On animated shows like Family Guy and Futurama, where a single voice actor plays different characters, how do they record the actor when the characters are interacting? Does he just do it in one take, switching voices as he goes, or do they record the 2 characters separately and mix the audio later?
I read Nancy Cartwright’s book “My Life As A 10 Year Boy,” and she says they do it all at once. She recalls doing the Biblical story of David & Goliath where she had to do Bart, Nelsen and Ralph all at the same time.
She is impressed with Dan Castellena and Hank Azaria’s abilities to switch back and forth, particularly Dan doing Smithers, Burns and Homer’s conversations
Smithers and Burns are Harry Shearer.
Except that Harry Shearer does the voices for Smithers and Burns…
But that’s what’s so AMAZING! 
I work with professional voice talent from time to time and I’ve heard them do amazing things. Recently I was in a session with a well-known actor (if you watch Cartoon Network you’ve heard his voice a lot). During some down time he amused us by flipping through a dozen or so different voices in rapid succession, ad libbing jokes as he went and singing in character.
Spill the beans! Who is it?
FTR, Billy West (Futurama) is among my favorites. I can’t believe the same guy does Fry, Farnsworth, and Zap (among others)!
I’ve seen video of him and the rest of the cast recording in the studio. They seem to do short takes of jokes over and over again with variations and then edit them together later.
Here.
I was at the Chicago Theater when the cast from Family Guy did a live reading of an episode.
Seth did indeed do all the voices and was talking to himself for quite a lot of it.
And Mila Kunis is just as hot in person.
Different actors do it different ways. From commentaries, it sounds like The Simpsons actors prefer to read down the page and switch voices as they go, and I think the Futurama actors do the same. I think Regina King (Huey and Riley on The Boondocks) says she does the boys’ voices one at a time.
I find this stuff really fascinating for whatever reason. If you ever look at a credits list for The Simpsons, it’s amazing how much of Springfield is three people - Dan Castellaneta (Homer and dozens of others), Harry Shearer (Bruns, Smithers, Ned, dozens of others) and Hank Azaria (Moe, Frink, dozens of others). Two or three women voice the bulk of the kids (Nancy Cartwright, Pamela Hayden and Russi Taylor; Maggie Roswell does several townswomen). Futurama is much the same, with Billy West (Fry, Farnsworth), Tress MacNeille (Mom - and also several Simpsons characters) and Maurice LaMarche (Kif, Calculon) doing a lot of the work, and John DiMaggio (Bender) also does a bunch of characters.
ETA: These people are just amazingly talented, and if you recognize their voices you quickly discover that some of them all over the cartoon world. Most of the actors perform at least a few characters. There are a few other voice-over artists who are just as recognizable.
Just at a guess, Tom Kenny?
Marley23, it is fascinating. Voice actors have to do as much with just their voices as regular actors do with everything they’ve got. The life they bring to animation is amazing, too; if you compare animation that uses A-list actors for the voices with animation that uses professional VAs, it’s easy to tell that well over half the A-list actors don’t actually have distinctive voices. They sound boring and flat, because they’re used to working the visuals more than the voice. VAs, on the other hand, can create a unique and instantly recognizable voice that stands out and complements the animation. They don’t get a lot of personal credit, which is why I sometimes make a point of finding out the name behind a popular character. It’s fun when it turns out to be someone whose name I’ve run across other times (although ‘cool’ voices in dubbed anime have turned out to be Stephen Blum so often that it no longer surprises me).
About a year or two ago on the NPR quiz show “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” they had Kevin Clash (the voice of Elmo) on as a guest. He was switching back and forth between his own voice and Elmo’s so quickly that it freaked out host Peter Sagal to the point where he half-jokingly said “Stop doing that!” It was hilarious.
Bosstone, I heard an interview with Tom Kenny in which he lamented the decline of voice actors getting parts, and A-list celebs landing everything nowadays. He said something about “if Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were created today, they’d be voiced by the Jonas brothers.”
A related question: suppose Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria and Dan Castallaneta are all three (or all legion) in a scene. Do they record it together (all 3 in the studio) or do they record it separately and then overlay it?
My cousin and I, both big Pinky & the Brain fans, have lamented for years that in many thousands of attempts we’ve never been able to mimic LaMarche as Brain saying “Yes!” It’s just an almost inimitable catchphrase (something like 'mm-yyu-ess!" but very quick, clipped, and in a perfect Orson Wellesian tone).
Trivia in case there’s anyone who doesn’t already know it (since it’s pretty well known), but LaMarche voiced Vincent D’Onofrio’s Orson Welles cameo in Ed Wood.
I read an Onion AV Club interview with Billy West a few years ago where he made the same point. He made some comment about the millions some of the big-name voice actors get paid for one appearance, and obviously he was a little resentful.
For more about Billy West, consult your local library - or Howard Stern’s show, or Porky Pig, or the Cheerios Honeybee, who sounds suspiciously like Fry did in the first couple of Futurama episodes (or the little Neptunians in later episodes).
Non-credit readers might be interested to know that you can find Maurice LaMarche wherever Orson Welles impressions are done, including several episodes of The Critic, The Simpsons, and of course, Pinky and The Brain- oh, and his voice was dubbed into one scene of Ed Wood. Lauren Tom (Amy Wong) is also on King of the Hill, while John DiMaggio is also Dr. Drakken on Kim Possible [guilty pleasure for one of my brothers] and Phil (Hermes) Lamar gets around a bit, too.
One of things I like least about Family Guy (and South Park, for that matter) are how many of the voices sound the same. I realize that on SP it’s kind of part of the joke, but you’d think that as their animation got less crappy they’d maybe let someone else do a newscaster every once in a while.
The main cast (Shearer, Azaria, Castellaneta, Julie Kavner and Yeardley Smith at least, and maybe the others) record together. The producers compare it to an old-time radio show. I don’t know if they do it every time, but they do it that way most of the time, I guess with the exception of last-minute changes.
Yeah, likewise. I have no idea why that voice is so hard to do for the rest of us. Sometimes I do it pretty well, but never well enough. It’s a great voice, although I have to insist Orson Welles didn’t really sound like that most of the time. Maybe in his later years he did.
Ah, you beat me by a couple of minutes. [ETA: Or seconds!] At least I can say it’s because I was working. 
Unfortunately I can’t say … .
Tell me about it. I once worked with a talented minor “name” who had never done voice work before. Sitting there all alone in the booth with no one to play off of, he absolutely *could not *get into character. We had hundreds of lines to get through and it was taking us *10 or more *takes on each line to get a marginally usable reading. The more takes we did, the shakier he got – he knew he was screwing up but he couldn’t help himself. This was a guy who was the star of a popular dramatic TV show. He was a great actor under normal circumstances. He just didn’t have the chops for voice work.
We tried to cobble together a performance in post-production, but ultimately we had to re-cast and re-record all his lines. God, what a nightmare … .
Isn’t Brian’s voice pretty much MacFarlane’s regular speaking voice? Or is he purposely talking like Brian anytime he does interviews? If it’s his natural voice then that at least cuts down on the number of voices he has to remember how to do.
Also, he has a damn sexy voice.
Does anyone else find Seth McFarlane strangely attractive?