Studio Anecdotes

Frank Welker

Several minutes into a recording session Frank asked me, “Did you hear that?” I replied, “Hear what?” He said, “I’m not sure. Maybe a cricket.” I thought that highly unlikely since a cricket would have to come through many sets of doors including an elevator. “No, I didn’t hear it Frank,” I replied. He seemed unsure but the voice director, Rick Dempsey, said he heard something too. So I started listening to the spaces between words & takes to make sure there wasn’t ANY kind of unwanted noise in the studio. Minutes later I heard a cricket! I couldn’t believe a bug was able to get all the way into the iso booth like that.

The cricket sounded distant so I ran in and started looking in the corners of the room. When I couldn’t find it, I turned to Frank to ask him where I should look next. He smiled, pointed at me and said, “Gotcha.” Frank had performed the most convincing cricket sound — just off mic, so it sounded like it was out in the room. Rick knew it was a joke and was playing along. They laughed and I felt like I’d just joined an inner circle of the voice community from being pranked by Frank Welker

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