This little bundle of energy is Russi Taylor. She came to our show at CalTech with the Disney people. On her birthday! We all sang to her afterward. She is about as Disney as you can get. She is this amazing voice actor who has done about a billion characters over the years. Most notably, though, she has been the official voice of Minnie Mouse since the mid-80s. She was married to the official Mickey voice until he died a few years back. She has worked with Dawes Butler and all the classic voice artist of the last 50 years. She has three recurring characters on the Simpsons, plus a slew of one-shots; she was on The Critic back in the day...tons and tons of voice work. She's Baby Gonzo, for God's sake. So not only is her voice unusual, but she can sing, in pitch, beautiful and harmonically IN CHARACTER. Hard to do. Her voice is musical, high-pitched and sounds like little bells ringing or glass tinkling. She sounds like a coked-up, hyper-active, very-high-pitched excited little kid on Christmas morning all the time. It's almost impossible not to listen when she speaks: her voice is that naturally amusing and entertaining. The difference between someone with a 'good' voice and someone with a 'talented' voice and some one with a ludicrous, inimitable, natural comical instrument were never so evident to me as when I talked with her. It is literally impossible to imagine that she would be anything other than a cartoon voice. Very, very entertaining evening again, courtesy of our pal, Howard Green, seen here doing the dueling Howards thing with Howard, our pianist.
As for me, I was pleased because the Simpson's most prolific director, Mark Kirland, who comes to see us every year, told me every time he comes, he loves my voice more and more. I told him, well, use it, baby! Anytime! Hell, I'll fly out to YOU! A fella can dream, can't he? :) Also, his wiki entry isn't up to date. He just directed his 75th Simpson's episode.
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