Friday, May 17, 2019

Pheaturing Townsend Coleman


Hey, kids! I made it. Welcome to the Phile from MegaCon Orlando. How are you? So, I don't know if you know I am a fan of "The Walking Dead." Well, it got me thinking... honestly, my biggest fear about becoming a zombie is all the walking. So, do you have a super power? Mine is the ability to walk by a restroom and automatically wanting to go to the bathroom. Here's to all the heroes who save their morning dumps for work so they can get paid to poop.
Any "Game of Thrones" fans out there? I am sure. I have never seen an episode but I have a story or two about the show... Last week it was the whole "forgetting a coffee cup in front of Daenerys" thing, now this week's hubbub is about that whole "forgetting to build towards Daenerys's descent into a madness in a way that makes her Mad Queen turn feel logical and earned" thing. Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen became Queen of the Ashes and the First Men in the penultimate episode of "Game of Thrones," carpet-bombing all of King's Landing with Drogon and fulfilling her father's last words, "Burn Them All!" The "twist" of Dany becoming the Mad Queen has been foreshadowed throughout the entire series, burning at least one person alive every season since season one. The pivot from tactical murderer to war criminal happened rather abruptly, and people are pissed at showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Angry fans went as far as to assure that Benioff and Weiss are the very definition of bad writers. A group of Redditors on the Thrones form Freefolk "Google-bombed" the duo, upvoting a picture of them so it became the first thing you see when you search "bad writers." Over 41,000 people upvoted the post, and the scheme worked. People started picking up on the stunt, and it's taken on a life of its own. Yeesh. The realm wants Benioff and Weiss's heads on spikes, and it's likely to get worse after Sunday's finale.
So, with the genocide by dragon fire inflicted on King's Landing, a fictional place that feels real for you fans because of the hours and years spent in its walls... and just how much its destruction evoked the real horrors of 9/11. Many people absolutely hated the episode, including its star, Emilia Clarke. While she hasn't officially pulled a Constance Wu and burned the show (more on that later), she's been dropping hints that she would not have written Daenerys's Mad Queen turn. Asked about the final season on the red carpet, Clarke's eyebrows went rogue, and she could only utter a nervous "best season evah!" I guess in hindsight you should have saw this season coming... Emilia Clarke is not pleased. In HBO's "The Game Revealed" video, the surviving cast members, spoke as candidly as possible about Daenerys's descent into madness. Kit Harington, much like Jon Snow, knows nothing, and said that he didn't see it coming. Clarke framed Dany's journey not as one of insanity, but one of grief over Missandei's death. According to Clarke, Dany didn't attack the innocents for the sake of murdering innocents, but as collateral damage on her way to killing Cersei. "It's this feeling you can call Targaryen craziness, you can give it all of these names that it doesn't deserve, because it is just grief, it's hard, and she has that ability to make it hurt even less just for a minute," Clarke explained. Clarke Instagrammed after the episode that the twist took a whole bottle of champagne to get down. Clarke also told Vanity Fair that her final scene of the series was also thoroughly disappointing for her. "It fucked me up. Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone's mouth of what Daenerys is," she said. For ten years, Clarke put her heart and soul into the character, and appears to vehemently disagree with the showrunners' decision to turn the slightly homicidal abolitionist to a full-blown genocidal maniac. While having her character tainted from a feminist hero to a Human Hiroshima must be a huge bummer, at least she gets to shed the wig and move on. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone with Daenerys tattoos or even worse..... are named "Khaleesi."
Many people would love to be on a successful network sitcom that has meant a lot for Asian representation in Hollywood, but Constance Wu isn't one of those people anymore. Last Friday night, it was announced that ABC's "Fresh Off The Boat" was renewed for a sixth season, and Wu is extremely over it. She tweeted "fucking hell," and corrected a commenter who suggested that the ongoing success of the show is great news. It wasn't just on Twitter. Wu commented "dislike" on the show's official Instagram, her anger spreading across all platforms. She attempted some damage control on her own, tweeting, "That was not a rampage, it was just how I normally talk. I say fuck a lot. I love the word. Y’all are making a lot of assumptions about what I was saying. And no, it’s not what it’s about. No it’s not... what this is all about. Stop assuming." Wu's name was trending, as was Katherine Heigl's, who famously kvetched about being bored with "Grey's Anatomy" while becoming a movie star during the show's hiatus. Wu must have finally gotten in touch with her publicist, because she clarified her comments on Saturday and everything seemed well and good until the last line... "It's meaningful when you make the choice to believe women," she wrote, bafflingly comparing the scandal over her bad tweets with women's stories of sexual assault in the #MeToo movement. To quote Wu herself, "fucking hell."
It's the end of the world. The Trump administration is beating the war drums in hopes of inciting war with Iran. States are voting on abortion bans, knowing that Justice Popped Collar Creeper has their back against Roe v. Wade. And most startlingly, the sentient hangnail known as Tomi Lahren is correct about something. TaunTaun Lehmen, who makes her living shouting conservative dogma, has a hot take about Alabama's abortion ban and folks... it's good. The anti-Black Lives Matter activists has called the ban "too restrictive," accurately pointing out that it won't actually stop the practice of abortion but rather put women's lives at risk by forcing them "into more dangerous methods." Freedom, which conservatives hold so dear, isn't the government telling you want to do with your own body. Freedom is about choice, which is... pro-choice. Anti-choice policies aren't "small government," even if they make the government small enough to fit into a woman's uterus. Tommen's take is prompting an interesting discussion... either abortion is murder, or it's not. She also could be lying to get articles like this written up. Being gracious about this one thing doesn't excuse the fact that her whole career is stoking up racist hatred, but wow: even a broken clock is right twice a day. Still, congratulations, Alabama GOP... you broke Barbie.
The "Desperate Housewives" alum strutted into a Boston courtroom Monday and entered her guilty plea in the college admissions scandal rocking the "Full House" fandom. Huffman plead guilty to fraud conspiracy, paying $15,000 for a proctor to inflate her daughter's SAT scores, which hopefully were so abysmal, they made the humiliation worth it. Prosecutors recommend four months in prison for Huffman. It could be worse... she could have been sentenced to another season on "Fresh Off The Boat."
You know, you maybe cool but you will never be Spock leaning on a GTO cool...


I love the comic book and movie Watchmen and I like the Minions characters, but did you know there's a comic book that pheatures both?


I actually wish this was real. Did you know that Disney has a part ownership of "Game of Thrones"? No? Here's proof...


Told ya. You saw Avengers: Endgame, right? Do you know what happened two weeks after Tomy Stark's funeral? I will show ya...


How rude, right? I know, I know... you people are gonna say why isn't Bruce the Hulk now? It's a joke, people! Did you ever notice Captain America always looks like a bird just flew away with his hot dog?


See what I mean? So, if I had a TARDIS I would go to France... yes, France and go to the beach to see Brigitte Bardot. But knowing my luck she'd run away with my beach ball.


Hahahaha. Ever see people on the side of the road holding cardboard signs? Well, not all are people... or humans.


See what I mean?


Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a game you play while all the other kids are at prom.



If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Okay, so, I know you saw Avengers: Endgame... but a good friend of the Phile also saw it and I wondered what he thought so I invited him here on the Phile to give us his review. He's a singer, patriot and renaissance man. You know what time it is...


Good afternoon, humans. Laird’s No Spoiler Movie Review... Avengers: Endgame. Starts out with what I thought was Robert Downey Jr. reprising his role as Julian in Less Than Zero. Thor looked like the lovechild of Zack Wylde and The Big Lebowski. Liked Captain Marvel better with the long hair. I kept waiting for George Clooney and Brad Pitt to show up during the big planning sequence. What the flippity fuck was with Hybrid Hulk? I’m sorry but every time I saw Thanos, I had to resist the overwhelming urge to shout “Hey, Scrotum Chin!” Stan Lee’s final cameo takes place in 1970. Oh my GOD... I have to pee, when is this fucking movie going to end? Really... why didn’t you just throw in Deadpool, while you were at it? The ending was contrived and predictable... but necessary. I give it 7 out of a possible 10.



The 98th book to be pheatured in the Phile's Book Club is...


Justine will be on the Phile tomorrow. So, you know a lot of the female superheroes out there, right? Batgirl, Jean Gray, She-Hulk, Gamora, Black Widow, Wonder Woman, etc, etc... well, there's one I am not sure you heard of at all, so I thought I would invite her to the Phile so we can learn all about her. So, please welcome to the Phile...


Me: Hello, Wonder Bread Woman. How are you?

Wonder Bread Woman: I am good, Jason. Greta to be here at the convention.

Me: So, I see like Wonder Woman you have a golden lasso...

Wonder Bread Woman: Actually, Jason, it's my miracle whip.

Me: Ahhh. Okay, so, what super powers do you have?

Wonder Bread Woman: Well, I have the power to move through time at the speed of time.

Me: Ummm... that's good, I think. Anything else?

Wonder Bread Woman: I also have the ability to transform into an 82-year-old Hungarian woman with a weak bladder.

Me: Oh. I don't know if that would be useful. Anything else?

Wonder Bread Woman: Yeah, I have the power to open automated doors a few moments sooner than they would typically open.

Me: That could come in handy I guess. Anything else?

Wonder Bread Woman: Yes, but I have to go and save someone. I need to find my invisible plane, if I remember where I parked it. North or south... talk to you later, Jason. Bye.

Me: Wonder Bread Woman, kids. That was kinda dumb. Now for...



Phact 1. The Flash gave his superpowers to himself. During the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover comic, he ran so fast that he turned into pure energy, traveled back in time and hit himself as the very bolt of lightning that gave him his superpowers in the first place.

Phact 2. DC Comics once created a hero named Dog Welder, whose strategy was to weld dead dogs to people’s faces.

Phact 3. Earth-23 is a planet in the DC Multiverse that is almost solely inhabited by black versions of DC characters. Black Superman was based on Barack Obama, whereas Wonder Woman was based on Beyoncé Knowles.

Phact 4. Adam Glass, writer for DC Comics and co-creator of the Suicide Squad series, received death threats after a picture of a newly designed, barely clothed version of Harley Quinn debuted in his series.

Phact 5. In the 80s, DC's New Guardians comic featured a villain named the Hemo-Goblin; a white supremacist vampire who drank AIDS-infested blood and bit black people.



This is soooo cool. Today's pheatured guest is an American voice actor who has performed in many animated series and TV commercials beginning in the early 1980s. Among his most notable roles are Michaelangelo from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and the eponymous "The Tick." Please welcome to the Phile... Townsend Coleman!


Me: Hey, Townsend, welcome to the Phile. How are you?

Townsend: Hello, Jason, I'm great.

Me: So, you have done so many cool voices in different cartoons... did you watch a lot of cartoons as a kid?

Townsend: I wasn't so much. I watched cartoons when I was a little kid, probably Huckleberry Hound was my favorite. But I wasn't one of those kids that was super into cartoons that I always wanted to be a cartoon voice actor. That never occurred to me, even after I moved to L.A. 30 odd years ago.

Me: You never impersonated or copied voices in cartoons?

Townsend: No, I really wasn't that kind of kid. I would mimic voices a little bit. My dad was in radio, in fact my folks met while working at NBC in the early 50s in New York at 30 Rock. My dad's goal was he wanted to be an announcer at the network and that didn't happen but he did get on the radio after he moved us to Denver in the mid-50s. So I remember growing up watching my dad listen to these old comedy albums of Bob Newhart and Sten Freberg and some old radio dramas. That's really where I developed my love for I think the human voice and voice acting. That influence was more than watching TV for me or watching cartoons.

Me: So, you listened to a lot of radio when you were a kid?

Townsend: Yeah, from a very young age I was fascinated by radio. I remember lying in bed as a kid in Cleveland and looking out the window at night and seeing a radio tower in the distance and seeing this red beacon flashing and just trying to imagine knowing that somehow voices that I was listening to on the radio came from what I thought that flashing red light. I tried to imagine what voices were coming from the top of that tower. I remember listening to my little transistor radio and in Cleveland I could pick up WABC in New York. I would hear these jocks on late at night, this is back before I knew what reverb was. These guys just sounded like they were swimming in this enormous room and that always fascinated me. There was something about the power of suggestion of radio and the power of the human voice.

Me: You actually ended up on the radio as a disc jockey which is something I wanted to do as kid. How did you get into that?

Townsend: Well, my dad having been on radio I think I kind of wanted to subconsciously in his footsteps. When I was in college at the University of Colorado in Boulder in the early 70s I had the foresight to go down to Denver to get a third class radio license which you have to have in those days to get a job in radio. I quit school after a couple of years and went home to Cleveland, got married in 1974. And in 1975 my brother-in-law was getting fired from a radio station because they were changing formats and he told me knowing I wanted to get into radio, he said, "Listen, I know they're going to be hiring inexperienced people cheap, you might want to call this guy." I did and went down and met with him and he offered me a weekend midnight to six graveyard shift on this beautiful music station. It really was just time and temp on the quarter of an hour type of thing but it got me in radio. They fired me after a year and I ended up going to another radio station in '76, which was a disco station in Cleveland. I ended up working at five radio stations in the course of ten years.

Me: Was that where you started to do voice overs?

Townsend: Yeah, at the time I was also production director for a couple of the radio stations that I worked at. It was the production that I really loved so much. Being on the air was okay, it was novel, but it was doing the radio production that I just loved. That's where I discovered I could get hired outside the radio station to do voice overs for local ad agencies there in Cleveland. It got to the point after ten years on the air I was making more money a year doing freelance voice overs than working six days a week at a radio station.

Me: So, how did you get into doing cartoon voice overs?

Townsend: Well, in 1984 I quit my radio career and ended up moving, just taking a long shot and moving to L.A. with a wife and three kids. I got an agent straight away, I was very, very fortunate and six months after I moved there they sent me on an audition for "Inspector Gadget," which I thought was interesting. I thought this would be fun. I never gave it thought doing cartoons myself, I just didn't see myself being that kind of guy. Even though I've done a bunch of characters when I was on the radio doing morning shows (go figure), so I went to this audition and they showed me a picture of the character and some sample lines and just intuitively, maybe it was my acting background, I just had a string sense of what this guy sounded like. I did it, the gal laughed and we messed around with the character for ten minutes and two days later they booked me and I found myself sitting in a little recording studio in Burbank with Maurice LaMarche, Frank Welker and Don Adams.

Me: What was your first thoughts when you started doing the show?

Townsend: It was not a rude awakening, but a great awakening. I had no idea that that world even existed and I had so much fun doing that series. I said to my agent please send me out to do more of this kind of stuff.

Me: What was it like working with that cast?

Townsend: Don Adams had some of the best stories to tell. Frank Welker sat to the left of me and I had no idea who he was. It was Maurice LaMarche's first TV series as well but Frank of course was the godfather of animation. I wasn't experienced in the cartoon end of the business but came to find out very quickly his resume and his powerhouse talent.

Me: What was your first day like there?

Townsend: Oh my goodness, I was totally starstruck at that first session that day, and I was sitting literally next to him. He was on my right, Frank was on my left and I'm sandwiched, I'm the meat of this talent sandwich. Don Adams was great because I recognized him from "Get Smart." Here I was watching Maxwell Smart. Jason, I had to pinch myself because I'd only been in L.A. at that point for six months. To go from Cleveland to end up siting next to a bonafide celebrity, and working with was crazy to me. I thought, wow, how did this happen?

Me: You also did the "Fraggle Rock" cartoon. Did you get to meet Jim Henson? I was lucky to have met him once.

Townsend: Never did, no, and I regret that. I wished that I had.

Me: I barely remember the cartoon, but loved the Muppet version. What did you play and what was that show like to work on?

Townsend: "Fraggle Rock" is the only show I had to do a voice match for. I'm not an impressionist or a particularly good mimic at all so I don't generally bother trying to do the voice match stuff. I think a lot of people don't understand voice matching is not just mimicking a line or two of a character and sounding just like him, it's able to "act" it. I auditioned for the new voice of Tony the Tiger about year ago or whatever and though I could do a pretty decent "they're great!" to try and act it and say other lines in that voice is just tough for me, it's not one of my strengths. However for some reason I was able to lock into the character of Gobo on "Fraggle Rock" when they were looking to cast the animated series for NBC. I did Gobo and Architect and Wrench on that series.

Me: That's cool. I need to look up the animated series. They need to bring "Fraggle Rock" back somehow. Okay, so, what about the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles? How did you get that role? 

Townsend: It was out of "Fraggle Rock" I got the TMNT series. The voice director, Stu Rosen, on "Fraggle Rock" came into one of the recording sessions one day and pulled out a copy of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," one of the comic books out of his briefcase and said, "You guys ain't gonna believe what I'm casting next. Look at this." And he showed it to us and we just kind of laughed and rolled our eyes. He brought us in and I was working with Rob Paulsen on 'Fraggle Rock," in fact he brought most of us from "Fraggle Rock" in to audition for Turtles and Robbie and I were a couple of lucky ones who got that show.

Me: You played Michelangelo, which I don't really know who that one is. I never get the names with the colors right. Which Turtle did you audition for or just Michelangelo?

Townsend: I auditioned for all the Turtles and Rob and Cam Clarke did too, that's how they were doing it back then. When Rob was cast as Raphael and Cam was cast as Donatello they hadn't decided if Cam was going to do Mickey and Leonardo, the same with me. They figured they would just decide at the first session who was going to be who. That just had me to Michelangelo for the first read through and Cam do Leonardo. After that first review they never switched, they said they would switch us on the second read through and try us the other way, and they just never did that. They left me as Michelangelo and Cam as Leonardo. That's the way it stayed, and the rest as they say, is history.

Me: I'm sure I'm gonna get a lot of slack from the Turtle fans but don't they all pretty much sound the same? What inspiration did you use for Michelangelo?

Townsend: Yeah, well, actually to be honest, Cam did a better surfer dude than I did. They used Sean Penn from Fast Times at Ridgemont High as the reference for the audition. They actually said that's what they're looking for. Like I said, not being an impressionist or a particularly great mimic I sort of did my version of what I thought that sounded like. It was good enough for them so I faked it for the next ten years.

Me: Okay, so, I read and correct me if this is not true, you're the one who ad-libbed and came up with "cowabunga." Is that true?

Townsend: No, I think that was a David Wise thing, I have to look back at the scripts. I'm pretty sure David Wise wrote that in to one of the scripts. If you read that and that was a quote from me and I said that I was probably just trying to throw Dave under the bus.

Me: It was either IMDB or Wikipedia, where I do all my interview research. Haha. So, when you work on a cartoon are you allowed to ad-lib?

Townsend: Sure, in my experience ad-libbing in cartoons was relatively limited because A) I'm not that great at it and B) there were guys like Rob Paulson and Cam... Working in this business it's a little daunting sometimes because I'm working with the most brilliant, hilarious, witty, quick, talents in the acting world as far as I'm concerned. Just sitting in sessions for "Ninja Turtles" or "The Tick," it just became a show for me to sit back and watch. There was some ad-libbing allowed but my sense was I kind of didn't want it because the scripts had gone through so many meetings and revisions and approvals that by the time it got to us, particularly when they were network shows, syndicated was a little looser. With network shows these things have been signed off as is, so they pretty much wanted us to stick right to the script.

Me: There have been so many versions of the Turtles, with the movies and cartoons. Did you audition for any other Turtles in other versions of the show?

Townsend: I did, yeah. Boy, what a brutal day that was. Oh, man, I'm not sure I want to recount it. On the day I was going to audition for the 2012 version and head over to Nickelodeon A) It was pouring rain in L.A.. and B) It was in a particularly low point in my life, put it that way. Things weren't going particularly well for me in personal areas. I had to stop by the post office on the way to my audition and pick up a certified letter from the IRS. I opened this letter in the parking lot in the pouring rain and got some very bad news. It so deflated me and so frustrated me and angered me and that is not the way I wanted to go to an audition. I literally had to drive straight from there in the pouring rain over to Nick in Burbank and go in and just try to be up. I was auditioning for people I didn't know, it wasn't a familiar place, I wasn't familiar with Nickelodeon really so much. It was just a confluence of really bad things really coming together at once, when I was trying my best just to rise above it and act. I just couldn't, I just had too much bearing down on me. I remember just feeling, standing in that studio auditioning for these guys and I just feel as the words were coming out of my mouth that there was this voice in my head going "this isn't working. It's no good, dude. You know it, they know it." It was just one of those horrible situations where I sort of tried to do my best but as soon as I was done, virtually after take one they go "thank you very much." I just pulled myself together, walked out the door, got in my car and fell apart.

Me: So, I know who the Turtles and Fraggles were even though I've never seen the cartoons, but looking at your bio there is one show I never heard of that you did... "Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs." What was that show and what do you remember about it?

Townsend: Well, I remember A) There was me and Pat Fraley and Rob Paulsen again. The three of us got to do that and "Space Cats" together and of course "Ninja Turtles" and "The Tick." Was I most remember about it was it was a unique situation because it was a cartoon that's already been animated and on the air in Japan. I want to say it was early anime. We had to revoice this is into English and it was the only project where I worked on that they didn't really worry so much about the acting as they did about the timing. They had every single line timed to the tenth of the second. When we did our lines, as long as they were passable, sounded like the character and the infliction made sense really what they worried about was would it fit. As the long as the line fit they moved on to the next line. That was the first thing I remember about that. The second thing that was really interesting about this show was this show was really technologically ahead of its time. It had a console or a gun that you could buy like at Toys R Us that had a light sensor on it and built within the show was a flash that I think was invisible to the human eye but the sensor on this gun which was like an old west pistol could pick up. What you did was when certain things happened on this show you were supposed to shoot at the bad guys and see if you could hit them and the show would keep score. I was like holy cow, this was like an arcade game at home which you could use on your regular old TV. It was short lived and really nobody kind of heard about it and nobody ever talked about it but nobody ever talked about that aspect of the game.

Me: Well, that seems too much for me. Haha. I'm glad I missed it. Okay, so, I have to ask you about the 7 Up Cool Spot. What the fuck was that?

Townsend: Ha. He was a big part of my life for about 7 years.

Me: I looked it up and vaguely remember it. You did the voice for this thing? How did that happen? 

Townsend: I have to tell you, Jason, that was one of those flukey situations getting that going because at the time before I got it I was the voice of the announcer of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes commercials and at one of the Frosted Flake sessions in L.A. at L.A. Studios the producer who came from an ad agency in Chicago said to me after one of the sessions, "Townsend, are you familiar with this character the Cool Spot, the little 7 Up spot with sunglasses and stuff?" I said yeah and he said, "Well, that's our account and the guy who has been doing the voice for Spot is the creative director of the agency and he's leaving the agency to a competing agency. We can't continue to use him and I need to recast this thing. Frankly I don't feel like going through a whole long casting process, I know you do a lot of animation, would you mind laying down a little demo for me of just some gibberish. I'll take it back to the agency and see where it gores from there." I thought to myself "would you mind? What do you mean would I mind? Of course I wouldn't mind." So I laid down a little demo of that and couple of days later I was booked on this first 7 Up session. First I should say of only two 7 Up sessions that I ever did. The first lasted about an hour, the second lasted about twenty minutes. The reason being was all they needed was they were just building a library of sounds. They needed Spot in certain situations. He's riding a surf board, or he's climbing a tall building, or falling off a tall building. He's tripping in the sand, or whatever. So they just needed little vocal reactions to that kind of stuff. Nothing intelligible, it was all gibberish and so we just did a kind of endless barrel full of stuff like that in the first session for which they built six or seven national TV spots a year out of that over the course of six or seven years, The only second session I did was they needed some very specific things and they also ended up using for the video game and I think a home game for NES or one of those. It was one of the most lucrative gigs I ever had but also one of the most unique and fun ones to.

Me: I vaguely remember it. Okay, so, I have to say the main reason I wanted to have you here on the Phile is you voiced one of my favorite characters ever from one of my favorite cartoon shows ever... "The Tick." I was a big fan of the comic and then the cartoon. I haven't seen the live action stuff... yet. I wish I could interview the Tick. Haha. 

Townsend: Indeed, good citizen, I'm happy to hear that.

Me: Was he a fun character to voice?

Townsend: Oh my gosh! Jason, could I tell you first of all it was an incredible cast, second of all it was incredible writing. Ben Edlund is just brilliant. I remember reading those scripts and getting to the end of the last page where the Tick would just go off on this wild ass rant about the most insane inane things. They would make me laugh so hard internally as I was reading these and they were so much fun to do. It got to the point after the first few episodes we did when we went in to record one of the episodes during the session we would get our script and we'd take our script and start going though it, circling lines and highlighting lines and reading through it to get a sense where the script was going. When I would do that it got to the point I enjoyed that last rant to much that I wouldn't read it. I would go through the script but when I got to that last page or two I'd stop, I wouldn't read through it. I would just wait til the actual record and we'd do the first record through and I'd get to that last page and I'd just laugh into it completely cold without having read it. I found that when I just read it my eye would look at the next line and I'd get a sense of where it was going as I was reading it. I would be like oh my God, I can't believe this! Nine times out of ten they ended up just taking that first cold take.

Me: Cool! Out of all the characters you played what was your favorite, sir?

Townsend: Michelangelo was probably the most iconic but the Tick... recording those episodes was probably the most fun I ever had doing animation.

Me: Townsend, thanks so much for being on the Phile. I hope it was fun and I hope you'll come back again soon.

Townsend: Good deal, Jason, I hope I answered your questions okay.

Me: You did. Take care, sir, and thanks.






That was great. That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to my guests Laird Jim and of course Townsend Coleman. The Phile will be back tomorrow from MegaCon with actress Justine Bateman. Spread the word, not there turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye.


































I don't want you, cook my bread, I don't want you, make my bed, I don't want your money too, I just want to make love to you. - Willie Dixon

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