I’m jealous.
Hank Azaria, the voice actor behind some of the most famous animated characters of all-time on “The Simpsons,” recently lived out a dream of mine: He got to announce a major league baseball team’s lineup. And on top of that, he got to do it using some of his voice acting chops. On “The Simpsons,” he’s the voice behind Apu from the Kwik-E-Mart, Moe the bartender, Chief Wiggum, and many other characters.
Admittedly, one of my many voice over dreams isn’t to announce the Los Angeles Dodgers starting lineup using voices from “The Simpsons.” Although, that would be pretty dang sweet. One of my many voice over dreams is to announce (just for one day if not more) the Minnesota Twins starting lineup. I’m a die hard fan of my hometown team. I don’t need to use any character voices or anything like that. I just want to belt out their names over the PA system to thousands of roaring fans at Target Field (their home park) in Minneapolis, MN. More importantly, it would be at a World Series game. Or a playoff game. Actually, give me any game. I’m in.
Target Field
It comes down to this: Why pursue anything without big, specific goals? It’s perfect motivation.
After you watch this clip of Hank Azaria living out my dream, be sure to read the portion below the video for some exciting and interesting voice over information.
Important Friday blog post info: This Friday, I will be sharing the results of a poll many VO people have been itching to see. It asks two things:
1. What do you call yourself? (Voice Actor, Voice Over Artist, etc.)
2. How do you spell that main word? (Voiceover, Voice Over, Voice-Over)
Subscribe on the upper right hand corner of this page so you don’t miss the results which will be released this Friday (June 21st).
Do you have a big voice over dream that involves another interest of yours, too? Answer in the comments section below.
(Target Field photo by Chris Evans.)
4 Comments on “Hank Azaria of ‘The Simpsons’ Lives Out My Voice Over – Baseball Dream”
This is really cool! But for me it’s all about game shows! At a minimum, I would love to be among the big announcer names (Rod Roddy, Johnny Olson, Johnny Gilbert, Charlie O’Donnell) but I would love to actually host as well. My childhood heroes were Wink Martindale, Bob Barker, Bob Eubanks, Peter Tomarken, etc.
That’s a great goal, Christopher! Any headway on it? Have you been doing some announcer work?
Announcer is a 4-letter word these days in voiceover but it’s a dream that I will continue to hang on to.
PS – sorry about the double post! I got an error the first time and I didn’t think it went through.
Well there are still live announcers, Christopher! But yes, that whole “announcer” read delivery does have bad connotations in the VO world these days.