FanX 15 - Jim Cummings: The Voices of a Generation

Since the mid-1980s, Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2015 guest Jim Cummings has been the voice of a generation, providing some of the most iconic voices in all of animation. His vocal presence was practically unavoidable in throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, lending the sound behind classic cartoon characters like Disney’s infamous Pete, the Tazmanian Devil of Looney Tunes fame, the Rescue Rangers’ Monterrey Jack, TaleSpin villain Don Karnage and a slew of deep-voiced announcers and narrators. He also provided voices for major characters in animated series like “Bonkers,” “Sonic the Hedgehog,” “CatDog,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “The Tick,” “Earthworm Jim,” “Timon & Pumbaa,” “House of Mouse” and, literally, hundreds more. But of his 438 credited roles on IMDb, Cummings is best known for his legendary portrayal of Winnie the Pooh (and Tigger, too).

When asked whether creating and performing so many different voices was difficult, Cummings told Salt Lake Comic Con, “Well, we are schizophrenic and, uh… we are, too, so we don’t mind it at all. We have a good time with it and the voices in my head are all nodding up and down. They’re all smiling,” he said with a laugh. “So, I think it’s good. I think the answer is – what is it like? – pretty darn good.”

Cummings began developing his skill at a very young age. “I’ve been terminally annoying since the age of four, so I’m really getting good at this,” he said. “It’s just one of those things that I just fell into and people started laughing, and I figure, ‘Well, that’s better than having them beat the heck out of me…’ So I just stuck with it.”

If his experience with live-action performance is any indication, Cummings will be sticking to doing voice work for the foreseeable future. He recalled one of his first impressions of Hollywood: hanging out with Bob Hoskins and Robert Zemeckis on the set of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, for which he helped develop several of the Weasels, originally, and later ended up as the voice for “Bullet #2.” During this experience, he realized that the live-action work seemed to be a lot of “Hurry up” and “Wait…”, noticing that actors would often sit in their trailers for three hours before heading to the set to recite four lines.

He specifically remembered rehearsing one exhausting scene on the set at Griffith Park in Los Angeles until 4:00 in the morning – and then, to his disappointment, the entire scene was cut from the film! At that point, chuckling, Cummings thought, “Hand me the microphone, please. I don’t have to be in my trailer; my trailer is everywhere!”

Cummings landed the role that, arguably, has defined his career in the late-‘80s when ABC and Disney sought out to find the next voice of Winnie the Pooh. He described that life-changing experience:

“At the time, it was 1987 and there hadn’t been any ‘Winnie the Pooh’ since the early ‘60s. But the original two or three that they made that were really great and everybody loved them – they won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short, I guess – [but then] they went away for like 25 years. So, at that point, Winnie the Pooh wasn’t as prevalent, if you will. But then ABC and Disney got together and started casting for it and Sterling Holloway (God rest his soul – he’s no longer with us), well, he had retired; he was very old – close to 90, I believe – so he wasn’t coming back to drive all the way up to Hollywood to do that (or Burbank). So they cast out a net and they caught me and I’m so proud and happy and the rest is sort of history.

“At that time, Paul Winchell was still doing Tigger (and, you know… rest in peace, as well) and he had been going back and forth… He was quite something; he was an inventor, an innovator, he came up with the prototype for the artificial heart, you know, and Tigger. Of course, it’s a logical career progression. He was doing research and going back and forth, so I was Tigger half the time and then, bless his heart, he had a terrible stroke […] and he just couldn’t do it anymore, so they said, ‘All right, you’re Tigger, too.’ So I got Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, too.”

Cummings and the voices in his head were an enormous hit at FanX ’15, as he and fellow voice actors Jess Harnell and Rob Paulsen rose to superstar status in Salt Lake City. Their first combined panel, a Harry Potter script reading, was filled to capacity and prompted Salt Lake Comic Con co-founder Dan Farr to book an encore performance in the South Ballroom on Saturday. The ballroom was packed as Harnell, Paulsen and Cummings read lines from The Sorcerer’s Stone in the voices of their most beloved characters, including a show-stopping portrayal of the evil Lord Voldemort, done in the voice of the innoncent, hunny-loving Winnie the Pooh.

Cummings said that he enjoyed his time in Utah. “It’s been fantastic,” he said. “I love the hotel, love the staff, love the Con. Everybody putting it on is great and I say, ‘Full speed ahead!’” Then he closed his remarks in the style of the world’s most famous crime-fighting mallard: “If Darkwing Duck were here, he would say, ‘I am the terror that flaps in the night – and it’s good to get out and flap in the day every now and then, so I’d just say, ‘Keep flappin’!... for justice, of course.’ But… let’s get dangerous!”