Legions of Gotham did our interview with Scott Menville, best known to
Bat-Fans as the voice of Robin in the Teen Titans cartoon, back when the
show was still on the air! You can read that interview HERE>>
We
thought it'd be great to catch up with Scott now and discuss the end of
Titans, his work on Gotham Knight and the newest Bat-Toon...the Brave
and the Bold.
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LOG:
Scott, the last time that we spoke you had mentioned that you were a
big follower of the Transmetropolitan comic series, but that you were
searching for new comics to get into. How did that search go? Do you
currently keep up on any series?
Scott Menville: I
haven’t been keeping up on any series currently, but I think I’ll pick
up WATCHMEN. Somehow that one snuck past me and I’ve never actually
read it. I know, I know. I have friends who have already given me a
hard time, “What? How have you not read Watchmen?”
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LOG:
The Teen Titans show ended a few years back following its fifth season.
Many fans feel that the show ended far before it needed to. What are
your thoughts on the ending of the show? Any desire to reprise the role?
SM:
I believe TEEN TITANS ended prematurely. The show was doing great in
the ratings and critics and fans loved it. It appealed to both a young
audience and to more mature viewers as well. It seemed like there was
still so much more exploration to be done with character arcs and story
lines. As an actor, I know that I work in an unstable business, in that
there are no guarantees on the life of any project, but it still came
as a shock to us all—cast and crew—when we got the news that it was
done. I had a blast working on the show and getting to voice Robin, so
yes, I’d love to reprise the role if the show was granted a second life.
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LOG: How did it come to be that you and your fellow Titans cast members also voiced the Royal Flush Gang in Justice League?
SM:
That was all due to Bruce Timm, cool guy that he is. The TEEN TITANS
production offices were housed in the same building as the JUSTICE
LEAGUE production offices--and the same building as our recording studio
for that matter. Bruce Timm was serving as Executive Producer on
TITANS while producing JUSTICE LEAGUE. A storyline came up on JUSTICE
LEAGUE with The Royal Flush Gang. Our voice director Andrea Romano and
Bruce Timm agreed, “Let’s have our TITANS actors do it.” It was fun to
do. We even got to work with Mark Hamill, who I’d met years earlier but
hadn’t had the chance to work with. It was great to watch him do his
Joker thing only 3 feet away from where I was sitting at my mic.
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LOG: Would you be open to voicing Robin on the Brave & the Bold toon, should he ever appear?
SM:
Definitely. I’d love to. Robin never got to work with Batman on
TITANS, so I think it would add a whole new dynamic getting to share
some screen time while fighting evil forces together.
EDITORS NOTE: Robin appeared on the show before we published this interview and was voiced by Cranford Wilson and Jeremy Shada
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LOG: What were your thoughts, as a fan, on the Batman: Gotham Knight project? Did you have fun working on it?
SM:
I had a lot of fun working on GOTHAM KNIGHT. Andrea Romano brought a
cast of actors in very early on in the project. It was so early on
that, if I’m remembering correctly, I think they only had limited
storyboards to show us. Andrea and Bruce Timm described a lot of it to
us. We then recorded scratch tracks as various characters. It went
through the detailed and lengthy process of being animated and then
months and months later they called us back in to re-record some of the
dialogue. Interestingly, they were pleased with the sound and
performances of some of the original scratch tracks we’d recorded, so
some of those original recordings made it into the final product.
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LOG:
What research, if any, went into playing Metamorpho on the Brave and
the Bold cartoon? What is the atmosphere on this show? Does it differ at
all from any of the other Dc projects you've worked on?
SM:
The only research was reading the script and seeing a sketch of the
character—which both help to shape the voice. As for the atmosphere of
the show, I experienced only the aspect of the recording sessions, which
weren’t all that different from other projects I’ve worked on. I was
once again directed by the talented Andrea Romano; We recorded at the
Warner Bros. Animation studio, where I’ve worked many times before, and I
worked with quite a few actors whom I’ve known for years. For
instance, Bumper Robinson, who voices Black Lightning, and I have been
working together on various voiceover projects since we were little
kids. In fact, he and I were chuckling about that recently, reminiscing
about how our parents used to bring us to work and how we’d have to do
the legal daily three-hour requirement of school on the set with a
studio teacher.
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LOG: Are
you currently scheduled to do any other voices on the Brave & the
Bold and or reprise Metamorpho before the season is done?
SM:
I recorded three episodes as Metamorpho for the first season of THE
BRAVE AND THE BOLD. So at the time of this interview, I guess that
means there is still one that hasn’t aired yet. I was just in the
studio recently for ADR (additional dialogue recording) on that episode.
As usual the episode looked great. There are some some awesome shots
of Katana in there.
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LOG: Other than Brave, do you have any other Dc Comics projects in the works?
SM:
I just did a guest role, actually the producers tell me I’ll be
recurring, on a new animated series but it’s all top secret hush-hush
and I don’t think I’m allowed to say much about it at this point. I’ll
just say it involves characters that comic book fans will know and looks
like it’s going to be very cool.
Also, TEEN TITANS fans might
find this interesting. Greg Cipes (Beast Boy) and I have been working
together on the latest installment of the MY SIMS interactive game line.
We’ve both voiced many recording sessions together on previous MY
SIMS games. Now we’re doing the newest ones. It’s a great gig. Greg
and I sit in a room together at the microphones and speak Simlish, a
made up gibberish language, and crack each other up.
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A
HUGE thanks to Scott for taking the time to chat with us. For any fans
that are wondering, he's a VERY nice guy and has always been a great
friend to LOG. We wish Scott the best in his future ventures and will
definately be checking in with him, once we figure out what that new
comic book related toon is that he will be on!!
