The chameleon voice behind Montreal's home grown cartoons
by Dan Lalande
Rick Jones is the man of a thousand voices; the Mel Blanc of Montreal. If a census were conducted of Canada's cartoon land, scores of its raccoons, ogres, and samurai pizza cats would be listed under his name. The youthful Jones, whose vocal chords have vibrated for "Arthur," "Ace Ventura" and vaults more, is currently at work on another project for Teletoon, called "Fred's Head." We caught up with him between studio sessions at his home in St-Bruno.
Montréal Magazine: Did you always know that you had a talent for voices?
Rick Jones: Oh yes! I was doing comedy albums at the dinner table verbatim. Stan Freberg, Tom Lehrer, Bill Cosby. Recently, I came across an old notebook of mine?under "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up," I wrote, "I want to be a nut on TV."
MM: And yet you studied biology.
RJ: I have an undergrad in biology and was working on my thesis in geology. I'm pretty sure I discovered two new species of microfossil. I could have had them named after me but....
MM: But what?
RJ: I went out for coffee one afternoon and I never came back (Laughs).
MM: Where did you go?
RJ: I had a friend working at the (Carleton) university radio station. He asked me to do a voice for an ad?I got there, looked around, thought, "This looks like it could be a lot of fun."
"I went out for coffee one afternoon and I never came back."
MM: A few years in radio comedy followed, as well as the founding of Sound Venture, an award-winning radio advertising firm. How many ads did you work on there?
RJ: We were writing three to five commercials a day?from '79 to '85. Voice-wise, I did a thousand, easily.
MM: You ended up in animation.
RJ: I was asked to audition for "The Raccoons." (Note: Jones once pitched an episode in which the stars were shot for going through a garbage can!) After that I did some work for Atkinson Film Arts, including "Dennis the Menace" and "The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin."
MM: When did the scene move to Montreal?
RJ: (In) the '80s, the voice work was mostly in Ottawa. In Montreal, it was still nascent. It grew bigger when the Canadian dollar dropped; that and the expansion of the tax credits. The city was perfectly positioned for it. There was lots of available studio space because they had been dubbing things from English into French for years. So the infrastructure was just there waiting.
MM: How many series have you worked on here?
RJ: 300?I usually work on 10 to 15 a year. I'll list my favorites: "Tripping the Rift," an adult sci-fi series that plays late at night on Teletoon; "Kaput and Zowski," it's social comedy, funny stuff; and "Dragon Hunters" - that's a beautiful series. It's playing in the States.
MM: You've since branched out into voice directing. How did that evolve?
RJ: It wasn't a case of "I can do better than those people." There are 30 to 40 good voice people in Montreal. I know exactly what each of them can and cannot do. So you know who to cast. The only time there's ever a problem is if anyone - myself included - can't nail something after the third take. If it's not working after that, then something went wrong earlier in the process that went undetected.
MM: Cliché question: what advice would you give to someone trying to break into the business?
RJ: Kill another actor. (Laughs.) Seriously, it's tough?It's a small community that can handle almost anything. One of us would have to take seriously ill for there to be an opening.
MM: How long do you see yourself continuing to do this?
RJ: I get bored easily. That's why animation is perfect for me. You go in, you do it, you go home. But if I gave it up, I think I might get really bored. I might end up killing myself. Then there'd be room for that other actor. (Laughs.)
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Dan Lalande has written for film, TV, theatre, print, and new media. His work has appeared at The Montreal World Film Festival and The Palm Springs International Film Festival, among others.
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