#372 Behind the Voice – Cam Clarke’s Journey Through Animation, Nostalgia, and Legacy

Jeff Dwoskin 0:00

All right, everyone, I'm excited to introduce my next guest, child star, superhero, recovering Mormon. That's right off your poster. I watch, I watch your one man show. I know, right? I come prepared. American voice actor, Leonardo Simba, flounder, Snoopy, California. Raisin, that

Cam Clarke 0:22

deep dive again. Hey, man, oh my God. Who is this person? Who are you talking about? Jeff? Stop

Jeff Dwoskin 0:29

with the intro. Get to the interview. He's done too much. But wait, there's more. Indeed, part of the King family. Tina Cole's cousin, author of now they're all here, the King family, over 100 years of entertainment from America's first family of song. Welcome to the show. Cam Clark,

Cam Clarke 0:50

Hello, sir. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. Oh

Jeff Dwoskin 0:53

my gosh. I'm so glad to have you here. Where to begin? I know there's like your IMDB, there's over 400 credits. I mean, that's not even touching the King family stuff. When I was interviewing Tina, your cousin, Tina call, she just, was just raving, you gotta talk to Cam. Gotta talk to Cam. Yeah,

Cam Clarke 1:12

I'll have to. I'll give her 10% of I don't know what something

Jeff Dwoskin 1:16

I love to talk about the King family. And what I can only imagine is a 400 pound coffee book. It looked I have the PDF shoot

Cam Clarke 1:26

I should have. Oh, wait here, friends and neighbors, yes, let's see. Look at that. This is the book in question. You can use this for lifting weights, for exercise. If

Jeff Dwoskin 1:36

your coffee table has been reinforced, it can handle now they're all here, the King family. Talk to me about the King family, but put it in the perspective of the King family versus the Osmonds. Oh,

Cam Clarke 1:52

oh, golly, we actually the family was playing. This is like 1970 1971 the Osmonds, of course, were massive, so they're over there at Caesar's Palace, I think. And King family is there the same time, but we're like, off, off Broadway, off, off Vegas. We're at the landmark. Anyway, there's some local talk show that wanted to have both of us on, meaning the King family, kids or teenagers. And the Osmonds, who were teens and early 20s, Osmonds, went on first. They are so professional, and they all play 15 instruments, and they all tap dance, and they all they're insanely talented, and it's our turn. And so what do you guys do to warm up? What do you guys do to get ready? We go to rehearse all we go to movies. I'm bought in a garden. No, it's totally incomparable that, I mean, but we have vocal talent like they do. We've never worked together, danced around each other for decades. You know, I

Jeff Dwoskin 2:50

just thought it was funny when I was going through the book, when I got to that part, I'm like, Oh, that's funny. Oh, that's

Cam Clarke 2:55

right, that story is even in the book. Yeah, we were pretty when we're all, we're backstage, like in the green room, seeing the monitor, and we're seeing them go on about, are there all their musical training and their schooling and their dance training? And we're like, what are we gonna say? What are we gonna somebody's gotta come up with something. Our goal is not to be over rehearsed. You see, hey,

Jeff Dwoskin 3:14

whatever works for you. You know, it's how did you I mean, I know there was, there was a show, right? The the TV show, and, like, there's 37 of you. Like, how do you, how do you juggle? How did everyone get fit in?

Cam Clarke 3:29

Well, I mean, you can imagine the what we had a tour bus. We would also charter flights, not because we were all that, but we were just that many people. So we would probably, like, fly to our first gig, and then they were, you know, the tours, the live tours, were designed so that you could get on a bus and go from place to place. But we also had our key musicians and us. It was a scheduling nightmare. As far as hotels go, with that many rooms and stopping for meals and everything like that. In fact, I remember a couple of times when we'd stop at some all night diner because it was the middle of the night we had need, and left right off the show. And you can imagine 40 people getting off a bus and coming into your diner when there's cook and a waitress. And there were a couple of times where we said, y'all go sit in the corner. We'll go back there. And a couple of my cousins made breakfast. We're cooking stuff, and couple others were being waiters, and we just kind of moved in.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:23

I love that, that you kind of just, you didn't walk in there with, like, King family attitude, no, it was pretty much, we got this community minded. Yeah, that's great. That's awesome, yeah, because the Osmonds would have been like, No, it's good. So what made you find, what made you put together a book like this is quite an undertaking. Do you

Cam Clarke 4:45

want the good answer or the shallow, bruised ego answer? Well,

Jeff Dwoskin 4:50

the good answer, but if you want, you can squeeze in bruising, whatever you need to all

Cam Clarke 4:55

of our history, tangible history, has been. Scattered to the four winds. The king sisters are long gone, and we kids have all their stuff, but scattered. And I thought, wouldn't it be great to get all this stuff in one place, as the title says, We've got, I've got 100 years of memoirs and photography from vaudeville through my animation career, so all of that, and people going through boxes and in attics and basements and and I had everyone write their feelings about our time together. I get them some key questions. I had read a biography by George Plimpton on Truman Capote. And he opens the book saying, if you want a straight biography, I recommend blah, blah, blah by so and so. And he goes off this list of telling people where to go if that's what they want. He created a book. He said, pretend you are at a cocktail party, drifting from conversation to conversation about trim a capodi. And it was beautiful because there was no like narrating or, you know, explanation. And I loved that format, so I literally took King sisters diaries and memoirs and legal pads of things they'd written out. So for a century, no one is speaking of someone else. The whole thing is I, and me and we. So none of us kids speak to the 1920s or 30s. The moms do all of the setting above that. So I thought that was a, you know, a fun thing to have nobody talking about anything, unless they were there. Now the shallow reason, the bruised, precious ego. Few years back, there was a book released, a biography of sorts of Bob Mackie, famous Hollywood Costume designer. We were his first series as lead costumer, the guy who wrote this. There's a big page of us, and of course, there's more stuff on share and Diana Ross and Carol Burnett, of course. But he talked about our show being on for a season and a half in 1965 and then basically we all ended up in the unemployment line, which kind of I went. I'll show you. I'll write my own book. No, it was just weird, because we obviously we did not, and if a shallow, fragile ego could get this thing made, then I'm glad I had that problem. I understand

Jeff Dwoskin 7:10

the reaction. You want to control the story of your family and its history. You don't want, yeah, some random memory. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 7:20

we were around more than a 12 months. Well,

Jeff Dwoskin 7:23

this the show came on top of an amazing career with the king sisters, right? Yeah, King cousin, yeah.

Cam Clarke 7:30

And quite accidental. It wasn't planned. How did the show come about? The King sisters, who'd been performing since they were kids in vaudeville and then radio and big band and all that stuff, were asked to do a fundraiser up at Brigham Young University, and my aunt Devon said, Hey, I got this wacky idea. Why don't we bring the kids along with us and put them in the act, and how about the in laws and blah, blah, blah. We kids had been raised under the piano with moms rehearsing and stuff. And the older kids had already been the part of the go to voices when you needed children in your movie or in your soundtrack. And that a lot of the performers, the children, performers on recordings, were kids of famous singers and stuff, and like my cousins, were part of kay sera sera with Doris Day or high hopes with Frank Sinatra. My Uncle Jim Conkling, who founded Warner Brothers Records, was at Columbia. He was president of Naris, the first the Grammys. And he'd come home from the office and say to his kids, kids, I need you Friday night. We have a recording with Tex Ritter, or you name it. And my cousin Jamie would say, and we'd go, oh, but Dad, I have a date with Joey. I don't want to anyway, all right, rest of you, yeah, I'm in. I mean, it was so like, what we did. So Yvonne put together this show. I'm six years old when we started, and my first solo was, Thank Heaven for little girls from Gigi. We just kind of went okay, and we did a couple of previews down here in Los Angeles at very just check out, see what we were doing. And then at BYU, Yvonne had the film department of the school with their big like, you know, just, they're not super but 16 Miller, whatever it was, film it, she showed it to a friend of hers who had connections at ABC. So he got her an intro there. And the guy said, cut this down to an hour, that all this footage from your benefit, and bring it to me, which she did. And they said, How soon can we get a pilot? How soon can we get a series on this? So there was, it really was like, I have no rags to riches, or, you know, struggled. The family was born literally out of a benefit and boom. Of course, as you said, the king sisters had been rags to riches since the depression and but they had had not thought of doing the family. And it was kind of surprising, I think that it went over so well. What year was this the show? Well, we did our benefits in 63 319, 1863, so, so I think I was like five when we started, and then we did these benefits that were filmed in 63 early 64 and then ABC filmed a legitimate, I mean, they would have called it a special, but it was a, actually a pilot as well, which aired in the summer of 64 and then the fan mail response, 65,000 letters to this pilot thing got us on the air that January, replacing what show. You may ask. I know. I know you do. I do tell the lovely people out there in TV land, the outer limits. Yes, you did do your homework. You do the voice also in the Do not attempt to create what is it? Not Attempt to adjust the vertical. Do not attempt to adjust the horizontal. Loved that show.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:47

Great show, until your family ruined, right, right? I'm trying to think, what other like shows, what shows didn't you knock off the air that we're on at the same time?

Unknown Speaker 11:00

I'd have to get out some old TV

Jeff Dwoskin 11:01

guys. I was trying to think of those other like variety type shows at the time. Yeah, well,

Cam Clarke 11:06

our testing, I'm sorry I should have included that when we did this pilot special, the network wanted to try us out. There was a show called The Hollywood Palace on ABC, which was kind of like their response to Ed Sullivan Show, but with revolving hosts, so many groups of us always with featuring the king sisters, did about three or four of these segments on Hollywood Palace, and the response was worth Yeah, we got a good idea here. The people are liking these little snippets, so let's do it.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:36

It's awesome. Besides Latina Cole, my three sons, you went on to have a huge voice career, which we'll dive into. I know your dad was an actor, but that probably was before he

Cam Clarke 11:47

was like the king of the be horror flick in the 1950s

Jeff Dwoskin 11:52

I wrote down some of them amazing. I gotta like, watch all are you? Are you an old sci fi fan? I used to remember watching them, like, on the Saturday afternoon monster show, yeah, exactly, yeah. When it wasn't Godzilla week or something, they would show us, right, like Frankenstein Island, the astounding she monster, the man from Planet X. I mean, I hope that you have, like, a room somewhere in your house of just the posters from your dad's movies. Because, oh my

Cam Clarke 12:18

god, if I could lift up this computer and turn it around in this spare bedroom. The artwork for these cheap films is the best part of the movies. Their posters are incredible, stunning, incredible. The posters and the background stories I have about some of these movies that had no budget, like the astounding she monster, just for example, there's a fight, and they brought only, they only Could, could afford one piece of candy glass for the fight scene where he goes through the window the guys, as they're setting it in, it shatters. So they have to film the fight, whoa, and then cut to him on the ground, because there's no window to go through.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:56

But that's the ingenuity that makes those old movies so great. Oh yeah.

Cam Clarke 13:00

And the gal that played the she monster had this sparkly onesie, right? They only had one of them, and her zipper broke, so they had to, they put safety pins, but she could never turn around to leave the room. So she kind of exits, it exits like this, backing up, which is great, which should have been all along. That's

Jeff Dwoskin 13:19

amazing. You made me think that when I was talking to the folks from Land of the Lost, they only wear three Slee slack, sleek costumes.

Cam Clarke 13:28

Oh, really the hideous Sun demon. It was cast with our family, and Donna was in it. Cousin Zan del Courtney, yvonne's husband and Aunt Marilyn recorded the theme song and wrote the theme song to the movie, which I don't think was ever commercially released,

Jeff Dwoskin 13:44

which is a shame, right? Which it needs. It's pretty awesome. It's pretty 50s kitsch. Yeah, we should start a campaign, kind of a Julie London feel. Do we have a copy of it somewhere? Can we start a campaign? And,

Cam Clarke 13:58

yeah, play, play hideous undoman on your movie, I mean, on your show, and you can cut out the where she's singing, right? Because

Jeff Dwoskin 14:04

who can afford that? It'll go virus. It'll go viral. Are there any other members of the 37 clan that did outside of the King fame, like you and Tina and your dad?

Cam Clarke 14:16

Tina and I are basically the only blood ones of the sisters. But like I said, my dad had this career, and in the book, there's these insane movie posters that he's talking about. Are in the book some great pictures of that. But some of the husbands, like buddy Cole, who was married to my aunt Yvonne, was a was the go to guy for piano in Oregon on and he had his own trio recorded many records. Donna's husband, Jim, as I said, was founder of the Grammys, and was he discovered Bob Newhart and the Everly Brothers and stuff like that. So he was really good with A and R, Tina too, artist and repertoire. I think Tina too. He helped, yeah, yeah. Who helped you get into the. Voice acting. My brother was an associate producer over at Warner Brothers at the time, and he was working on a spin off of Dukes of Hazzard called Enos. That's right. No, no, no. Enos. I think it ran for like, two seasons, but that's more

Jeff Dwoskin 15:16

than the King family show ran. No. Hey,

Unknown Speaker 15:19

have you been reading the Bob Mackey book.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:23

I remember Enos. I was I loved the Duke's answer.

Cam Clarke 15:27

Well, you're one of four people besides the cast that would remember Enos. I think there's

Jeff Dwoskin 15:32

a train. JD Hawk, I remember there's an

Cam Clarke 15:36

element of voiceover that a lot of people don't know about, called looping, where there's a group of actors who come in during the post production process of a show, and we do all the fight grunts and the, you know, the zombie and if you're in a bar and the TV is on in the background the football game, we do all of the sounds that are not the leads, even though we often would do their kissing and their sex scenes And they're running and stuff. And I met a couple, and my name got passed around, and I was over at Columbia, and I met this couple, and long story, not so long, they came up to me and they said, Have you ever and I was just doing this for my brother, making some good money, but wasn't really something. I thought it was going to be my career because I was going to be a movie star. Thank goodness that never happened. But this couple that was on this job at Columbia. They kind of said, Have you ever thought about doing this as a career? And I'm like, and she says, Well, we think you should. And they literally swept me up in their arms and introduced me to an agent. Got me a coach for animation and a straight coach for radio and TV spots. Pretty Cinderella, because I didn't even know this was really a field. And then here, all of a sudden, I'm in it. I'm going, Oh, this is pretty groovy. I'll stay here. I mean,

Jeff Dwoskin 16:48

the list of voices that you've done is insane. And I have, there's a couple that I wanted to call out specifically, oh, before we get into that, you were God spelled. Would you say you're the understudy for Jesus. Did that mean you played it? Sometimes they

Cam Clarke 17:03

had a 10 year reunion here in LA and they needed an understudy to cover Jesus and Judas. And I got the part of that. And I mean, God spell was my favorite musical growing up, and knew every song by heart. So even though I was just the understudy, and I only got up once. I loved it. They had me running lights when I not being on stage, even though I never got up much, it was a wonderful experience to be with a lot of the original players who as a junior high, I would play their record, I knew their voices and all of that. So as a fan, it was really a treat. But I think part of the reason I got the job is because I looked like god spell with my Afro and beautiful curly blonde hair. And I got a job doing a army training film or something. So I had my hair all cut off for this. I show up at rehearsal and they're like, What did you do? Where's where's the hair? Like they'd really hired the hair and the person underneath it was just had to come along. So they were disappointed by that. But I didn't wear a wig

Jeff Dwoskin 18:04

well, but you did play Jesus, so I just that makes you my second Jesus on the show Ted, Neely being the first. And now I've had,

Cam Clarke 18:11

oh, don't even I have met him on the convention circuit, and Yvonne element, who played Mary Magdalene in the movie as well. I met her, and I said, I am not worthy. You are, like my first crush and all of that stuff. And they were delightful. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 18:27

he's amazing. He's absolutely amazing. Have you had him on your show? Yeah, I interviewed Ted Neely. It was, it was definitely one of my favorite interviews. Oh, great. Definitely a fun guy. And then, and then you were Mr. Fantastic. You were Reed Richards for two episodes in Spider Man, the animated series. Yes, making you myself. A lot of

Cam Clarke 18:45

these credits I don't even remember. Well, here I am to remind you inventions. People will come up to have me sign something, and I'm like, was I in this game? Yeah, yeah, you played this person. I went, if you say so,

Jeff Dwoskin 18:56

well, with Fantastic Four coming back around, you should be like, digging those up. That's the thing. So that you're now my second. Reed Richards,

Unknown Speaker 19:05

I'm probably your seventh or 12th. No

Jeff Dwoskin 19:07

How many people are. Reed Richards, I'm saying on the show that I've interviewed Alex Hyde White was in the Roger Corman one. So that's, oh, there you go. So I've just, I those pop out. Sometimes I look at, I look at the the IMDB, I'm like, Oh, these are interesting. I like this so crazy story. All right, talk to me about the turtles, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Leonardo, the year Leonardo. I mean, do you ever go leader? I'm freaking Leonardo.

Cam Clarke 19:32

The OG turtles, 1987 Yeah, we did a five episode test, which could have ended after five little episodes. When we're doing our talking to fans and stuff, when we go to the conventions, inevitably, someone will ask, what was it like to get the role of the Ninja Turtles? And we all are very honest with if you're and we were a tight group, then those of us that were working a lot, it was a small community. Okay? And we worked a lot, and you learn not to put any weight on a job you've done. So we got a job at which meant, oh, there's five episodes. Okay, five paychecks. That's awesome. Okay, see you, there's no way to know if it's going to hit or not. Great scripts have failed. Stupid scripts have been hit. So you don't think outside of the audition. And we were auditioning every day, and you get parts and go, good, I can pay my rent and then some. But it wasn't till way after first season aired completely that we went, What the hell is this? Over at the Toys R Us, there's like 15 aisles of just turtle stuff. So it was pretty amazing, but you can't know that until it becomes true. Like my mom taught me, who is out in my family, we go glass half full, glass half empty. And my brother and I would say, what glass? Because we were raised by our mom, and she said, I don't believe it's really happening until I'm sitting at home watching it and the ending credits go by. Then I know it happened. That's a good philosophy. It's not real until it happens. Yeah, and it could have flopped. It could have been five and done when you you tour

Jeff Dwoskin 21:07

the comic cons with the other three voice actors for it. Oh, there's an interesting story in your book about how you almost were but then it didn't turn out to be Michelangelo, like there was a small chance. Oh

Cam Clarke 21:21

yeah, they knew. They definitely knew who wanted they wanted to be Donatello, and they definitely knew who they wanted to be Raphael, and they definitely knew they wanted Townsend Coleman and me as well. But they was a toss up, literally as who was going to be Michelangelo and who was going to be Leonardo. So we are in the studio, and they literally toss a coin, and we called it, and Townsend ended up being Michelangelo, and I got Leonardo, and they told us that we were going to switch after the first rehearsal, then we'll try it the other way and see what we like. So after the first rehearsal, they go, Okay, everybody, that's great. 50 minute break, and then we'll record. And I went, excuse me, are we going to switch? Because you said we could switch. No, we're good, yeah, but you know, we're good, we're fine with this. So that's how that came to be. And I was always jealous, because I wanted to be Michelangelo. Since I was raised in LA I'm at ground zero of that voice, I can remember kids, you know, in my junior high who just started talking like this, you know. And my friends were going, what? What is that accent? But I was able to employ that voice on Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Denver the last dinosaur. So I did get my surf boy out there. Awesome.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:37

So, yeah, I think you were just at the Motor City Comic Con not too long ago, with the other folks I've been you can see my background. I like Nicole, yeah. Background. Love going to Comic Cons. What I've noticed? I don't know if I've just started noticing it, but the voice actors, you can't get near them, especially

Cam Clarke 22:55

the anime actors, the kids that do you know, the Japanese, which is called anime, their lines are out the door and around the block, which is, I am so happy for them, because dubbing pays crap because it's Japanese, it's not new material pays really badly, and there's no residuals. So these folks are on these big hit anime shows and still wondering where, how they're going to pay the rent or baby needs a new pair of shoes. And these conventions are providing a career for people, and a lot of us that are, you know, Rob Paulson, who's huge in the voiceover world, pinky in the brain and Animaniacs. He called me one day saying, Kim, you got to do, you got to do this comic con thing. I've been doing them and blah, blah, blah, and I so hate people that I went, Yeah, I you. And I said, besides Robbie, who's gonna want our autograph prove me dead wrong. I also didn't know that these shows were equally about nostalgia, and the kids who watched us at the time are now entering their 30s and and such, which is when you start as an adult, you kind of look around and go, Wow. How did I get here? You know, you hit 40, and it's Wait. How am I 40? So these people love the shows, and so we get paid terrific money to go around the country and have people saying, Thank you for my childhood.

Jeff Dwoskin 24:23

It is amazing. I feel it too when, like when I when you meet people, it's amazing, like the connection people will feel when they meet you that grew up and just love that cartoon. It's just, do you do the circuit? What do you what do you know? I'm not famous comic cons.

Unknown Speaker 24:39

When you had all these pictures, I thought maybe

Jeff Dwoskin 24:41

the comic cons and I meet people. Oh yeah, I'm a fan. That's how the podcast kind of started. It was just like, oh, the people will talk to me

Cam Clarke 24:52

also. I'm all of us can be fans of something or someone. So to be in the green room with Barbara Ede. Um, who's 90 plus, and looks amazing wearing, you know, eight inch heels. She's great. And other Paul Williams, the composer, and it's just been terrific. I had one story with Mackenzie Phillips. Have you had her on your show? I

Jeff Dwoskin 25:16

have not anyone, you know, I'll take, okay, yeah,

Cam Clarke 25:19

she, was on one day at a time, the daughter, the mama and the Papas, yes. And she had quite an abusive childhood, and and it's quite documented about her problems with with drugs and stem and addiction. And She now runs a facility. I mean, I don't think she owns it. I don't remember exactly, but she is a higher up at this foundation to help people, you know, kick drugs and stuff anyway, where she's sitting at one table in the green room at the next one, and she turns around and looks at me, and she goes, Do I know you? And I'm going, I know who you are, but I don't think so. Yeah, I do. I must know you. I went, I don't know how, because I do voiceovers, and she goes, it's not that. So I kindly. So I finally went well. I was a child performing. You probably never heard of this show, but a show called the King family musical variety show. Her jaw drops, her hands come up to her face like this, and big tears. So it was, I was just so tickled. But with both the King family of that, I love that and the Turtles, for example, I never would have seen things this way, because, fortunately, I had a sweet childhood performing with my family and all. But we get stories of people coming up to us who said my parents were alcoholics, and watching your show gave me a safe place, or I had no siblings, and I could pretend you were my brothers. Likewise, with the King family, people who didn't have a troubled home life liked it, but the people who did found a superpower with these titles, King family, turtles, what have you. So it's very humbling and surprising to hear these stories and how we played a part in keeping them safe. And never it's and it's never a thing that gets lost on me or gives me a fat head, because I don't get I don't get it. How are, how are we treated like this? It's amazing, especially as a cartoon that that that would have that kind of power with children, but it does, and I accept, and it's been a great it's been a great third act getting involved with the convention circuit. It's great

Jeff Dwoskin 27:29

to hear those stories I can imagine. And like, it's nice when I talk to people who do the Comic Con circuits, and they get stories like that also, and it's like, it's nice to know that you were there for people who needed you, Eve,

Cam Clarke 27:43

and we get some great comments that we use in our Q and A's and stuff like Mr. Clark, I just want you to know you're my second favorite turtle. Well,

Jeff Dwoskin 27:52

let's be out. Leonardo is no one's favorite turtle. Good

Cam Clarke 27:56

number two, I try harder. And the guy who plays Donatello, he told me last weekend that a person came up to him and said, What does it feel like being the least popular of the turtles? So a lot of these folks have no filters, as you might imagine, but we take it in stride.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:14

It's like there's no such thing as bad pizza. You know? It's like there's no such thing as you're in the top four of the turtles. No matter what. I mean, it's like, yeah, you can take it. Talk to me about you do a dead on. Matthew Broderick, I apparently

Cam Clarke 28:27

had an, I mean, I don't, in any stretch of the imagination, pretend I'm an impersonator, like, you know, like an art in my generation, you know, rich little, for example. But I did have an ear for it. So when I'm seven years old on the King family, I'm doing Jimmy Durante and in our Halloween episode, I did the opening of Alfred Hitchcock with, you know, good evening from his show. For any of you who are old enough to remember the opener to his wonderful series, Matthew Broderick, who was the original Simba, is just someone who I had in my hip pocket when I'm reading copy auditions. I would use Matthew Broderick, John Travolta, Robbie Benson, and, believe it or not, Sly Stallone as icons when I'm when I'm addressing, you know, a piece of copy I want to channel them like for my first take, I channeled Stallone. When I auditioned in California, we had this, there was this campaign up for the milk Dairy Association. That was, milk, it does a body good. So I went in there thinking of Stallone. I went, milk, it does a body good. And I booked it. But I have done I played Matthew Broderick. Disney used to produce albums of a lot of their hit movies. And so I booked doing him in war games. Jennifer, how can anyone get a D in Home Ec? And I would riff on sessions with his voice and the other actors. Loved how spooky it was. And one day, my dear work friend Jim Cummings, who was Tigger and poo and all. On and on, was that Disney character voices, which is a division of Disney that only deals with keeping their iconic characters sounding exactly like they always did. So you are officially Snow White, or you're officially Captain Hook or Simba, and so Jim Cummings is there and he's they're going, Matthew doesn't want to come back. I don't know what we're going to do. We have to find someone. And Jim goes just very nonchalantly. Well, Cam Clarke does a really good does a really good. Matthew Broderick, so they brought me in, and I kind of think on Jim's recommendation, it was more of a meeting than a true audition. But Kira, how can you not want to be queen? Well, that's like saying you don't want to be a lion. We are all part of the circle of life. The rest is history, ladies and germs.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:47

So I guess, does Matthew Broderick sign off on the likeness of his voice? Well, because

Cam Clarke 30:53

it's no likeness of his voice. I think when he says, I don't want to do it, you know, I don't that's never been asked that I would I honestly don't know what the contract would be, but so here I'm getting to play in the second movie Simba pride. They've hired me. I'm four fifths of the way through the script, and he changes his mind broader it. So they come into one session. I've been working on the show for about a year, right? And they go, he wants to come back. So we're dumping your tracks, but we do prefer your singing voice, so I got to sing the theme song, which fans loved, the second movie, a song called We Are One. And then I've been Simba and every other incarnation, various cartoon shows. Or if he if there's a cartoon on the cruise ship or the theme parks that'd be me? Yeah, the

Jeff Dwoskin 31:42

only reason I was asked I was interviewing Jeffrey Weissman, who was in Back to the Future two Crispin Glover's character that they made him look like Crispin Glover, and then Crispin sued and then won. Oh, I don't know that story. And so well, you can listen to my podcast. No, it's good, but so that's why I was curious. Like, because if someone's listening, they'll be like, Oh, that's Matthew Broderick, right, to your that credit, but, like, but to him, he'd be like, Wait a

Cam Clarke 32:07

minute. Well, whether he it was in his contract must be right. Not it was fine. Because I think a lot of the people that do the leads, the stars, they don't need the money, or are done, you know, whatever, moving on kind of thing. I'm glad he,

Jeff Dwoskin 32:23

yeah, I'm glad he. Want to come back. He, man, you are he man and Prince Adam,

Cam Clarke 32:28

yes, in the 2002 reboot. I'd love to hear

Jeff Dwoskin 32:32

this story, but is there? Well, tell me the story, then I have a follow up question, like,

Cam Clarke 32:36

yeah, it was produced in Canada, and I got a call for an audition for him, saying they can't find anybody in Canada, which is, seriously, they want, unlike in the original I guess, they had two actors, one to play Prince Adam and one to play he man. And they wanted this to be, you know, in the come from the same actor, and I had a great range of teenager to 800 year old wizards in the forest, right? So to me, I was like, I got this, and I did, by the power of gray skull, I have the power.

Unknown Speaker 33:13

There you go.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:15

Folks, there you go. Well done, sir. Are there any voices that you've done, I should say which voices that you've done. And I recognized earlier you said something you don't even remember doing either any of them, where you go to yourself, like, oh my god, I was mean in a good way, yeah. Well, yeah, I guess you could say a bad way might be a more interesting answer. But yeah, good way was my intention. Well, like, that. Like, oh, my God, I would be man, and I was Snoopy, and I was like, you know, I mean, it's Ann Leonardo. Like, I mean, all those are pinch mes, right? I mean, the

Cam Clarke 33:49

one that got well again, sometimes it's hard to wrap your head around the fact that I was a successfully working voice over guy. So to get he man was awesome, but it's not like it was my first gig, and I'd been doing leads and cartoons and stuff, so it was great to play that iconic character. But when I booked Snoopy, which was from my childhood, like these kids who had turtles, sleeping bags and pajamas and everything in my day, peanuts and the gang, Charlie Brown and the gang were the merchandise was insane. In fact, you know, Snoopy, there's, I mean, there's still peanuts merchandise anyway to land that part and know that Charles Schultz, the creator hand chose me, which I actually didn't know that until he passed away. I was in tears. Wow, that's amazing. And a lot of people will challenge me. They go, no, but Snoopy never talked. I go, well, there was a window. No, he never talked. I went, Okay, well, you must be right, but they animated the a Broadway show called Snoopy the musical, and there was a talking Snoopy doll that was like Teddy Ruxpin and stuff like that. So there was a window in the late 80s. 80s, when they tried, they needed him to sing and talk. So that was probably my that role that I'm most proud of, being a part of that legacy that I grew up, where those characters were my best friends.

Jeff Dwoskin 35:15

That's awesome. Let's see what else you got. Oh, California raisin. Talk to me about California Raisins. I love the California Raisins. I mean,

Cam Clarke 35:23

did you see the series that was short lived? It was 13 episodes. I mean, there was the huge commercial campaign, yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 35:29

the commercial campaign and the Burger King that spawned, or whatever,

Cam Clarke 35:33

the cartoon series, yeah. Well, there's a little story I guess I can share here. Don't hate me when I share this. When they cast us, there was two black guys and two white guys, and there came complaints that they should be black, since they're singing Motown. And we're like, well, raisins are tech. If you want to be technical, they're purple. So they kind of let Jim Cummings, the guy who got me the Lion King. It was Brian Stokes Mitchell, who's a huge Broadway star now, Dorian Harewood, an amazing actor and singer, Jim Cummings and me, so they dropped Jim and me from the project, and they held another round of auditions with no names, and they included us, and both Jim and I got the parts again. But I was so nervous being around these great singers, I started really doubting and started showing up in my performance, and I found, you know, we're doing all these great Motown songs, and my little step out solos are being taken away. I'm not being featured much at all. And this isn't ego so much as what am I doing wrong? I know I'm I can hear my my singing is not what it's supposed to be. Flash forward to singing the theme song for Lion King two, and that was with Hans Zimmer, name dropping, who me what? And I get Yeah, and I get in the recording studio, and I'm nervous, and I just come off the raisins and blah, blah, blah. And he goes on to talk back from the booth, what's going on in there? I'm not going to tempt his accent. He's got a gorgeous voice. He says, come into the booth, of course. Is that That's like going to the principal's office. It you could either be class president or being suspended. I go, I'm fired. I'm so fired. And he says, we chose you for a reason. You've got this, you just need to get out of your own way. That's not a new thing for humans to know about. But sometimes things you've heard your whole life, they click, even though we've heard many things before, but to hear this giant Legend of on Zimmer say you've got this, stop getting in your way. It just kind of clicked. And I was I was back, I was better, and I was not afraid. What was

Jeff Dwoskin 37:47

your favorite Motown song to sing?

Cam Clarke 37:49

I auditioned with dancing in the street, calling out around the world. And you know, who doesn't love every single Motown song, and I can't do it anymore, but I would do the Michael Jackson. I can't get up as high as I used to, but I was basically the lightest, lightest voice, and kind of employed my speaking voice, kind of like this, so it kind of sounded like it as bebop dancing in

Jeff Dwoskin 38:13

the streets, whereas Martha vandal, right? Yes, I interviewed. His name was Mickey Stevenson. He was the ANR man for Motown, and Martha Reeves was his secretary, and she was trying to break into the music. It was supposed to be someone else to sing that song, and they tested it with her. And it was one of those moments where they're like, Yeah, we gotta tell that other person they're not singing this song.

Cam Clarke 38:36

Why? Why? Why did they did they needed, like, a demo real quick, and the one they wanted wasn't available, or

Jeff Dwoskin 38:42

they were just running it. They were all there late at night and all that. Well, the

Cam Clarke 38:46

the king sisters, their beginning was not dissimilar. They, I mean, they were charting on the radio and stuff, but they were playing at the rustic cabin in New Jersey, and they get a call early one morning from New York, from this theater saying, Dinah Shore has complete laryngitis. She can't even whisper. Can you guys feel? Can how soon can you guys get up there? And that's when their profile just went boom for filling in in a huge

Jeff Dwoskin 39:12

theater for Dinah Shore. That's sometimes how it happens, right? Yeah. And then when they decided

Cam Clarke 39:17

to recreate their career in the 50s, like always in Hollywood, they were considered old news, and nobody wanted to sign them. So they had this friend over at Capitol, you know, they said, We're going to change our sound. So they dropped their keys, sang a lot in unison, and it was more jazz. The guy took them into the suits at ABC and said, Hey, I discovered this girl group. I think you're going to love them. They're really hot. And they listen to the demos, and they went, love it. Bring them in. Let's sign them up. And then they find it out. As the old king sisters at the ancient age of 4040,

Jeff Dwoskin 39:51

you mean the grandma King sisters

Cam Clarke 39:55

and Esquire named them the best up and coming new group after they'd already been performed. Since the early 30s. Oh,

Jeff Dwoskin 40:01

that is amazing, yeah. But it's kind of like your other audition where there was blind and they still picked you anyway. It's like, when you remove these biases that we just layer on that are meaningless, you can get the real talent out there

Cam Clarke 40:17

and the other performers did not have a problem with because both Brian Stokes, Mitchell and Dorian Harewood, they're African American, and in my world, I think also because we came from a voice world where your visual is not part of the process, so there was a lot more imagination and allowance of like, well, if you sound right? I may not look well now I look like an 800 year old wizard, but in my 20s, you know, you I got to play or he man, no matter how much I work out, I will never have those pecs or those thighs, geez,

Jeff Dwoskin 40:55

same or the furry or the furry Speedo.

Unknown Speaker 40:57

I guess I could buy one of those. You could

Jeff Dwoskin 40:59

buy one, yeah? Oh, flounder. That's another one from Little Mermaid. Flounder. Yeah.

Cam Clarke 41:04

In the second movie, the kid who played young flounder, his voice had changed, and so he was in a right vocal place, but he just didn't want to so I got an audition. They said, here's the tracks to the original kid. What would he sound like when he's grown up and has kids of his own,

Speaker 1 41:22

the kid kind of had this kind of, he had kind of a adenoid thing, and his voice kind of cracked like that. So I just kind of did him like this. Hey, Ariel, you know, talking like this, but he's a grown, I mean, wears glasses, but he's kind of got a, you know, a little thing at his nose, and

Jeff Dwoskin 41:37

then Tales from the Crypt. Is that acting I talked

Cam Clarke 41:40

earlier about looping right my I'm a contractor, and so my actors, we've been going each week and do all the monsters and death rattles and being your throat cut by a werewolf or whatever. And there was an animated episode one week about, I can't remember the exact title, but it was big bad wolf, and the three little pigs, and I play Piggy and a very dark, very bloody, very violent, very violent version of it. And I'll get people come up and go, Yeah, but are you sending a picture of a piggy from Tales from the crib? So that was just because they already knew me. And that was a wonderful, wonderful episode. I loved. It was really funny. I got, you know, playing against the, you know, who's afraid of the big bad wolf? You know, as we the piglets are chopping up with an ax the wolf, and there's, you know, blood everywhere. So right in my alley. Amazing,

Jeff Dwoskin 42:31

amazing. So my wizard, do you have a favorite one that I did not call out? You mean, a show that I did? Yeah, a voice anything like, where you're like, no one ever brings up. Yeah, there

Cam Clarke 42:42

was a voice that I had found walking down the street one day, and I slipped on a voice, and I knew that at one point somebody would want this voice for a show, and I auditioned for it pretty much most of my career. And then somebody, someone did choose it for feature called the barnyard. And then there was a spin off a series called back to the barnyard,

Speaker 1 43:07

and the voice was like this. It's Freddy the ferry. And I've always loved

Cam Clarke 43:14

Willy Wonka Gene Wilder, like in the producers, when he would freak, his

Speaker 1 43:19

voice went like this, or in Young Frankenstein, you know, you get lovely, you get nothing. It's alive.

Cam Clarke 43:29

And I love the way he shredded his voice. And I was able to find that in a safe place, because one thing you tell kids is never audition for something if you can't sustain it over the length of a show.

Speaker 1 43:40

Anyway, I just gave him this little kid thing with this shredded thing like Gene Wilder,

Cam Clarke 43:47

and I finally booked it on this show. So it was my favorite pairing of a show with a voice and kids. If you buy the book, there's a whole chapter on me in there, so you'll get to relive this podcast,

Jeff Dwoskin 44:02

Pam slipped in an entire chapter on him. Oh, he wrote the book. So he deserved that you might have Hells, yeah, hell yeah. So I figured with the with the turtles, which keeps coming back, and then the work you've done in Star Wars, the video games and the Clone Wars and Star Trek and Professor X in the X Men series and 2012 episodes of Charles observer, you're pretty much locked in for life. I mean, these are these franchises. I mean, for and Snoopy. I mean, like, well, all

Cam Clarke 44:33

contrary, my friend. I mean for Congress shocked with the turtles. Um, when they did not ask us to do that first movie. We thought we're part of the hit machine. You're going to use new people. But they had a master plan, and it certainly has worked out for them. Every incarnation, every movie has a different set of voice actors. And my brain's like, Well, no, I want to hear Velma. So like Velma, I don't want someone else's. Take on it. But it has worked for this. You know, you got everybody under the sun has played, played the turtles. It, I shouldn't say everybody, but there's been, how many incarnations

Jeff Dwoskin 45:09

turtles last week? Yeah, see

Cam Clarke 45:12

sing telegrams. Is that? And somebody wanted to whatever

Jeff Dwoskin 45:15

way Matt was, from a fan perspective, for these comic cons. Oh, did you go? Did you do cosplay? No, I'm saying, like, your fan base of being a part of each one of these things is where you're locked in. That's where, like,

Cam Clarke 45:29

or how about trick or treating when you see, you know, turtles come up and they can't look at you and go, Hey, that's the real dude. So you just take it in. However, Halloween 1965 when the King family was first on and at our you know, just height, my cousins Jamie and Zan the Conkling branch, were given out the candy. One of the costumes Bob created for the kids was go go, boots with white sweaters with their names on them. Bing Bong. They go to the door. And here is two girls dressed literally. My two cousins are Jamie and ZAN. These two girls come trick or treating as who Jamie and ZAN. And that was pretty wild, because they are those people. It's not even a, you know, a character. So you have someone show up at your door as you

Jeff Dwoskin 46:16

I love that. That must have been like, That's a great story. You don't that's, that's the story that sticks with you forever. You tell that story over and over again. Yeah, people will tell these stories over and over again. Cam, thank you so much for hanging with me and sharing all these. I know there's 1000

Cam Clarke 46:33

more welcome, but I appreciate you having me on Shameless plug. You can get my book now. They're all here, which was taken from the one line my grandma ever had on the show. The my publisher is rare bird, and you can find them at rare bird lit.com that's the plug. There's the plug. Put

Jeff Dwoskin 46:51

links in the show. Now it's up. Well, yeah, of course, of course, the plug. Get the book. If you're a fan of nostalgia, the King family, any, all the above cam, this book is a must have. It. It's it's beautiful. Thank you. I'll put links to it in the show notes. Great. Yeah, everyone can

Cam Clarke 47:08

who you talk Who was your favorite interview? My favorite I know I'm your second favorite turtle. You're

Jeff Dwoskin 47:17

my first favorite turtle. Well, of course, I love talking to Tina, so I don't want to like,

Unknown Speaker 47:22

yeah, she's family. You just said that. I

Jeff Dwoskin 47:24

have to say that I brought up Ted Neely earlier, and he was, I really enjoyed talking to him. It was it just, for some reason we just, I don't know, we clicked. And it was just, it was we had a good time. It was funny. I got someone emailed me or tweeted at me or something once, and I was like, I really enjoyed your conversation. I've never heard you made Ted laugh a lot, and that was really nice. I'm like, oh, okay, cool, yeah. I was like, Well, when

Cam Clarke 47:50

you played Jesus for 40 years, it's hard to find a laughing place, you know. Well,

Jeff Dwoskin 47:55

the interesting thing is, I'm Jewish, so I'd never seen the movie. I mean, I was familiar with the story, but I had never seen the movie, and there was a they were doing a documentary on it too. So I watched the movie. I watched the documentary and and so it was just, it was interesting to like, come at it from that point of view. And actually was one of my listeners, Paul, who will hear me say his name, because he listens to every episode. Thank you, Paul. And so he said, Hey, I'm a huge Ted Neely fan. He's looking to be on podcast. So that's how I even reached out to him. And my people are like, Oh, he's my Jesus. Like he

Cam Clarke 48:29

is my Jesus. Yeah, actually, no, the Jesus from Godspell. Victor, can't think of his name right now, but he was my Jesus. But superstar, the movie is one of my favorite all time movies, and I had a costume party to watch the show, kind of like in a Rocky Horror fashion, you had to come dressed. I played Middle Eastern music. And like when there's the throwing of the bagels, I had to throw bagels at the TV and in the thing in the temple, with all the, you know, the silver and the gold, and every marketplace, everybody was supposed to bring a piece of silver or something sparkly and trade it during that song. And we had a blast.

Jeff Dwoskin 49:06

I love it. I remember there were people doing some work in our kitchen, and I'm like, Oh, I'm talking to Ted Neely. And they're like, Oh, my God, you're talking to Ted Neely. And it's like, I'm like, Oh, you're familiar. And he's he's like, Yeah, you want me to sing it all right? Now, I'm like, that's okay, but it was right, yeah, because it's like, it wasn't just the movie. He's toured as Jesus and Jesus Christ Superstar, yeah, he's probably played it 1000s of times, and so it's

Cam Clarke 49:30

hard to make that fresh and work after those many tours. Well, he did

Jeff Dwoskin 49:35

it all right? So here's it, indeed, and you're but you're my second favorite Jesus I've had on the show,

Cam Clarke 49:41

even though I didn't have my big God spell fro Exactly,

Jeff Dwoskin 49:44

exactly, Cam, you're awesome. Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 49:48

Well, thanks for having me on. Much appreciated.