I Know That Voice (2013)

Director: Lawrence Shapiro

Writer: Brandon Sonnier

Composer: ???

Starring:  TONS of great talent, John DiMaggio, Kevin Conroy, Jim Cummings, Jason Marsden, Phil LaMarr, Maurice LaMarche, Laraine Newman, Rob Paulsen, Stephen Root, Jim Ward, Billy West, Nancy Cartwright, Hank Azaria, Edward Asner, Clancy Brown, June Foray, Stan Freberg, Seth Green, Matt Groening, Mark Hamill, Gary Owens, Dana Snyder

More info: IMDb

Tagline: A documentary that puts a face to a face to all the voices that we know and love.

Plot: Seldom seen and often heard, the voice actors behind "Futurama," "SpongeBob SquarePants" and many other animated shows discuss their amusing craft

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Sure.

Here's an underrated group of folks who don't get nearly the amount of credit they deserve.  When a big Hollywood animated film gets cast they usually fill it with movie stars regardless of their ability to act ONLY with their voice.  So often you get bland performances from voices you recognize because you've seen them act in live action films.  The REAL talent belongs to those folks whose main gig is voice acting.  They're the ones who put the bomp sha bomp sha bomp behind the animated visuals to the cartoons and films we grew up with.  That list of participants in this film is a fraction of the fine folks we get to see (and hear) in this documentary.  It's a gas to put a face to the voice.  I've been a huge fan of Maurice LaMarche, for example, for more than twenty years and I finally got to see what he looks like.  Granted, there wasn't a Goddamned thing stopping me from looking on the internet in all that time but there he was talking about his craft...and it's just that, a craft. That's one thing you'll glean from this by the time you're watching the end credits.  Like everything, there is an art to voicing animation and it's not just being able to do a funny voice like you do when you're hamming it up with your friends.  If you think it's that easy then you're wrong, or you're in that exclusive minuscule percentile that has a natural talent for it and you should be working in a studio instead of reading this silly blog.  It's currently on Netflix streaming.