Sam & Max's Voices...
I doubt this has been addressed yet, as development hasn't exactly been underway for long, but it'd be nice to know who Telltale intend to get in to do the duo's voices...
As I understand it - the voices for the TV series weren't by the same guys as the Talkie version of Hit The Road...
- I've never watched the series - how different *were* the voices? Did they pull it off, or would it be substantially more awesome to get the original dudes back again?
imdb.com informs me that the original voices were by Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson... and as far as I can tell, they're both entirely alive... and both still doing games voiceovers.
Infact - was it them doing the voices in the trailer-vid for the cancelled Sam & Max 2?
As I understand it - the voices for the TV series weren't by the same guys as the Talkie version of Hit The Road...
- I've never watched the series - how different *were* the voices? Did they pull it off, or would it be substantially more awesome to get the original dudes back again?
imdb.com informs me that the original voices were by Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson... and as far as I can tell, they're both entirely alive... and both still doing games voiceovers.
Infact - was it them doing the voices in the trailer-vid for the cancelled Sam & Max 2?
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(Does it involve wanton destruction?)
- We can only hope.
If for some weird reason they ever made a Sam & Max LIVE-Action with Sam & Max becoming humans though, Atkin and Tinkler would be obvious choices, they seriously are the characters.
Harvey is gruff, overweight, balding/bald older gentleman with a laidback attitude and can be dirty (hell, it's a role he's played) while Robert is short, nerdy, but full of energy and can be crazy at a moments noticed as portrayed by roles he's played.
I think either them or the original Lucasarts guys would be choice...but I think if they want to CEMENT the franchise Tinkler and Atkin would be choice and give Sam and Max more character then more traditional voice actors like Farmer and Jameson...
I also feel Telltale should be trying to carve themselves a new place in the market, not be the wake of what was once Lucasarts brilliant adventure gaming division.
That's just my opinion though...
Obviously I'm biased towards Farmer and Jameson. What can I say? They were great in Hit the Road and they are Sam & Max to me and probably to most people who played the game. I would however be interested in knowing what you meant by their being "traditional" voice actors in comparison to Atkin and Tinkler? They're all pretty accomplished voice actors based on their resumes.
The reason I see Jameson and Farmer as more traditional is they both do more VARIOUS characters and a LARGE slection of characters, including just background bit characters in everything from cartoons to games...
while Atkin has been hired for very very specific roles and his voice really does fit his look... and also how I always thought of Sam... gruff, tired, but still tough and rumble...
the same can be said of Tinkler in that regard. Both Atkin and Tinkler have also done their share of non-voice acting and just traditional acting because of their look and style.
While both Jameson and Framer have done some of that as well, most of their work is voice and in that regard, most of their work is as VIDEO game voices...
That doesn't mean they wouldn't do the job well, although I never really felt they made the right voices.
I respect your bias of course. I hope you respect mine in using replaying Sam & max in the non-talkie version.
How many roles a voice actor as taken really doesn't say anything about the quality of their performance. It's not like you can equate Farmer to an A-list hollywood bigshot and Atkin to a brilliant underdog character actor based just on their resume lengths. Full-fledged voice actors do this stuff for a living, and therefore take jobs to get work. They don't always have the luxury of landing roles they were born to play (Though of course they sometimes do, like with Farmer and Jameson in Sam & Max
I've generally found that the best voice acting, especially in adventure games or otherwise story-driven games where emotion, timing, and quality actually matters and where the dialog is actually important to the game (rather than a marketing ploy or an extra just to add another option to the menu), comes from...surprise!...real voice actors. The worst voice acting is almost always when one is hired because they're well-known names (For instance, I doubt Samuel L. Jackson is in some of the games he's in because he brings the characters to life). Of course, I'm not likening Atkin to that sort of example (he's a voice actor), but my point is that a person's capacity for physical performance has zero to do with voice acting.
And now, in an attempt to keep this thread on-topic, Sam and Max: I don't doubt that a lot my bias for the Hit the Road voices comes from the fact that the game came out before the show. Once I heard those voices and how good they were I couldn't imagine anyone else playing the roles. I liked the animated show voices (Didn't Purcell supposedly prefer them, by the way?), but...Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson are Sam and Max. That's just all there is to it.
Just a funny quip...
And Dave Grossman who's proved his storywriting nous at LucasArts is at Telltale of course, so even without Stemmle (or with him in some sort of consultant role), the franchise is in great hands.
Where's Sean Clarke these days?
Applaud this man!
I would have loved to have heard even just a vocal recording between the four of them. That's the stuff fanboys are made of.
I would want the game voices back for this one, as they have already recorded dialog that is sitting on a disk in LucasArts wharehouse... where, I believe, the Lost Ark was put in Raiders...
Of course, if for some reason those two were unable, I would of course take the TV show. Anyone else to voice them, no... I would be hard pressed to not bend over backwards to just get some original voices for this game, even though the game and series were around 10-13 years ago.
And don't forget Mark Hamill!
But yeah, to think that there's all this material just rotting away over there. Man.