DT Classics 020: Kiki's Delivery Service

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0:49 offer the next 4,000 customers will have their package delivered via a young witch with a snarky talking cat it's our way of saying thank you for all your support of the last five years so call us today and get your audio deliveries handled by only the best dub talk delivery service because the audio is just too big for drop box hello everyone I'm Xena Warrior Princess welcome back to top talk where we discuss the best and brightest dubs in the industry normally we discuss some of the current and semi current dubs we've done some from like you know 5-10 years ago um we we've done stuff from summer at the

1:34 movies where we do stuff from way in the past sometimes we focus on super super recent stuff but we are here today because of the five-year anniversary where we each chose a dub that was special to our hearts and I chose Kiki's Delivery Service we'll get into why in a bit but I am joined today by and no clue I am ready to fly I have attached these feathered wings to my back and I think that they are going to keep me up in the air yes I read the story of Icarus I I'm pretty sure that these wax wings will not melt do you believe you can fly do you believe you can touch the sky you know there is actually a remake of not a remake it's like a sequel to Space Jam

2:20 coming out next year which features some of the actors in this movie so it's very fitting to reference that particular movie I believe I can fly you're not gonna get me to sing find the right song speaking of which we are also joined by roots how's it going roots roots are just as hairlines clear for takeoff your vector is clear I'll set go on ahead breaker breaker marker 10 we got us a flying which off on the horizon you might want to watch out for that over there's got to be like an airplane like the movie airplane reference here we can throw in roots surely you must be joking now

3:08 don't call me Shirley is for loading and unloading only an apart in the white zone I'm getting tired of this white zone Reggie I think the wrong week to start I think the wrong way to stop drinking would you like to make a generous contribution to witches help anonymous I already gave it the office so welcome again everybody we're talking about the dub for Kiki's Delivery Service today and I want to start briefly by discussing why I personally put this as my dub for dub talk Kiki's Delivery Service is my current favorite Ghibli movie of all time I it is the

3:57 first one I ever saw and it just it resonated with me as a kid I remember picking it up I don't know if it was to Nami or if it was in the movie theater as I rented it but I saw it a lot as a kid and I loved it and I was fascinated by magic and witches and this this sense of wonder but the thing I loved about the film and I've said this before is that it grows up with you it is one of those films where as a child you get the Wonder but as an adult you see the message behind it about how it's a it's a growing up film it's a coming-of-age story for a young witch and as she gets older she loses the magic of her childhood she starts literally losing her powers and it's all about how as you grow up the world starts seeming like a more dangerous place and you lose that childlike wonder and how you shouldn't

4:45 completely lose it but you have to adapt to the times and I just love this message and I love the character so I love the world and it's you know Miyazaki loves flying Miyazaki lows well jeans I've seen every one of his movies and I don't see any indication that the man's a fan of flying and this is the one that has the most flying like stuff in it maybe castle in the sky maybe with the sky pirates but this is like I mean there's the wind rises' was his most recent movie and that is a movie quite literally and entirely about a guy who built airplanes airplanes and you know I'm staring at my DVD shelf right now at

5:32 the section for Porco Rosso there's no flying in that is it's all about plane I was like an Italian mob movie I need to see Porco Rosso III I will eventually watch it but from my understanding like this was the first like big flying machine movie that I've seen with him and I just it he the way he imbues flying in the animation is is simply wonderful Miyazaki doesn't storyboard his films he does he doesn't have a script he just he takes images and says this is what I want and that's why I like a lot of his films are very

6:18 much super pretty and when it comes to the flying scenes of this film like this so wondrous so full of life mm-hmm and that wasn't really present in the original story because this is not this is an adaptation contrary to semi popular belief it's actually based on a series of children's books that was a bit different from this so you have the flying machines thing was really present in the original books it was much more about the growing up portion of it which they definitely captured in this movie but it didn't really have like the Zeppelin end game didn't have tombow being obsessed with building some flying machine so it's a good indication of how you can capture the essence of the original source material while still adding something to it to make it a

7:03 different experience for the film version now would you classify this film as I knew no good would come from city folk and their flying machines I mean I would say a lot of good does not come from those city folks especially that one stuck up to a girl who takes the pie and says I didn't want this it's all wet I hate her crummy pies while Kiki's saying out there in the pouring rain missing your party just absolutely floored by the ungratefulness of the in front of her that is what city folk are representative oven worst character in any Ghibli movie I don't care any other villains that girl right there yeah she is the worst on way i kiki kiki is one of my favorite films favorite Studio

7:48 Ghibli films and I love to death and I wanted to discuss it today uh no uh yeah what are your thoughts on on Kiki's Delivery Service is it your favorite Ghibli movie I'll keep this very brief because it is currently my favorite Ghibli movie and a big part of that was because I also saw it very early on I don't think it ever aired on Toonami I saw this airing on the Disney Channel because this this was a bit of a legacy film for the Disney Ghibli relationships because it was the first film that was released by Disney made by Ghibli other the film came out in 1989 and then Disney gave it a dub and put it out on home video in 1996 I believe so a lot of people saw

8:36 this as like their very first introduction to the Ghibli Canon and I think because of that introduction and because it's like one of the few movies that has no central antagonist it's like entirely internal development and has beautiful scenery based on a Swedish town and some gorgeous animation that we hadn't really seen at that point you know 1996 was like that was the year Hunchback of Notre Dharam came out completely different than anything else I'd seen before so and like you said growing up it does grow up with you so yeah I would say that despite how much I do love a lot of the other Ghibli films not just Miyazaki's but the other Ghibli films this is still my head and shoulders number one film from their canon well that is high praise coming from a an animation aficionado like

9:24 yourself um by that but I have to agree I love this roots roots of justice what are your thoughts I mean so in all honesty you know you probably know where I stand in terms of my Ghibli film rankings Porco Rosso is definitely my top film I actually just watched he geese delivery service for the first time about a week ago because we have been the timing of reporting this episode was all dependent on zem getting some of our audio equipment in and me getting my copy of kikis civil very service delivered unfortunately not by which I'm

10:12 broomstick I had to wait for USPS but you know you make you know you had to wait for FedEx I'll include a screenshot of what you called our Twitter chat oh [Laughter] my god I love that I love that anyway continue that being said I do love this movie uh mainly because it's just so comfy like from the first five minutes in when Kiki's first riding on her broom and she asked her cat to turn on the radio and you get this like 60s J pop tune it's it's it does a great job of

10:59 placing you and sort of this not particularly anywhere land at sort of a pseudo 1950s 1960s kind of kind of area that I guess is why Noah I actually didn't know it was based around Sweden but oh yeah they um if you've got the the home video release you've got did you get the the G kids version or the original Disney release are the G kids okay I have the Disney version so I don't know if they have all the same background material but the the one I have this is new version has like an entire documentary about Ghibli's visit to where's this town actually it's um it

11:47 has nothing to do with the syndrome but it is Stockholm it is based on Stockholm Sweden and they just spend a lot of time going over the architecture the color palette the setup of the roadway so that entire setup basically forms the bulk of what the animation animated city was based on okay interesting yeah but yeah the and not just see animation but the background artistry is so pretty and the people who inhabit this town that Kiki has decided to live in they're all doing things is it feel the town feels lived-in

12:33 and that is high praise for you know Hayao Miyazaki's attention to detail Studio Ghibli's ability to keep up with Miyazaki's ambitions I guess was actually like historically this was really important to because this was the first big blockbuster movie that Ghibli had that made them a lot of money so they had to change their staffing situation because beforehand they were just kind of doing temp workers where you were kind of hired for the movie and then after you were done you were let go so for this movie because of the workload inspired in it they had to hire full-time staff they basically had to say okay we will keep people on salary

13:20 so that they can become a full-fledged part of the studio and make this movie even better okay yeah you can you can definitely feel that here there is a definite feel in this film of this is the start of stuff because the the film's beforehand were good but they didn't speak to aside for maybe castle in the sky they didn't speak to what eventually the quality of the the production studio would be and Kiki's Delivery Service is just to me the start of greatness for Ghibli and I mean if we if we didn't have stuff like castle in the sky and and Kiki then we wouldn't have had Princess Mononoke or spirited

14:06 away or pony Oh or tales from Earthsea let's see let's see show of hands how many people here have actually seen earth see I see we have put that hand down zero Hansen this audience I actually watched a little bit of it back when before the big to do with Ghibli finally selling the streaming rights to all of their properties tales of mercy and Pony Oh were actually made available on Netflix via stars back when that partnership existed oh wow so I cut a little bit of it and then I got bored and I just turned on something else yeah from what I can tell it was

14:53 not very good and not well received and Goro and his father do not get along they do now apparently yeah they've gotten reconciled enough to make another movie in which case of hiyo actually wrote it and Goro directed it was called from up on poppy Hill a much better movie and give him enough confidence that they're actually releasing a third movie coming out for television later this year it's a fully CGI movie the name escapes me but it's another fantasy story from the same person who wrote I forget the name on here good turn yes thank you it's the same author of Howl's Moving Castle Diana Wynne Jones yep yep

15:39 and the the new Phil the new film is gonna be interesting but I've also interested in what is supposedly and I say this with quotes Miyazaki's final film before he actually retires now granted he has said this many different times that he was going to retire and he doesn't but he's also stated for the upcoming film that this is going to be something that is a gift to his grand children or grandchild as his final you know final film and that could mean finality he's getting up in years but you never know I mean I since takahata's esau Takahata his you know partner in crime passed away a couple years ago i get the feeling that he like ok it's time to finally wind down

16:25 this is gonna be it I hope this is it you know Michael Jackson quote this is it yeah considering they worked on the film for like three years already and it's only about a third of the way done yeah I mean it's supposed to be out by 2023 if I recall correctly if at all but you know you never know backstreet's back has has nothing on Miyazaki when it comes to wanting to come back we wait we waited like 10 years between the release of one Evangelion movie and the supposed final one we can wait for the final final final Miyazaki movie but speaking of that which might talk about the dub for this particular Miyazaki movie we should

17:12 that is a good segue with that being said let's talk about the actual dub wheel of the film we've talked a little bit about Miyazaki but let's talk about the dub and the since this is a an older dub but we're going to not have any pretense we're not gonna do any predictions because we can't predict the past I can't even predict what's happening right now on this on this podcast but my first introduction to this movie like before seeing it at all was like trailers for it on VHS tapes of other Disney movies and they they like flatly promoted who the voice actors were for the lead character so yeah even if we hadn't I hadn't seen the movie beforehand I would have no way of trying to predict who would be in this ahead of time I would have to go to pass Senath

18:00 and be like oh god what's the what's the name of the spell you're talking about oblivia oblivia yeah I would have to go to passes Ennis and go obliviate and I wish I would I would totally do that but I can't I can't cuz time travel is not currently possible make it happen folks on but this this dub is done by an interesting team first of all we have ADR director and scriptwriter Jack Fletcher and the scriptwriter the script was co-written john semper i don't know these people could you enlighten the the audience about who these two people are Noah I'll do my very best those are probably not

18:45 names that you're super familiar with but if you've been watching any television animation recently you've probably seen some of Jack Fletcher's work before some things he's directed recently is if you saw the 2016 Powerpuff Girls series he was ki boys director on that if you saw the The Legend of the Three Caballeros which is this Disney show that stars Donald Duck and the Three Caballeros which you should definitely check out it's a very good short thirty episode series he was the voice director on that or like some more recent stuff that was on Cartoon Network like Uncle grandpa and sonic boom so the man's been very very busy you know obviously something very different from Kiki's Delivery Service which was a Disney prison heed of but that gives you an idea that he kind of

19:33 built on that success and now he's working on a whole lot of television animation and it's interesting this dub is interesting to me because it's not like a lot of other dubs it's a mix of high-profile people and people you've seen in animation everywhere and and it like I feel like Disney when they went to do this they said this is very good let's get our best people on this I'm a spoiler alert I don't have much criticism for this dub but in any case my thoughts on the the script and the directing I think it's perfect probably thinks this is interesting I I think it's perfect the way Kiki's Delivery

20:19 Service feels it feels like real life people talk naturally there's there's there's nothing that I feel is unnatural no natural pauses and especially at the time when you're adapting anime like when you're thinking about anime back and then and the 90s like things were different but this to me is a dub that has withstood the test of time everything works everything feels natural I I think it was adapted pretty damn perfect what do you think Noah I III don't want to be the downer on this because like when you say like you thought was perfect I'm like I don't want to pop holes in Zeppelin's on this one because it is a very good it's a very enjoyable dub and I don't think

21:05 that there's really a whole lot that could have been done to improve on it because here's the thing there are two dubs of this movie there are two English dubs of Kiki's Delivery Service and I believe that all three of us basically watched the second dub of it and I'll just give a quick explanation because when they originally released this movie on VHS back in 1996 or had the Disney Channel premiere of it they had a lot more dialogue in it than was in the original Japanese now that's not necessarily a problem all the time I think they wanted all the quieter parts of the movie made them a little uncomfortable so they felt the need to fill it in with either ad-libs or extra vocal effects and then key part the cat Gigi had way more lines than was in the

21:51 original Japanese we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get to Gigi's part but the thing I say is that they kind of went back and they fixed that for the DVD release on both the Disney DVD release and the G Kids release so that's the version that we're all familiar with that's the one that's gonna be streaming soon it's I think Netflix has it up on a lot of countries that are not America I think Canada just got it and that way it's a very good dub it's a very faithful adaptation it is like there are no mysterious lines in this at all sometimes writers will write subtextual lines where you kind of have to decipher what it is they're really meaning there is zero of that in this movie one of my favorite lines is Kiki is talking to Ursula in the cabin and says that she really enjoys flying but

22:39 she enjoyed it less since it became a job and I think a lot of us can relate to that taking something we really enjoy and then when we try to sort of capitalize on it or we do it more seriously it starts to lose a little bit of its luster and those are really good line writing so Jack and John did a very good job on the writing I only have one real quick something that really carries over and this is just kind of an evil of dubbing in general sometimes the lip flaps are coming so quickly that they have to speed up their lines just a little bit there's like scenes where Kiki is talking to certain characters and the lip flaps are going like that and so she's got two lines are kind of like stapled together really quickly show like she'll get changed from she'll

23:26 get money from one of the characters and go like for me thank you instead of like having a pause in between there so acting is very good direction wise there's just some quick parts because of the lip flap issues and they thankfully they went back and they made it more faithful than that original 1996 dub yeah yeah and I can definitely see that it lip flaps aren't something I notice unless they're super super obvious these days like for example um an example of one where I noticed was in the re chain of memories released for for ps3 or for because the the game was originally Japanese voice acted when they went to

24:12 update it they didn't update the lip flaps and you can tell the difference so they're using the Japanese lip flaps so like in those cases I can someone notice but it's not something I noticed as often but you're an animation buff I'm more of a gamer so that that's our that's the difference roots thoughts yeah so I do agree with these in that casting wise this movie is damn near perfect all of the actors more or less sounded appropriate to the design of the characters I among the

25:00 among dub talk that's sometimes a factor in critique and sometimes it isn't I do think it's kind of important on my end just because if you oh how do i word this you can tell in anime when a character has been kind of grievously miscast just getting to know dub actors and where their vocal profiles range and then finding out that oh this this actor who plays mainly young teenagers is suddenly playing this big gruff

25:48 mercenary guy this is unusual are you are you thinking like there's none of that here think of anyone in particular because I'm wearing like what no no no I'm just recently that had that problem I'm just pulling an example out of my hat or Lakeland spaceman Hardy sees someone in an anime that he doesn't like I love you Hardy please don't hurt me we've all got our favorite whipping boys or whipping girls yes yep so as I was saying every actor casted in this feels appropriate whether they're the big-time Hollywood celebrities who are meant to draw people into the film or they're professional voice actors that are brought in to fill to fill the gaps and

26:35 make sure that everything sounds rounded out and even perfectly smooth and I'm glad to say that that completely works the the script writing also feels natural and the wala feels appropriate one thing I will say though and I have the G kids release as we mentioned is something about the mixing just feels a little tinny I don't know if that's just nature of the beast with the way the film was remastered and you know the dub audio was rehand old and you know remix to fit

27:25 the the new HD materials it's to really say when it comes to audio for films especially blu-rays honestly DVDs I found have better sound personally I know I'm kinda in the minority of this but I've always found blu-rays to have worse sound than than DVDs so that could just be the names meaning worse do you mean like it's write weaker or it sounds muffled or what softer more compressed even when you're doing in surround sound I know some people say that's maybe it's because of how I rip certain blu-rays but even watching them like outright I always find them too soft for me I have

28:12 to keep turning up the volume whereas with DVDs it's a flat sound rate and it could attribute to the titties but otherwise I give casting writing and directing a solid thumbs-up alright let's move on to the two minor characters that we're probably not gonna talk about too too much but but are important to Kiki because they are her mom and her dad we're talking about Kiki's mom Keys dad Kiki's mom is voiced by Kath Soucie which you may know as as in like every American cartoon ever when you said we're not gonna talk about these too much I'm like heck yeah I'm gonna talk about these two we're never gonna talk about these we're never gonna

28:57 talk about these two actors on dub talk le I'll talk about them so then we brought Noah clue into this what do you expect i I expect animation I expect animation cuz you may know this by now but he's above American animation as well as Japanese and in other sources he stands all animation you may recognize Kath Soucie as Lola bunny in Space Jam Fifi la fume in Tiny Toon Adventures Dexter's mom in Dexter's Laboratory Madi Fenton and Danny Phantom Phil Lille in everybody else at American cartoons oh she's mint she is so prolific that she even showed up in a recent Disney

29:43 movie she was young Nick Wilde in Zootopia really yeah that is how that's if that was oh yeah and that that's I mean that's nothing like the voice we hear in this movie but that younger you know squeaky your voice is what I distinguish lino her for him and then also Kiki's dad is voiced by Jeff Glenn Bennett who also has you know you may recognize and a bunch of stuff like Johnny Bravo and Johnny Bravo Dexter's dad and Dexter's Lab a Petrie in the Land Before Time these are voices that you will have heard in everything and you will recognize them immediately and before I even start Noah you have the

30:29 floor I'd okay I'll go and I'll make this brief because I know I could go on for the full two and a half hours on just these two because this is your expertise the next the next group is my expertise fair enough that's a good point okay um so yeah case and Jeff are like some of the most prolific voice actors and animation since the 90s and even into the present so hearing them in this is just a really really great treat now do they fit but let's just focus on do they fit yes I think they fit very well Keith is a very good mom voice that she uses when she's not doing like young characters or young boys so she does young boys a lot very well too but in this particular one she has a voice on here that's like on the older side it

31:14 you can still hear her natural lilt that natural voice that you hear and you know Danny Phantom or anything else that zan just listed and but it works well here because she puts a lot more care and concern into the voice and because Kiki's mom is not 100% confident all the time like we see her accident burn a couple of her potions here and there which is kind of like an indication that that's where her daughter gets her own slight klutziness from which is a really nice nonverbal touch but Kate sells that really well like she holds her composure and she's a really good maternal voice that I mean I recognized absolutely instantly but I don't think is like super distracting either it's very good casting as we were talking about before now Jeff Bennett

32:00 I've actually done an entire video on this guy in the very few times I've done videos before I did an entire voice act wait a second you make videos very briefly and only when I have the free time but yes back in late yes back in the days when I had that time I made a whole video about Jeff Bennett's voice acting career and in that I talked about how he's got a very southern voice to him and a lot of the things he does that's why you see him as like shocker and spectacular spider-man or the old crazy guy in scooby-doo and the alien invaders which he does very well what this voice in this movie is much closer to is I don't know if you guys have heard of this but have you heard of a children's book called Curious George at all I don't know I I think maybe a hundred times no sounds kind of obscure

32:49 it is he was very nice it's a very underground but only the cool kids read it as a kid but they made a PBS made a television show based on that and in that Jeff Bennett plays the man with the yellow hat which is much closer to this voice than any of his like bigger bombastic voices and but again it fits very well he's got a very kind of country-ish voice to him in this movie which is fitting because they're supposed to be you know out away from the city away from where everybody else is and he brings that that good southern ISM voice to him and I like that he has two modes kind of he's got that sort of dad ish worried voice when she find when he finds out that Kiki's going away and

33:36 he's got to kind of cope with that but then when he's talking to Kiki directly he puts on what every father knows the dad voice the talking to their children with love and compassion and slight goofiness that it's kind of an affectation that dad's naturally put on for their children they can't even help it it just comes out naturally so yeah there's my long spiel about two actors that I love so much roots take the microphone away before I go any further take the microphone I get okay so hold on a second they got Dexter's mom and Dexter's dad to play Kiki's mom and dad son of a is good guesting choice Saturdays

34:24 are made for dad and I saw that that the clip recently I'm like oh my god oh but I for his little screen time as I get I love their interactions with Kiki I absolutely adore it they are very much doting parents who are concerned that their thirteen-year-old daughter is venturing out into the world on her own trying to postpone this day when she's supposed to be leaving at night of the full moon as much as they used to watch out for werewolves like you never find

35:20 out if there's like anything other magic parts of this world is it just witches or are there other leprechauns and fairies too we never find out yeah maybe one day we'll find out anyway they're trying to keep her from leaving too soon she does it anyway and they have to be respectful of her decision while at the same time okay when one part of this I really enjoyed was an interaction between Kiki's mom Kiki herself and Gigi where Kiki's mom is basically trying to dissuade her from using a broom that she made herself in exchange for one of her

36:09 own that's older and more reliable mm-hmm and she's just going on this little spiel about how sometimes older things are more reliable because I've been around longer and it's just like that is exactly how I would expect a mother to talk to her child and then also her dad being kind of disappointed about not going on the camping trip and then tripping over all of the camping gear like that is great like comedic timing performance from Jeff Bennett so I'm gonna keep it a little short I very much like these two honestly for the

36:58 casting choice they could have gotten anyone but I I think this fits so well because they got people who are experienced doing voices but also who who were experienced doing parental voices and knew how to do them not just comedic ly but also genuinely and I think they both turn in fantastic performances for the little screen time that they have they're not the most important characters aside from to Kiki but a lot of the film is centered around Kiki when she's alone and off doing her thing still I like them I think they did a fantastic job we need to move on we need to move on to the the old lady Squad lady Scott Flyway

37:46 but yeah we're going to the old lady squad with Madame and barsa the two old women that kiki meet and help on her journey and to my favorite characters in the film to be honest because there's they're wonderful now for their actresses we have for madam Debbie Reynolds who is one of my favorite Disney actresses because for one very specific reason Halloweentown she played one of the the grandmother in Halloweentown is saying being normal is vastly overrated and I I love her and in that but she's she's a big Disney actress she's done a lot of other things

38:32 and then as for Barzeh we have any McClurg or Edie McClurg I do not know how to say that I think Edie she's done a lot of she's done a lot of stuff you may know her from a bug's life as dr. flora Air Bud Spike's back with a gram gram you may know her from cars the cars franchise as mini but she was also in the Little Mermaid a little mermaid too as Carlotta and a few other things she's one of Disney actresses who's done

39:20 some some minor parts not a lot of major she was in wreck-it Ralph as Mary and frozen as Gerda but you may not recognize her me do I know my memory I think she was also the the assistant to the the principal a Ferris Bueller's Day Off that is exactly right she is the one who was talking about the the blood sports dweebies they all adore him they think he's are they all think he's a righteous dude oh and she was also in planes trains and automobiles ISM as the car rental agent I want to say the whole speech but I won't I'll save that but everyone no no no say the speech do it

40:07 we have time but yes I think that's where more people wouldn't know her from it's those two movies this is it and apparently she was an Elvira and she she's been in a lot of things it just you made like she's had minor roles in them but she's a very distinct voice yes that uh that drawl that like Midwest drawl voice like that's very much her thing and it's a little weird that she doesn't really use that in this movie she gives her like a very uncharacteristic old lady voice that's different from what she's not what that comedic voice were used to so I kind of wonder like why did they I'm glad they cast her cuz I think she's a really great actress I just wandering like why did they have her do that very different voice from

40:53 what she normally does with that being said Noah what do you think of these two lovely ladies debbie is a is just a sweetheart like um I my favorite role of hers is is Charlotte from the movie Charlotte's Web the old one the old hanna-barbera one and yes Halloweentown is a classic Halloween movie but in this movie I don't really think she gets to shine very much as an actress because the animation on madam and the inflection from the original Japanese is very soft very reserved like very weathered and Debbie absolutely fits that with a very slow-paced like aged speaking voice she doesn't have like a

41:39 crackling voice to show off age exactly she's just like you more reserved more downtrodden more and but very nice as well so it's not exactly a stand up voice like I don't feel like it needed the the sublime acting skills of Debbie Reynolds like as you were saying with Halloween town we could point to that as something that came out just a few years later and had a lot more fun and zest and pep to it mm-hmm I mean Debbie Reynolds is a treasure and like every movie that she's in I loved but I did I do have to agree with you that um this is kind of a waste of her talents she does a great job they both do but I think her talents are slightly wasted in this it's just a bit it's I mean I I'm not sure if

42:26 they fully anticipated this being one of the most popular animated movies of all time but I do feel like it was within the realm of what the role called for like it's not like she was misdirect or anything this is exactly the kind of voice that madam needs is just that we could have easily passed us off to someone who was I hate to say this but a little cheaper we could have saved a few bucks but I'm glad they didn't save a few bucks on was Edie because I really like her voice I really like her natural speaking voice like one of my favorite voice acting roles she's done is the original PBS series Clifford the Big Red Dog she plays mrs. bleakman the wife of the next-door neighbor and she's got like that very well you see the dogs

43:12 come over to play and that's why the birds come over and isn't Clifford just a nicest dog you've ever seen don't you know like I I know I'm not from Minnesota but that's kind of what she sounds like it's just so dinking all out here in Minnesota I mean oh good on ya good Anya there hey I'm sorry about that I I I'm in Minnesota right now that's right oh yeah don't bother me none but ding game cold like I was saying she she has a lot like she you can hear that same natural comedic voice to her but she has like the she adds an extra layer of old lady voice to it which is perfectly fine like it's fitting with the character and it's not distracting

43:59 there's the great thing I can say about this dub all around is that there's no distracting voices except maybe for one who will get to in the very last section but edie sounds like she's just having a lot of fun in this and the to balance off each other very well both Debby and Edie play off each other is like a good example of the nice people that Kiki helps out and she helps out a couple of different people throughout this course of the movie and these two are definitely the most standout ish of them mmm-hmm and roots I just love these two there there's such characters again like like with Kiki's parents you don't see them too too much but they're always there always doing something interesting

44:46 whenever Kiki shows up to do a delivery for them I'm actually particularly stricken with the it's one of her last encounters with them over the course of the film and I want to say it was it was barsa who had the interest in aviation and the blimp and she's just absolutely geeking out over it and it's just one of those I I just love it so much and they're just like I think that's one thing about this film that is just is

45:33 real these characters are they feel real in live and living and they have such presence even even like you know madam and and Barza who admittedly are the somewhat minor in terms of the roles like every single character feels real oh yeah also I love that Edie McClurg Midwestern Tang Midwestern twang gets to come out just enough like you can tell she's kind of holding it back just because it's sort of it's not quite realistic in a pseudo Sweden setting but she's still kind of hear it whenever she speaks and

46:19 it's just absolutely delightful and Debbie Reynolds just being this gentle grandmotherly figure is just God I love these two so much the performances were great they get they do some great line reads I can imagine since this is probably done in the traditional manner of anime dubs where everybody records their lines separately that no one actually got to interact directly with the other actors but I just love a situation where Kiki's

47:07 voice actress who we'll get to at the end of the episode just got to sit down with these two and just have a great time I like that metal image and I hope that's that's how things ended out yeah I definitely agree um I I do think that Debbie Reynolds was a little bit right now miscast but like they they they put her and she should have been in a bigger role or they should have had her bade made her a little bit more animated but what we have here I love madam I think her voice is perfect and Bars is just a lot of fun these two are a lot of fun it's just like I could have imagined both of these actresses and bigger roles but what we got for them was great

47:55 moving on to the penultimate tierre we have Asano Ursula and Tom bow now Tom bow is one of Kiki's friends from the village Ursula is an artist friend and um trying to remember Osato she's the bigger the pregnant Baker lady the the pregnant Baker lady okay um now Asano is voiced by tress MacNeille Ursula is voiced by Janeane Garofalo and Thabo is voiced by Matthew Lawrence you may know tress MacNeille from The Simpsons because tres big deal is all over the Simpsons but she's also done a lot of

48:41 other stuff you may recognize her as Daisy and ducktales and she does a fantastic job that what other things has Trust McNeal done no just focusing on maternal voices because this is you know she's playing a to be mom in this movie you guys ever seen this little independent cartoon called Futurama [Laughter] please mom just mom in the eye I forget what it she's like us maniacal CEO wants to take over the world kind of madad character in that very different from this show she's also if you saw Avatar The Last Airbender she plays the the blood bender

49:29 in that one episode that that was a fun family-friendly episode to watch let me tell you but yeah you've heard her in a lot of different things that is from the 90s up to the president Xi's dot in Animaniacs she's Babs bunny in Tiny Toons she's like you were saying she's the current voice of Daisy Duck in everything Disney related so she's been around the block quite a bit next up we have Ursula as Janeane Garofalo now Janeane Garofalo is another name that you may have heard because she's a big actress she was in Dogma she was um in a few different things you may have heard of if I can get the thing she was on SNL

50:18 she's she's she's been as she was in Wes Craven's know she turned down the role of Wes Craven's scream but she was in Romy and Michele's high school reunion and two hundred cigarettes the wild the truth by cats and dogs she's been a lot of movies oh she was a mystery man that's where I know her from Mystery Men was you need to see mystery med first of all I do anything I've been tearing good things about it but it's like on that long list of movies that I know I won't get around to watching unless someone like physically puts it in front of my eyeballs um so she's not a lot of films she's working median but yeah like she she's she was on the Ben Stiller show Larry Sanders Saturday Night Live she's

51:07 been a lot of things so she's kind of a different casting choice for this can i list at least one major voice role that people may have heard her in sure she plays the the chef Colette in ratatouille the the token love interest okay I didn't know that was her okay yeah yeah I did I didn't realize that she's not French that she was one of those American actors that there said just put on a Pepe LePew accent and get in the recording studio go go go go go and then finally for tombow we have Matthew Lawrence who you may have known for his role in Boy Meets World because yeah that's it that's him he was also in mrs. Doubtfire he was in

51:53 brotherly love with his real-life brothers he hasn't really done a lot much lately um but he was also in yeah cuz at the time in 1996 is coming out he was one of like he was one of the Disney stars like I think correct me if I'm wrong but I think there was actually yeah that you mentioned it was the show brotherly love which was a TV series starring the three Lawrence brothers and II Joey and Matthew yeah right now like he's been in a few things like in 2011 2013 but nothing big but a lot of like the stuff for the television shows in the 90s he was in Girl Meets World obviously Hawaii five-o CSI Miami he's

52:40 been a few things but like Boy Meets World was like his big break I think around that time and that was the the later seasons because he was Shawn's brother his half-brother in the later seasoning with the college right yes those are the later seasons and honestly I like what he brought to the table he gave us one of the best Halloween episodes with and Eric Matthews getting seduced by witches and which is very relevant to today's discussion every one of these people are involved with witchcraft in some way you know what I think I think they're a witch murder but how do you know she's a witch

53:27 build a bridge out of her what else floats very small rocks more witches a duck she's a way these are ways with that being said let's let's we're gonna call this the sidekick squad because these are the people that Kiki hangs out with the most often aside from Gigi which we'll get to so Noah sidekick squad what do you think yeah I'm glad we paired these three together because the structure of this movie doesn't exactly have like a three-act structure like a movie it

54:12 feels a bit like they could have split this up into a couple of different television episodes or a miniseries which is kind it's fitting because Miyazaki and Takada both came from television but long before they did anything in film they were TMS animators and directors things like loop in the third or the Heidi TV series so it's very fitting that their movies have a bit of an episodic feel to them and so and that's why we get some really good episodes with these different characters I have nothing bad to say about trust MacNeil as also no because it's you better not because tress MacNeille that does nothing wrong ever no no you're right she I'm trying to think back like no no if she has it actually she is up she is so professional that this is a

54:59 tangent but when they were casting Tiny Toon Adventures the casting director talked about how she was the very first person they cast they had trouble casting some of the other characters like plucky and Buster like Buster was particularly the hardest one to cast Babs by trust McNeil was like so instantaneous that she was the very first one they cast so yes trust is a really great actress and it's interesting that she gets in this movie to kind of play her natural speaking voice it's not pitched up like her cartoonish voices it's not lowered like her mom voices it's more in the middle range that sounds closer to her normal speaking voice and I really appreciate that cuz it's still she's still a really great actress like she brings a lot of good inflections a lot of good tough

55:47 girl moments to it like what she's telling Kiki Kiki tries to refuse her payment for one particular job she's like I won't hear anything of it work is work and it's just really well done to the point that I am I'm really sad that tres is not like a household name like like Tara Strong or Nancy Cartwright like I wish tres was more popular amongst the world just the world she's done a lot of great stuff and I mean granted a lot of people know her for the work on The Simpsons but she's done a lot more than that and I I definitely think she deserves more recognition for her talents absolutely I'll move over to Janeane Garofalo because this is the one that's honestly the the most normal ish

56:34 sounding of the entire cast it feels like they definitely got an actor for an actress for this someone who is not who hadn't done a whole lot of voice work before this point and looking at her credits from 19 the four 1996 yeah like you were saying she's more of an SNL stand-up comic kind of person but what's interesting is that she doesn't put a comedic spin on her Ursula she's really good at the dramatic moments there's heartfelt moments where she's kind of laying her soul bare about how she loved painting you know she would paint so much like she would pass out at her easel and then she had a bit of an identity crisis when trying to figure out what to do when she grew up like those are the really great parts not so much when she's supposed to be goofy ER or laughing I'm sorry to say but there's

57:21 like really unconvincing moments where she's supposed to be laughing she's supposed to be like a perky mid-20s person that doesn't quite come across as the youthful bohemian voice type like for like she's living out in the middle of the woods like she's in the middle of nowhere with the crows like you'd expect more of a cookie er bohemian voice out of it but that's not really how Janine plays it off it's it's fine it's perfectly fine it's just in a cast that is full of veteran voice actors who are really good at their craft this is the one that feels the more like the more Disney celebrity issued voice like if you can think of any other Ghibli dub that had celebrities in it and you could tell it was a celebrity this is the closest to that that we got not so and

58:06 not so much on Matthew Lawrence's tombow because it kind of helped that he was young he was older I'm sorry the character was younger then Matthew was when they filmed this because like he would have been 16 when they filmed this whereas the character is supposed to be like 13 or so and so Matthew gives him like this his pitch goes up and down and he's got that goofy dorky voice to it that you'd expect from a glasses character obviously but it's never grading it's never an annoying nerd kind of voice and he also has some really good dramatic moments as well so this is one of the characters that they kind of played up in the marketing of the movie to like with those coming soon from Walt Disney Pictures and starring Matthew

58:52 Lawrence as tombow and of course all the teenage girls are going like oh we gotta buy this movie he's such a heartthrob he's a dreamboat that was his character in Boy Meets World that's true that ant and the Disney Channel movie that he did with his brothers - it was it wasn't the horse movie it was the sequel to that where they he owns like a boat or something and then they get shipwrecked by pirates I watched a lot of Disney Channel in the 90s people yeah this is my area of expertise and this is such an interesting dub for me to unpack because a lot of this is more I actually know these people right I didn't realize he was the he was the boy in mrs. Doubtfire

59:38 I completely did not know that yes and that like there's some really interesting roles for the the stuff that they went through but um moving it on roots what is what is the root of your thoughts on the stage I really like trust McNeil's asano like Noah had said she has really great motherly vide stewar but also can we just talk about her husband for a second he doesn't get like much if any in the way of lines no he gets one line and that's looking at

1:00:24 the suppling going look at that but I I think it's great until men behold a Zeppelin I think you gentlemen behold corn do you to know who actually who voices the one line he has in the movie no I don't actually okay sit down for this one Brad Garrett ah okay Robert from Everybody Loves Raymond Wow Robert from everyone loves Raymond well he's done a lot of other voice work too like like roots knows this one he he sings roots his favorite song from tangled you know and Vladimir

1:01:15 collects ceramic unicorns I I mean that's interesting in of itself because I used to watch Everybody Loves Raymond like all the time with my parents and and and you always be Robert to me because he's like God everyone loves her everyone hates me why why was I cursed to have a successful writer brother I love that show and he's but he's he's in here saying gentlemen behold alright I just love the fact that like he's just as big beefy dude who in his first

1:02:03 encounter with Kiki and gg his decision to how he's going to portray himself is just to take out a bunch of trays of buns spin him around to try and impress a cat oh man I'd like to see him spin those buns let me tell you but I love Tressa McNeil's performance obviously she is a character who gets a lot more screen time than the ones we had previously talked about she is basically acting as mentor to Kiki even though she's not herself a witch she's giving

1:02:50 her something to do to use her powers and a way to help the town I actually do really like Ursula and junior Garofalo I do have to agree that her laughs is a little bit awkward just because it's very obviously something meant to fill the lip flaps but I like I like her little talks with Kiki about regaining her confidence and you know her love of life and her magic and like that that whole thing where she relates it to her painting is is really great and then tombos just a dumb kid and I

1:03:36 can really appreciate Matthew Lauren's going the extra mile to play this really dumb naive kid who just loves aviation call him dumb like his mom even gets after him for like spending all of his time reading books look I mean you can be very book smart but at the same time be a bit of a doof that is true that he is incredibly doofy that's a good word for it he doesn't have a lot of street smarts I mean he doesn't throw a lot of guys off the rhythm as true when he off their rhythm you got a troll mop there read them now

1:04:22 number one get yourself a money clip you can get those at any haberdashery you know and back when this film came out there probably were haberdashers around 1989 like all of us were born around that time weren't we oh I I was around by that time yeah geez kid was 90 1990 as well so yeah so this this is like the genesis of us too dun dun dun this is the beginning of dub talks special squad anime squad but I

1:05:07 just love how Matthew Lawrence got tombow down as like this really book smart kid who is incredibly dumb when it comes to talking to girls incredibly dumb as for me I I like all three of them osan ooh a tress MacNeille does a fantastic job trust McNeil I've never seen her do a bad performance this is no exception it's very different for her range but it's a welcome addition I think she did a fantastic job Ursula is my favorite character in the film really and I love the stuff that she added because like she brought like

1:05:53 this real human element to it and while Kiki was more like relatable to me as a child as an adult I relate so much to Ursula and and and her struggles as an artist and just wanting to you know just don't have all that pressure on yourself and just there's a lot to like in her character I think Jeannine did a great job but I can agree with you there that there are some parts that do feel a little bit weaker than usual if I had to pick the weaker member of the cast Janine is probably the weakest and that summit that's not a that's not knock against her mm-hmm that's a knock against she just wasn't experienced at the time with that voice acting but for the most part I loved her performance and I think she does a great job and I

1:06:39 mean in terms of method of with so many great actors working with you I mean it's it's definitely in case of a rising tide raises all ships agree that there is one part that Ginny gets in the dub that we don't really get to hear but I feel compelled to mention it because there's a part in the in the original dub the VHS release that they cut from her lines for the DVD re-release so you remember the part where they're going back to her cabin they're taking the bus they're walking and then they try to hitchhike a ride and then the guy stops with a truck right you remember that scene yeah yep okay okay so obviously they're hitchhiking I get the feeling that Disney in the 90s didn't want children to watch this and think that

1:07:24 that was a good idea so what they did is they they threw in this line like kind of really quickly where Ginny says hey I know this guy let's go to give the idea that oh no no we're not hitchhiking this is like a friend of mine that was not in the Japanese yeah again that they clean that up for the for the DVD release later because it wasn't in the Japanese and it's not true no you do not know this guy but I just love bringing up that little part about what what they felt was a good localization for the 90s market quick it's a big rig connection games big rigs over the road racing over the road onto

1:08:11 the road who knows as for tombow I love Matthew Lawrence I loved him boy meets world I used to watch brotherly love I I think he's a wonderful actor and I think he has great energy and he really brings across in tombow like he's a lovable dork and you know I've seen him in a lot of different roles but he just he seems to nail it every single time if you're listening to this and I don't know why you would be but Matthew Lawrence you're good you've done good you don't did it well we'll tweet them later don't worry hashtag tweeting to tomba all right now we have our final cast members we're gonna call this the cat squad spooky cat

1:09:00 squad on we have Gigi which is a Kiki's cat and we also have Kiki now Gigi is voiced by the late Phil Hartman which is also a voice actor that you probably have known probably have known for many different things but I know as Troy McClure you may know me from such films as Destruction Derby to destroy harder and you are we also have Kirsten Dunst as Kiki which is an interesting casting you may know Kirsten Dunst as as I pull

1:09:46 this up okay here's the thing she's Mary Jane in the spider-man movies yeah she's MJ's in in spider-man she's also been in Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind which I want to get like something else in there she was in Coppola --zz Marie Antoinette she was a she was in Jumanji she was in Jumanji she was uh Amy March and little women she was in small soldiers you may have seen small soldiers also known as the best horror film ever made she's been in a lot of things and for for them to have her late she wasn't that big in the 90s but like she got big afterwards with like Jumanji

1:10:34 and small soldiers and she was in bring on you may know her from bringing on like like she was like her star was really rising when they were casting her in this movie so like it's not that she was a household name yet but she was on her way to becoming one agreed and it's it's just an interesting casting choice for these two um especially Phil Hartman this was the final role yes that he did before he passed away and before we lost Troy McClure and Noah do you want to take it over from here this is gonna be very sad because yes Phil Hartman's performances as a stand-up comic or as a

1:11:19 voice actor on The Simpsons or even other things to like I think he was a member of The Groundlings improv troupe because members of that group got cast in the movie The Brave Little Toaster which Phil was also and he played both the the air conditioner and in the horror shop scene he plays the lamp in that one like he was very good at impressions as well like he had a Jack Nicholson impression and then a Peter Lloyd impression so casting him and this is very different because he's not funny he's not sorry no no no me let me rephrase that he's not goofy funny like in the Simpsons he is dry sarcastic droll the world is on fire and I don't

1:12:05 care voice and it's absolutely so he's a cat is exactly like a cat if you have a cat if you've seen a cat if you've even heard of a cat you know that they don't care about anything they are knocked the cup off the table I don't care about the world so and and Phil's performance in this for the parts that we hear in the DVD release of it every line is funny every little bit of his is droll um he sees like it's like who cares it's just a big puddle of water or sees the the white cotton is like pod and me Miss snooty britches and I can't I can't Epis I can't replicate it it's just the greatest deadpan kind of voice and I'm so glad we

1:12:52 got it it's a shame that they actually gave him way more lines in the original in the VHS release because those lines didn't exactly add to the movie they just kind of patted it out a little bit more so it's a bit of a shame that all of a lot of those extra lines they gave Phil to to beef up Gigi's part in the movie don't really exist anymore the only way that you can find them is if you hunt down a copy of the original VHS tape and it's not that they really added to the movie they just kind of filled in the quieter moments the quieter scenes to you know just make it more like kids need to have audio on screen at all times which is perfectly fine for localization purposes but it's just a

1:13:38 bit of shame that we don't have a copy of that available anymore I kind of wish that the like the DVD version had a you'll pick your own track option where it's like you can watch the theatrical version or you can watch the Disney version but Phil is perfect in this this is exactly what I want from a black cat sidekick character good job Phil and as for Kristen this is probably one of the better Ghibli dubs female leads compare this to things like Anna Paquin and laputa castle in the sky or I can't remember who played Nausicaa and Nausicaa of the valley of the wind or the the Fanning sisters in Totoro just compared to all of those Kristen Dunst is definitely was is an actress and

1:14:24 she's got a lot of youthful energy kind of like that naive energy that only a teenager can have which is refreshing because it's both true to how some one striking on their own for the first time would act and it also makes it even more tragic when things start to go wrong near the middle of the movie and yeah every part of Kristen's delivery on this is really good there's like little bits here and there where she gets nervous about like will you call my parents when she runs into the police officers there's depressing moments where she just gives Gigi her food so her range is all over the place and it's fitting perfectly with the movie like this movie's dub kind of lives and dies by the strength of Kiki's voice actress and Kristen Dunst was up to the task all right and what do

1:15:14 you think roots so I think no I hit a lot of what I was going to say on the head but um in particular I do kind of want to bring up sort of the character dynamics between Kiki and Gigi they work really well against each other as a comedic duo whereas Kiki is incredibly peppy and for the most part for at least the first two acts of the movie very energetic happy and just naive to the world I guess meanwhile Gigi's is just grumpy

1:16:01 sarcastic he likes to be snippy not only to to Kiki but to other animals but he's old he also has this clever wit to him as seen when they had to when they had to deliver a stuffed cat toy and that that toy ended up falling into a nest of crows and he had to disguise himself as this cat I want to point out one part about that that particular episode of the movie because you know he has to disguise himself as a stuffed doll and for a boy who is having a birthday do you guys know who voiced the boy in that scene yeah it's Bobby Hill hmm it's Bobby hill

1:16:48 and boy right so so really Bobby Hill has been saving anime since the died I'll tell you would ya Pam Pamela I figure your last name but Pamela needs he's a lot more recognition than just Bobby hill because she's a very good actress she's just a very recognizable actress she's just very recognizable as Bobby Hill yeah I mean I I know her as pajama Sam from the pajama Sam computer games but second to that is Bobby hill oh she was she was a pajama Sam that's Wow I didn't know that I've learned something today that you did see what happens when you expand your mind and watch movies

1:17:34 from 1989 you know that that that meme with the galaxy brain universe brain like every time we learn something a new brain is opened well hey I learned that

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