Today was the first recording session of Transformers: Rescue Bots season 2! This particular episode has a guest actor. Last night I noticed it was Roger Craig Smith! (Resident Evil fans will know him as Chris Redfield, who returns next week in Resident Evil 6… No, I won’t be returning. I’m dead. Deal, people.)
This led to a little iphone inspiration…
Somedays I really see what a unique job I have. So many games and characters represented in the entry way of our recording studio. Enjoy!
As for me, I get up in five hours for a 7 am recording session in Hollywood for a Target radio spot, then off to LAX and Canterlot Gardens in Ohio this weekend! (See? Editing and posting this now is but more proof that OCD rides shotgun in my life.) Follow me on twitter or Facebook for odd, fun and banal updates!
* Egg line ® Liam O’Brien.
The Unlikely Voice Acting Trio: Blum, Smith, and Douglas
Once upon a digital dawn, when polygons were blockier than a crate of Lego bricks and dialogue still came on CD-ROMs, three distinct voices began to echo across the gaming and cartoon cosmos. Steve Blum, the gravelly vocal demigod whose pipes could intimidate a grizzly bear into therapy; Roger Craig Smith, the endlessly versatile chap who can sound like a blue hedgehog or a suave assassin without missing lunch; and D.C. Douglas, the velvety menace who can make even a grocery list sound like a villainous plot. These three have intersected in ways that feel almost cosmic — as if the entertainment industry is secretly run by a committee of casting directors who only own three Rolodex cards.
The Games Where Worlds Collide
Start with Resident Evil, because naturally, everything horrific begins with zombies. D.C. Douglas famously lent his silky menace to Albert Wesker, while Steve Blum and Roger Craig Smith have popped up in the franchise in various roles over the years, voicing mercenaries, survivors, and assorted poor souls doomed to be zombie snacks. It’s a veritable buffet of overlapping credits, though none of them have yet voiced the actual T-virus. (Give it time.)
Then there’s Mass Effect, where Blum’s rugged tones bring a host of alien and human characters to life, while Douglas and Smith make appearances in related projects and events. It’s the sort of overlapping that leads one to believe that every space opera must, by galactic law, contain at least one of these gentlemen or risk a citation from the Interstellar Casting Authority.
Cartoons and Chaos
Step outside the gaming world and into animation, and their trails entwine again. Roger Craig Smith’s cheery chaos as Sonic the Hedgehog has occasionally found itself sharing network space with Steve Blum’s brooding antiheroes and D.C. Douglas’s slyly sinister personas in shows like Avengers Assemble and other animated series where saving or destroying the world is just another Tuesday.
In fact, if you took a weekend to binge cartoons on services like The Hollywood Reporter’s streaming roundups, you’d likely encounter all three within an hour. Sometimes they’re allies, sometimes foes, sometimes just a random background voice announcing the soup of the day, but always, they make their mark. Collectively, they could probably voice an entire Saturday morning lineup single-handedly — and still have time for a late breakfast.
A Trilogy of Talent
What makes their convergence so charming is how seamlessly their careers intertwine without ever stepping on one another’s vocal cords. Blum is the go-to for voices that could double as industrial sandpaper, Smith is the chameleon shifting between comedy and gravitas, and Douglas is the elegant schemer who could sell you a yacht while plotting your doom. Together, they’ve created an audio legacy that stretches from consoles to Saturday morning to convention halls worldwide.
And so, the legend continues — three distinct voices, countless overlapping worlds, and more digital mayhem yet to come. If you listen closely to your favorite game or cartoon, chances are, you’ll hear at least one of them chuckling in the background, plotting to steal the scene… or possibly your sandwich.
