my use of the qualifying term "probably". In actual fact, he may be "best known" - as in having his voice heard by the broadest group of people - for the recorded voice instructions in AEDs.
And Martin Luther King, jr personally talked Nichols into staying on Star Trek.
^ One wonders if Nichols ever had the same mischievous twinkle in her eye while telling her MLK stories that Doohan had when talking about his 300-year-old Scottish accent. (She didn't on the versions I saw her tell.)
Doohan also often said that if he did a truly authentic Scottish accent, you wouldn't have understood a bloody word Scotty said (much like the bloke from Aberdeen who he based the accent on in the first place). He toned it down out of necessity.
As for Craig Ferguson, he often jokes about how his family back in Scotland accuse him of having lost his accent.
Back to Edminston, his imdb.com page only lists Provider #2 and the Vulcan Space Central voice.
As for Craig Ferguson, he often jokes about how his family back in Scotland accuse him of having lost his accent.
Back to Edminston, his imdb.com page only lists Provider #2 and the Vulcan Space Central voice.
Craig's other Scots gag is saying that the accent Doohan did (and others attempting a Scots accent) sounds like a Pakistani.
I've noticed Craig's accent gets thicker when he talks to other Scots, like Karen Gillan.
Or Billy Connolly, or Shirley Manson (although when she's on, it gets fun, because of the Glasgow/Edinburgh rivalry that inevitably creeps in). 
Y'know, upon further reflection, Doohan's "Scotty" accent seems to be somewhere between Scottish and Welsh...so maybe Futurama wasn't so far off, after all with the introduction of Welshie...
Y'know, upon further reflection, Doohan's "Scotty" accent seems to be somewhere between Scottish and Welsh...so maybe Futurama wasn't so far off, after all with the introduction of Welshie...
Similar threads
