Everyone remembers the Paul Masson commercials, but the Carlsberg commercials are good too:
There are those who prefer James Earl Jones, but for my money, Orson Welles was the best voice-over guy ever.
Update. I inadvertently posted this from the future, it went on at 5 am. I should retitle this feature 17 o’clock world.
Anonymous At Work
The standard for voice-over work is the phone book. “Could X make a reading of the phone book seem interesting?” To both, the answer is YES.
Sad answer, William Shatner might also pass.
scav
I somehow feel honor bound to add Alan Rickman to the list as he’s a known local voice favorite of many here. To which I would add my traditional favorite Anton Lessor and new contender Benedict Cumberbatch.
Death Panel Truck
Probably not.
Phoebe
Yeah, the key word here is “probably”. Orson Welles is a ham and a half, charismatic and all that, but this time he sounds like a guy making a “dirty phone call”, albeit with a fancypants accent.
Matt - The Commish
How about “Past the yardarm,” instead of 5 or 17 o’clock, for us Luddites who tell time by the Sun.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T, looks like CNN has fired Rick Sanchez.
MikeJ
We know a remote farm…
HyperIon
@scav wrote:
I don’t get him as a voiceover artist. Too lispy.
And seeing him recently in The Barchester Chronicles killed any idea I once had of him being attractive (to women). He was slimy as Slope.
Suck It Up!
Sanchez Out!
MikeJ
@SiubhanDuinne: John Stewart ought to trick him into going out on a boat…
SiubhanDuinne
@HyperIon:
That’s what makes him such a wonderful actor. Barchester was the first thing I ever saw him in — twenty years ago? longer than that? — and I’ve adored him ever since.
SiubhanDuinne
@MikeJ: You’re going to make CNN’s head asplode with suggestions like that.
burnspbesq
In the shelter of her arms, everything’s OK
When she talks the whole world goes slippin’ away
The Vogues rule!
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
/sigh/
ABC is devoting Sunday’s This Week to a roundtable on Islam in America. They have, for some reason, decided to invite Franklin Graham. Apparently, being profoundly stupid and making profoundly stupid remarks about a given subject qualifies you to discuss said subject on national television. That, and having a famous name. I guess ’cause the examples of G-Dumbya, L’il Pudge Russert and Donnie Graham have been such slam dunk successes in their fields.
Suck It Up!
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist:
Will Newt be there? he’ll be so mad if he wasn’t invited.
Barney
The Carlsberg ads were trumped by the Heineken ones, though, which, as this page demonstrates, had a better class of humour, and Victor Borge for the voiceover – who sounds fun, rather than self-satisfied, which is surely better for a drinks ad.
The story alluded to at the end – why use the Danish Victor Borge to advertise a Dutch lager? – was basically that they approached Borge for the Heineken ad, and he replied it wouldn’t be right for him to advertise a Dutch beer. The ad makers then pointed out that Carlsberg had just passed Borge over, in favour of Welles, for its ads, and he said “the unpatriotic so-and-sos – OK, I’m up for the Heineken voiceover”.
gbear
But Orson Welles was even fatter than Al Gore!
It sounds like he was struggling to breathe in that commercial.
beltane
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: ABC hasn’t figured out that the absence of crazy people enhances the interest level of a discussion. I don’t need to turn on the TV to hear the opinions of ignorant jackasses as these people are everywhere.
scav
@HyperIon: Alan’s not my personal favorite but he does have a voice — a voice with some strong local backing on the swoon-scale. And you’ve probably gone on even thinner local ice when confusing the ability to act convincing slime and the potential attractiveness to either sex, gender or affectional bias. If I had a tardis, I’d definitely be taking a quick hop back to see his take on Valmont, the sine qua non of attractive slime and I say that as someone who found Malkovich as pretty jaw-dropping at that combo.
Cap'n Phealy
I prefer my beer ads, like my beer, British:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVSBtivbUs4
MikeJ
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: They’re going to balance having a crazy christian by also having a crazy muslim on. Anjem Choudary.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@burnspbesq: I have to admit, even though I hated the show and don’t think much of him, Drew Carey’s musical openers always cracked me up.
I wish I had a nice lager. I’ll have to find solace in a nice ale.
ETA: I don’t know Anjem Choudary; I saw they have Daisy Kahn, who will probably be drowned out by the nutbags
Joel
Spuds MacKenzie was the greatest beer spokesman, ever.
Sentient Puddle
@Anonymous At Work:
Shat made Palin’s memoir sound almost interesting. He’d most certainly pass.
Rosalita
My favorite voice over was Robert Mitchum, I could listen to him read the phone book, but the beef ads were a nice quick fix.
John Bird
OH MY GOD HE DRANK THE BEER OUR CHILDREN WILL DIE
Jager
Best voice talent you’ve never heard of, but have heard a million times, Chuck Riley, an early protege of Ernie Anderson. The Godfather movie trailers, Disney Films, Goodyear Tires, the voice of CBS and literally hundreds more. Chuck was asked once if he could do an Orson Welles type, he said “sure” and he walked up and the down the stairs for 20 minutes and then cut the spot. His brother MIcheal Hanks is damn good too. For a listen go to chuckriley.com. Chuck was crazy as hell in his own special way, but a mentor and a friend when I first got into broadcasting. Chuck was my 2nd daughter’s Godfather. You should have seen the look on the priest’s face when the voice of God spoke!
John Bird
@beltane:
Enhances the interest level for you and me, maybe, but the Nielsen lesson right now seems to be: the more crazy people you can get saying stupid shit, the more viewers you draw.
In part, I think this is a side effect of withdrawing the Fairness Doctrine (not that I think that doctrine was an ideal solution). When media stopped having to actively engage with the dialogue they presented, they got to just sit back and say, “WHOA! These lunatics are like a train wreck, like a public access show where a maladjusted guy sings a song he wrote about how hot his mom is, but we can ACTUALLY PUT IT ON TV and sell ads.”
There really isn’t a difference now between current events roundtables and those VH1 shows where they have Andy Dick tell you his opinion on the latest YouTubes.
quaint irene
The strangest alky-hall commercial I remember was the one for Wild Irish Rose, a tipple that Wikipedia terms ‘a low-end fortified wine.’ I guess they were trying to distance themselves from Night Train or Ripple.
John Bird
@quaint irene:
This is my current favorite.
You won’t get much more truth in advertising.
suzanne
I love Morgan Freeman’s voice-overs for those Visa commercials they air during the Olympics.
And James Spader’s for Acura. But that could be because James Spader seriously moistens my… well, I really like James Spader.
MikeJ
@John Bird: I liked the Bob Harris Suntory commercial.
Cheryl from Maryland
@scav: Alan Rickman, Jeremy Irons, Ralph Fiennes, Malcolm McDowell, Sean Bean, Timothy Dalton, Christopher Lee (although he is older than my father), I’m sure there are more = hot. For up and comers to the list, just think of James Frain on True Blood. As for the rest, check out BBC America’s movie feature this month of Brit villains. Thank you cable!
JPL
OT if there is such a thing..Sanchez should have been fired. What he said was over the line and should not be tolerated by a news agency.
OT.II Earlier today I was speaking to a friend (and it really is a friend) who spoke about political correctness. I personally think that PC is a term that allows you to be rude and forget about common decency. She gave me an example that it is no longer PC to call native Americans, Indian. We both are 60 and Indian is a term that was in our history books. She thinks she should still be allowed to say that because of decades of where it was acceptable. She happens to be black and I simply asked her what the history books called blacks.
She had an incoming phone call (yeah right) and is going to call be back. Did I go over the line? Here is my thinking, no one is truly black or truly white in the sense of the world so labels are stupid. I raised two sons and one came home in first grade, and asked what color he was, blond hair and all.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@JPL:
No, you made a good point.
Roger Moore
I think you have to give some love to John Facenda, the long-time voice of NFL films. And if the test is “could make reading the phone book interesting”, Vin Scully should get a shout out, too.
MikeJ
@Roger Moore: If the test is making the phone book interesting, Emo Phillips and Bobcat Goldthwait should be considered the best vo guys in the world.
Mary Jane Leach
There is a huge neon sign across the top of a building in Copenhagen’s city hall square – “Carlsberg, probably the best beer in the city.” It cracks me up when I see it, although I was told by my Copenhagen friends that it’s a case of false modesty – Carlsberg thinks it’s the best.
R-Jud
@MikeJ:
A ring-a-ding-ding.
@scav:
“Not a dry seat in the house”, someone said at the time.
I wasn’t really that aware of the guy until I saw Sense and Sensibility. I think I was 16, and even though he’s pretty strait-laced in it, I sat up and said “I’ll take that one, please.” He’s better when he’s allowed to be funny, but usually he just gets stuck in a wig, shouting.
MikeJ
@R-Jud: Ring a ding ding makes me think Rat Pack.
quaint irene
He was wickedly delicious in ‘Robin Hood.’ After all these years it’s the one fun thing about that movie. Who wants to relive Kevin Costner and his Ewok tree houses in Sherwood.
JPL
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: Thanks. She’s my repub friend who might call a year later and say remember what you said about education, or yadda, yadda, you were right. It was the first conversation that I spoke about history books and their description of African Americans in the fifties. She still hasn’t called back yet.
Maude
@JPL:
Sanchez was fired by CNN.
You are right and good on you.
John Bird
@JPL:
Don’t worry, you were spot on. I’m in my 20s and have been saying this since I heard the term “political correctness”, which is just a marginal New Left coinage that got blown up by the right wing in the 1990s when they were telling scare stories about campus codes.
More or less, some people ‘suddenly’ felt that part of their right to speak freely implied an obligation to say whatever they wanted, however they wanted, to whoever they wanted, and to cry oppression if anyone told them, “what a rude thing to say.”
I’m not an uncouth person myself, but one stark example I saw happened at a bar between two tipsy acquaintances of mine.
One said something bigoted, the other rolled his eyes, person A said “what, you’re politically correct now?”, person B said, “Oh, I didn’t realize we were being politically incorrect . . .” and unleashed a torrent of exaggerated insults involving, in general, how person A was conceived, by whom, and under what circumstances.
I wouldn’t suggest the method, but the point came across rather well.
burnspbesq
Alan Rickman has been dead to me since “Love, Actually.” What kind of fucking moron cheats on Emma Thompson with that fucking trollop of an admin?
Kristine
He’s stuck his foot in his mouth up to the hip a few times over the last few years, but I’ve had a soft spot for Rupert Everett for years despite the fact that he plays for the other team.
I like Greg Wise as well. It’s a rangy brunet thing.
But for me, it all started with Peter O’Toole. Not just Lawrence of Arabia, but How To Steal a Million, Becket, A Lion in Winter, The Stunt Man.
Corner Stone
@suzanne:
Well, shit. I dig James Spader too.
Can’t say he moistens my man parts but I will say in Supernova when he says, “Oh, I’m coming for ya.”
That totally turned my knobs.
Steve
There is a big shoe store in downtown NYC with a sign: “Our Prices Are Probably The Lowest In The City.” Always got a kick out of that.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
Here you go. There’s also a live clip on YouTube, but the sound is abysmal.
And of course the old-school DJ would then segue into “Friday on My Mind.” (Sound not so good in this clip, but the energy level is good.)
Just realized that I’ve got the Friday work blues myself. Hellish shift tonight, from which I just got home about 30 minutes ago.
Got to get my plus on.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
Here you go. There’s also a live clip on YouTube, but the sound is abysmal.
And of course the old-school DJ would then segue into “Friday on My Mind.” (Sound not so good in this clip, but the energy level is good.)
Just realized that I’ve got the Friday work blues myself. Hellish shift tonight, from which I just got home about 30 minutes ago.
Got to get my plus on.
ETA: FYWP. Dropped into moderation apparently because of three external links (which I thought was legal) plus the link the Burnspbesq’s comment. Does that count as four total and thus trigger the trapdoor? So I omitted the bad live clip.
Steeplejack
@scav:
Sam Elliott is doing a lot of voice work now. He’s good, although he lays it on thick in the Coors ads. He was the cowboy narrator/commenter in The Big Lebowski. And the star of a minor B-movie gem back in the day, Lifeguard, with Anne Archer. He’s done a lot of other stuff, of course.
Man, IMDB has redesigned their site, and not for the better. Ugh. But I digress.
Steeplejack
@HyperIon:
Uh, you’d better vacate the scene before AsiangrrlMN gets here. She will brook no scorn of her man Rickman.
Perhaps you have not seen this video, which I throw down in her absence.
Steeplejack
@Jager:
Another great voice-over talent–Hal Douglas, the movie trailer guy.
Yutsano
Y’all are making me miss Dan LaFontaine dammit.
trollhattan
Orson Wells, after a bit too much Paul Massssonnnn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5LkDNu8bVU
Also, too: the best fracking beer ad, evah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH3GH7Pn_eA&feature=related
It’s big.
Steeplejack
@quaint irene:
Rickman is also great in Truly, Madly, Deeply. Trailer here.
asiangrrlMN
@HyperIon: You, Sir, I splutter indignantly over your insolence! I slap you in the face with a glove. Alan Rickman is the quintessential essence of all things manly, hawt, and sexy. The fact that he could be such a convincing slimy bastard in Barchester’s Chronicles (which I hated, by the way) is indication of his true talent! A very rusty pitchforking for you, Sir!
This, this, this is….um…excuse me. I need a moment alone.
@Steeplejack: You have my back, Steepman! And you even posted that video for me, though it affects you so. You’re a good man, Steep.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
I had to grit my teeth when I did it, but do it I did.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Are you talking about posting the video or something else? At any rate, I thank you, gentleSteep from NoVa. I concede the rest of my time to the hawtness that is Alan Rickman.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Har-de-har-har. I’ll have you know that my strength is as of ten because my heart is pure.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack:
Admit it, you couldn’t even come close to saying that with a straight face.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
My face was straight. Although I was lying face down on the floor with a rum and tonic balanced in one hand.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: Pics or it never happened.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
Snrkkle!
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Best. Picture. Evah. And, yes. Your heart is pure (because it’s pickled!).
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Well, no chance of infection or spoilage, anyway.
Probably going to bed soon. But I will sleep easy knowing at least someone saw that. Vindication is mine.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Night, Steepman. Sleep with a free conscience. Talk to you on the flip side.
Bloix
#8 – if you don’t believe Alan Rickman can be attractive to women, rent Truly Madly Deeply. This is one of those ghost movies – dead husband, wife who can’t move on – but he’s the most romantic, touching, sensitive, utterly lovely dead person you’ll ever see on screen.
asiangrrlMN
@Bloix: Yes, yes, yes. Ridiculous pr0n ‘stache, but, sigh…..
P.S. And the cello. Every movie would be made immeasurably better with the addition of Alan Rickman and the cello.
louise
When I hear James Spader’s voice for Acura I stop whatever I am doing and listen intently to every word he says. What a sexy sensual voice he has and it makes me melt every time I hear it. Just like Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character in Secretary, when he talks I want to follow every command.