Voices of the Future: Jonah & the Bots

[47]

Yeah, yeah; say it:  I'm behind the times.

I don't have Netflix, nor will I be able to buy the disc release for series 11 until I relax my boycott of Netflix — so that you understand how this question comes about.

Well, I wanted to know what the revival was like, and couldn't wait any more, so I looked up a few samples on YouTube.  I was watching the one which is two minutes from Stranger Things, when something occurred to me:  it was difficult for me to distinguish the three voices.
I'm no stranger to voice work and audio-only dramatic formats, so it wasn't complete confusion for me.  All the same, though, having their voices blend in a melting pot like that …
Of course, I did only hear a two minute sample.  Not much time to attune myself to the different characters — but that's also a writers thing, and so any muddling in that regard isn't entirely the blame of the performers.

What did you think?  Did their characters eventually express themselves well enough in to well-defined and distinct personalities?

If not, is that something we could see improved with the 12th series?


www.netflix.com/title/80057281

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkOMAQAcBKE

[Torgo]

This was something that was noted in the original Kickstarter, though when the show finished it's 14 episode run I didn't hear many be vocal about. Personally I did felt the Jonah and Baron's voices had similarity while Hampton's stuck out originally, though as I watched the season their delivery subtleties started making the trio easily identifiable in the theater.

While I believe there are still people who have their issues with them, I can happily state that I'm not one of them.

[chudnado]

I've heard a lot of fans say they have trouble distinguishing the new voices, but I didn't really have that problem. I got used to them all right away, and have no problem telling them apart. In fact, I'm really confused so many people apparently can't. They really aren't THAT similar.

Hampton as Crow was probably the quickest voice for me to get used to, because he really does sound like Crow. Not exactly the same as Trace or Bill, but still very much in that vein. Baron's Tom Servo took me a little longer, because of how iconic and familiar Kevin's portrayal is; its a different sound for and take on the character, but I still felt it was generally in the spirit of Tom Servo. Gypsy was the most jarring at first, its really weird hearing her finally sound like an actual woman, but she grew on me very fast, and I appreciated that the one female bot was no longer played by a guy. As for Jonah, I pretty much loved him almost immediately, and think he was the perfect successor to the role of host. Each has their own subtleties and gimmicks in the theater, and I think they all work great together.

[47]

The more I think about it, I can probably blame a lot of it on the fact that they were doing this short as a one–off promotional. Probably less than an hour spent on the whole thing, editing included.

I listened to it again. BTW, I'm pretty sure that Baron von Vaughn is doing a voice and character much nearer to the Josh version of Tom Servo.
As distinguishing Crow and Tom goes, I picked up on another clue: most of the times when Tom sounds like Crow are when Tom is imitating an other character or the like. Seems that Baron is still finding his groove with Tom — which is, of course, to be expected. For example, Billy West is an excellent voice actor, but you listen to the early episodes of Futurama …

There were also a few times when I had trouble being sure whether it was Tom or Jonah speaking, and it was much the same thing:  one of them was doing another voice.
I keep thinking back on the KTMA and first syndicated series with Joel and Josh, and one of the reasons why we didn't have that problem then was because Joel, for all his other qualities, really only does one voice, and Josh never really did Tom as another character the way that Kevin did.  That, and by that time I was already quite acquainted with Joel's vocal characteristics.

Yeah. I'm probably extrapolating this tiny sample size far more than I should. Damn you, Netflix! (For my whole boycott thing. Well, c'est la vie.)

In conclusion, I expect that I will eventually be able to tell them apart — if by nothing else than repetition; and, unless they get really distracted with other roles in other projects, they should continue to improve as we go on to future episodes.

[chudnado]

Aug 26, 2018 8:09:30 GMT -5 47 said:

I listened to it again. BTW, I'm pretty sure that Baron von Vaughn is doing a voice and character much nearer to the Josh version of Tom Servo.

I would definitely agree with that. Baron's Servo voice and persona do have a lot in common with Josh's Servo, more so than Kevin's.

[47]

Aug 26, 2018 7:41:59 GMT -5 chudnado said:

and I appreciated that the one female bot was no longer played by a guy.

Yeah. I did wonder why none of the women on the crew were eventually given the role. Maybe because it was cheaper and because Jim knew that he would stick around.
Of course, that doesn't explain why her voice was later supplied by Patrick … 

Anyway, thanks again Torgo and Chudnado for the reassurances.

[chudnado]

Aug 26, 2018 8:32:33 GMT -5 47 said:

Aug 26, 2018 7:41:59 GMT -5 chudnado said:

and I appreciated that the one female bot was no longer played by a guy.

Yeah. I did wonder why none of the women on the crew were eventually given the role. Maybe because it was cheaper and because Jim knew that he would stick around.
Of course, that doesn't explain why her voice was later supplied by Patrick … 

Anyway, thanks again Torgo and Chudnado for the reassurances.

Without going into all the details because I can't remember them all, if I recall correctly Jim stepped down from playing Gypsy around the time he and his family experienced a serious tragedy. Patrick was probably picked to replace him because he did the most adequate impersonation of Jim's Gypsy voice so it wouldn't be as noticeable a change; this was after all only half a season in at their new network, and a very drastic change could've risked upsetting longtime fans (who were still getting used to a new Crow) and confusing newer ones.

[BoB3K]

I'm sure the original reason for the voice of Gypsy is because back at KTMA the show was essentially Joel, Josh, Trace, Kevin, and Jim. Actually I think Gypsy's voice was originally done by Josh doing some terrible inhale voice. Then they switched over to Jim some time in season 1. As for replacing Jim, once you've established Gypsy as a character with a male falsetto, you replace with the same.

As for character voice recognition--47, you should go read some of the other threads, there is much discussion there. Jonah and Tom are definitely too close, but as you watch you start to differentiate a lot from delivery, as Torgo said.

To make a joke I've done before, it's relatively easy to pick out Tom's lines because you come to realize that if it's one of a few bad impersonations or a flop of a line, it's very often Tom. He does this one particular delivery where --he-says-the-line-very-fast-kind-of-at-a-higher-tone---and-then-ends-it-at-a-looower-tone-holding-the-last-few-words-looonger. I don't really care for it at all.

[47]

Okay, that's not so much of a deal. I mean, everyone on the show has had a few favorite formulaic jokes, and some of them I liked, some of them I didn't. That's part of the reason why I don't care much for RiffTrax — it seems like they frequently reuse many of the styles which I didn't like.

I have recently looked at some other threads, but most of them on Reddit and such other places. I didn't see too many here that offered critiques, but I probably could've searched a bit more carefully.

So long as it doesn't seem like one person doing a bunch of voices, then I can deal with it. One of my favorite aspects of the show is there being three distinct personalities in the theater. I'm getting the s11 discs soon, and even if it is my least favorite series of them all — I'll probably still like it.

You know, I forgot about Josh's Gypsy voice. Yeah, that was pretty ridiculous. Go big or go home, I guess.