IFH 783: Phil Proctor: A Journey Through Comedy, Resilience, and the Art of Reality

Alex Ferrari 1:49
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:53
On this episode, I have a hell of a guy. He is just full of life. He honestly, he just brims with life. And I love having people like this on he is a founding member of the legendary fire sign theater. He is a voice actor in movies like Monsters Inc, Toy Story, Inside Out TV shows like the Rugrats. He was filming little dad Howard. He was he does video games like Call of Duty event warfare, Assassins Creed, brotherhood. He's even embedded into the Apple OS, can you believe that he actually pulls out the phone and we're gonna go over that too. I didn't ask me if he gets free iPhones, though. I probably should have asked that damn! Without further ado with guest, Phil Proctor.

Phil Proctor 2:34
Well, thank you very much. It's really good to be here. Well, actually, it's always good to be here because I'm at home today here in Beverly Hills, adjacent in Nice, overcast Los Angeles weather.

Dave Bullis 2:48
Isn't technology wonderful Phil where you can do interviews from the comfort of your own home now it's it's amazing, right?

Phil Proctor 2:55
Yeah, not only that, but you can do auditions from from your laptop, which I do regularly now for voiceover work or animation work. And I've actually, which we can talk about. I've actually done jobs for movies from other parts of the country on my laptop, which is unheard of. You know, like five, six years ago, you'd have to go to a studio and have a link up with the satellite to be able to do you know, a commercial or something, if you were in New York and they wanted and they cast you from California. But the technology has really taken over the industry, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the worst,

Dave Bullis 3:39
You're very right. Philly, it's technology can be a double edged sword sometimes. And, you know, I do want to talk about, you know, obviously, doing things for movies from across the country, because I've kind of gotten to that point as well where maybe, like, you know, I can help out somebody from like, for instance. And I'm not to segue too far off, but I've been able to actually help friends of mine, not even, you know, not even just like, you know, maybe recording something, but actually being able to help them. And they're across the country filming a movie, and, you know, we kind of like, you know, do a FaceTime chat or something like that, I'm able to actually do stuff like that.

Phil Proctor 4:12
Yep, that's very true. A lot of actors audition now by not Skype, but they'll record their they'll record their audition, you know, using the camera built in to their machine, and then send it to the castle record. I just had lunch with a fabulous friend of mine named Jim Messam, who, if you know his career at all, is a master of a million voices. Jim Messman, if you want to Google him, you'll be constantly surprised and amused. And he got a job doing a Johnny Carson imitation in a film about Gore Vidal with Kevin Cos, not Kevin Costner, with a famous star whose name will come to be in a minute. And I. And he did it, you know, remotely, by sending in a tape. They cast him off of the tape, and he flew to Rome, and did, you know, two and a half days in this film. So all those wonderful things can happen now. And here comes the garbage. They don't recycle me.

Dave Bullis 5:19
No, Phil, they will you're, you're a treasure. Phil, they won't. They will take you away.

Phil Proctor 5:26
Can you hear the the wonderful sounds of the garbage truck in the back?

Dave Bullis 5:31
I absolutely can. This is funny to see this. This is kind of like Steve Allen's man on the street. It's raw. Anything could happen.

Phil Proctor 5:40
No, I often feel as though my whole career is recycled. You know, I've been in the business for 60 about 65 years. I started as a child actor on a television show in New York called Uncle Danny. Reached the funnies. Elliot Gould was also on that show, and we basically would improvise in this little, kind of a closet of a studio with a big old Dumont camera with three lenses on it, and we talk about the cartoons in the New York Daily News, okay? And there'd be a girl and a guy and a guy and a girl, and that's how I got my start on local television, local live television.

Dave Bullis 6:27
So anyway, well, I mean, that's something I wanted to actually talk about, too, Phil, was you have this illustrious career. I mean, you've been in the business for over 50 years. And, I mean, you've seen, you know, all sorts of things. Seen the ups and the downs. You've seen. You know how things have evolved where, you know, I mean, let's just, you know, like all, like Uncle Dudley reads the funnies. You know that that was, I mean, there's probably, I don't know how many channels when that started, and now, you know, going to now, now there's Netflix, YouTube, and then there's all, there's like, you know, you turn on your TV, and there's like, 1001 channels.

Phil Proctor 7:00
Remember Proctor and Bergman predicted that in TV or not TV in like 1973 or something like that, we predicted hundreds and hundreds of channels. We didn't think that there'd be 1000s and 1000s of channels, but then we didn't account for inflation. So there you go, for those people who might not know who, who I am talking about and who you are talking to. I'm a member of a group called the Fire sign Theater, which was a four man satirical comedy group. Sadly, two of our members have now left us for parts unknown, and only i and another partner named David Osman remain. So we now call our group the fire sign theater, or something like it, which is a parody of our first album, which was waiting for the electrician or someone like him. Okay? And the next time that the what's left of the group, which had a 50 year career, is going to perform will be on September 28 at the Library of Congress, where David and I will be doing the history of the art of radio, followed by some excerpts from our home movies, which have been released on a two DVD set called everything you know is wrong, the declassified fire sign theater. And then we'll have a Q and A with all of the people who were there. We're happy to say that our appearance sold out in like three days, which, of course, was helped for the fact that it's free. But nonetheless, we were pleased to see that there, you know, it was enough demand for us that the tickets went very quickly, and it'll also be, I believe, simulcast and, you know, archive, because, after all, it is the Library of Congress. They inducted another one of the fire sign theater albums called Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers into their hysterical recordings. Oh, party, their historical recordings back in like 2007 and so they are now in the process, we hope, of acquiring our archives, the fireside theater archives. So if you don't know the fire sign theater, go to firesigntheater.com, or just Google us and who somebody just did, and you'll find out all kinds of crazy things about us. And you'll be able to, you know, to see stuff that we've done and hear stuff that we've done on on the web. And it is, Oh, and there's also 24, hour, seven day a week, fire sign theater radio site you can go to where there's a constantly, again, recycled playing of our radio shows and records and things and excerpts from our records. We also have a book which you can get at our site called Duke of madness motors, which contains an mp three of 80 hours of our radio shows. And it's a very colorful book with interviews and pictures and collages and things about our radio years.

Because that's how we got started. We started on local radio, KPFK, listener supported radio in Los Angeles back in like 1964 or something like that, and and that led to a career in recording with Columbia Records and then touring and films and, oh, 50 years of tom foolery and fun.

Dave Bullis 10:35
You know, you mentioned the prediction Phil of all the different TV stations. Did you ever think that, you know there'd be so much like reality TV? Did you ever you know what it'd be like? Yeah, I don't think that that is something that came out of left field for me.

Phil Proctor 10:50
Yeah, it's true. Now, I was the announcer on Big Brother for three years. In the early years of Big Brother, I think it was in their fourth season, fifth or fifth, sixth season, something like that. And to me, that was the best of the reality television, because before it's gotten very kind of convoluted and and more produced these days, although it's still a fun show, but in the in the early days, it was more about real people, you know, who wanted to put themselves into this game like situation and compete with other people. And it was a lot and and they were all isolated in this wonderful, crazy house with the cameras all hidden behind it. I could walk around and look through the two the two way mirrors and see what they were doing in there. It was really a gas, but, but reality television has indeed taken off to the extent that we now have a reality president, we have a rant reality TV president, and that is the most unreal thing of all, right, yeah. You know, the lines between entertainment and reality have become a news and you name it, have become more and more and more and more blurred so that they're the fire sign theater asked in one of its very earliest albums, I think, and don't crush the dwarf enemy the pliers, the question, what is reality? It's the it's the major question you should ask yourself every day when you get out of bed, what is what is my reality today? For me, what is reality? And that's become an increasingly difficult question to answer in the face of our the the media overload, the world of the internet, our second album is called, How can you be in two places at once, when you're not anywhere at all. And that's exactly where we find ourselves. Now, in fact, you and I are representing it as we speak.

Dave Bullis 12:50
Yeah, very, very, very true, Phil, you know, and you touched on something too. I often find, you know, that comedy as a whole, you know, it can be so philosophical, but sometimes, you know, during award seasons and stuff like that, comedy sort of gets, you know, pushed aside for the drama or something like, you know, of that nature. But, but you know, somebody, by the way, it's somebody that you mentioned in your book. By the way, you mentioned Mel Brooks and, you know, and he has taken that too to say what you have where it's like, if you want to, you know, you can make a really great philosophical statement. But also, if you wrap it in comedy, I think the message just gets through so much better. You know what I mean?

Phil Proctor 13:27
Yes, certainly. And of course, Woody Allen is another classic example of that, but, but Mel Brooks is more of a surrealist than Allen is in the Blazing Saddles, he absolutely exploded all of the precepts of the classic western movie, you know, to make all kinds of wonderful social and satirical points. And that's what endeared me to him, certainly. And of course, the 2000 year old man is another classic example of that kind of wonderful surrealistic comedy that he and and his dear partner, Carl Reiner put together. We fire sign theater have been nominated for Grammys three times for Best Comedy recording, and we lost to the 2000 year old man at one at one of the ceremonies. But hey, could we've lost to to Weird Al, who's another great surrealist and a friend, and to Mel Brooks and Carl Reiter. So you know, it's, it's not exactly chopped liver. It's okay. I did a film with with Brooks, which was an overdubbing of a very famous French comedy called the visitors, le visitor, which was a hit for gourmand production company in France, the biggest grossing comedy in the history of French cinema, back in what the 80s, maybe early 90s, and they decided to overdub the film in. English. So they hired Mel Brooks, and he cast a bunch of people, a lot of my friends and myself. And he thought it would be funny if we overdubbed it with a French accent. Because, you know, of course, the French accent is very funny, you know, clues, oh, it's not my dog. You know, he's a funny accent. So we all are speaking like this, with a French accent. The problem is that you are putting word into the mouth of character on the screen. What are all ever talking? Are already talking, you see, and in this particular film, the French that they were using, for the most part, was a very fast a Parisian French on per, neu or disa so and so it was. Everything was very fast, so we had to speak very quickly with the French accent in order to make it match with the moving of the lips. Well, when they finally finished the film, they showed it to a test audience in Encino, and they thought we were speaking French. The film was never released. It's, it's Bell's only failure, my only failure. But it sure was fun to do. God, it was fun working with him.

Dave Bullis 16:15
So how, like, for instance, Phil, how would you go about like, even, even being like approach for something like that, does milk find you and say, you know, Phil, we got to work together on something. And then you just sort of go and you basically, of course, you're gonna say yes, and you just, and you, and you just go from there, or was there, like a whole audition process for that?

Phil Proctor 16:32
It's always an audition process. It's, it's, it's humiliating, debilitating. It is seldom, I wouldn't say it's not. Now I think it's a little different. But back then, even if they knew the fire sign theater and knew the Cape of my capabilities as a voice actor, the there are other people in the chain of command who may say, the fireside, what? Okay, so Mel said, oh, you should, this guy is great. He could be great for it. So we'd have to do an audition, and then they could, Mel, could play the audition for the producers. And producers say, okay, Mel, I got it. You hire him. Okay? And that happened more often than not. Now, for instance, I was in a film called The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Okay? Which, what was his name, anyway, which was directed by a fellow who hired me, des makanov. That's his name. I was hired to read the part of Boris Baden off with various actresses who were auditioning for the role of Natasha. Okay, so I am doing bodies about enough, and reading the lines from the script, you know. And these, and these famous actresses were coming in and reading for the part. I mean, top notch, a rated actresses, Renee Russo finally got it, and she was hysterical in the part. I think that that she was probably the best thing in the film, but, but I was astonished that I was reading with these tremendous actresses. Some of them came in and they'd memorize the material. Some of them came in with just the script pages in their hand. Some of them came in with the script pages written out in their own hands so that they could read it more easily, you know. But they were all reading for the role. And that's, and that's the nature of it, you know, yeah,

Dave Bullis 18:31
it's, it's amazing though, when you just, you're part of that addition process, and, you know, you don't know who's going to come through that door. Sometimes you don't, I mean, and, and I've actually, you know, I've been on both sides of that as well, too. Phil, yeah, yeah. And it's just, you know, you just, sometimes you're like, Oh, my, this person's auditioning. Well, my God, why aren't they more stuff, you know? And it's So,

Phil Proctor 18:52
Listen, there was a time. Now, first of all, I have to say, I don't know if you know this, but yesterday, Dick Van Dyke performed at a club out here in the valley called vitellos with a band of his own assembling. And he's 92 years old. Okay, Dick Van Dyke. But there was a time maybe 30 years ago, when I went in to read for a television show which had, you know, like 12 lines, or something like that, and Dick Van Dyke was sitting in the hallway with the other actors reading for this tiny role. So you see, it's, it's, it's indiscriminate sometimes. But as everybody says, What's the secret to being a success in our business, persistence and confidence, right?

Dave Bullis 19:46
I have that first part down, Phil, but that second part that's very elusive.

Phil Proctor 19:51
Well, it's like Groucho Marx used to always make wise cracks all the time, wherever he was his brain.

Was always in the comic groove, and he was always in effect, trying out material. And his his excuse for this was, you know, like being always on, was that he, even though maybe 60% of what he said fell on deaf ears, wasn't funny, that 40% that worked was his his trade, okay, it would go into a show or into a movie, right? And so, in a way, you have to just kind of let it, let it flow, let it happen, and be confident that eventually somebody is going to hire you. I remember when I was a commercial actor, and I did a lot of TV commercials and scores and scores of radio commercials at the height of my career, but the television commercials are the hardest, because you you'd have to go in and physically audition. And the people who are casting you would say, Okay, you have to come in dressed like a fisherman, or you have to come in in your pajamas, you know, because it's a and you go, why? Why? Why can't I come in looking like a fisherman or, you know, looking like I'm in my pajamas? But no, no, no, no. The casting director, our agents would say, no, no. They want to see you in character. Okay, so you're doing all the work for them. Well, at a certain point, I got burned out. I said, I just can't do this anymore. It's humiliating, and I wasn't getting any jobs. So I look back at my date book, and I looked at how many commercial auditions I had to on camera auditions. I had to go on before I got one. And it was something like, oh, I don't know, let's say 23 and I looked at how many I'd gone on, and I'd gone on like 21 so I said, Okay, I'll go on a couple more auditions. And wouldn't you know it, I got the next two jobs I read for So, you see, it's a question of attrition as well. You see, if you go into you read for something, the guy who is perfect for the part, the guy who is always in his pajamas and looks like he just got out of bed, he's going to get the job. He's also going to get a job as a, you know, I'm talking about guys who are either character actors or all American looking guys and gals, right? They're going to get a car commercial, fast food commercial, a breakfast food commercial, you name it. They're going to get it because they look the part, and everybody loves them, all right, but, then they can't do that anymore. They've got a car commercial, they've got a breakfast commercial, they've got so and so and so and so. So when you go in, if you're second their second choice, you become the first choice because they're out of competition, and that's how it happens. You see,

Dave Bullis 23:00
That's a great way to think about it. Phil, see, because you've been around for so many years, you know those secret ingredients, you know, persistence, confidence, and think of it as a war of attrition. I'm going to keep that. Phil, that's a really great way to think of it.

Phil Proctor 23:13
Since I know your show, you get into the nuts and bolts of various aspects of the business, the film business, you know, from editing to acting to lighting, and you name it. But the other little, little secret about it is you have to, you have to know how to use a variety of skills to get the work. I would find, for instance, that when, let's say, the acting gigs dried up for me, because maybe the nature of television had changed, and I wasn't getting as many guest starring parts on shows like all in the family, which I which I did, and other, you know, top rated shows, I would say, What the heck am I going to do? And that's when I turned my attention to a voiceover work. I'll concentrate on the voiceover work. I'll get myself an agent, and I'll put together a tape, and I'll go out, and I'll aggressively pursue that line of work. And then that paid off for me. And when if that dried up, I go, Well, let's see what's happening in the acting business, and maybe I can get on stage in a play. And I got on stage in a play. Another skill I have a musical, I can sing, so I get seen in a musical singing, and I get a musical commercial. Okay, so one, you must use as many skills as you have and juggle them. And feel free that when one area dries up, turn your attention into another. That's why I've never really had a manager, which is a good thing and a bad thing, but because it's good, because I get to keep most of my money, it's a bad thing, because managers can do a lot for you, especially in a film career. And I regret the fact that one point in my career I turned down management, but I managed my own career Okay, and being a renaissance man, I was able to. To apply my skills and focus my skills to the various areas of the business that seem to be opening to me at the time during my long career,

Dave Bullis 25:11
And also to Phil. Something I've noticed too is you've taken the bull by the horn, so to speak. And you know when maybe you if there wasn't a an audition happening, you know, you worked on your own, your own material in, you know, maybe you know the fireside theater, you know you basically, you casted yourself. There was a there was an episode, Episode 99 I had on Morgan J Freeman. And he has a great saying, green light yourself. He goes, if you have a script, green let it yourself, and don't wait for anybody else. Just take the bull by the horns and just go for it.

Phil Proctor 25:44
Absolutely correct. I saw a wonderful movie which I recommend everybody called In Search of Fellini, which is written by Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson and Nancy. It is a film which is based on a true story that she, as a young girl in Ohio, became enamored of the films of Federico Fellini and decided to go over to Italy on her own, supported by her mother, in order to meet the Great man. And this extraordinary film, which is both beautifully, beautifully made funny and heartbreaking at the same time, tells the story of that adventure. Well, Nancy first translated this into a one woman show, maybe 25 years ago, okay? And it and then based on that show, which she taped and studied and everything, she decided to make this movie. And now, because of the great success of The Simpsons, she's able to she was able to create her own production company, spotted cow productions, and she was able to put the financial energy, as well as her brilliant artistic energies into the creation of this movie, an absolute example of what you just spoke of in terms of fire sign theater. One of the reasons I became I committed myself, so to speak, to the lunacy, to the mad house of the four other fire signs, I'm a Leo, two Sagittarians and an Aries was because we could be our own boss. We were our own producers. Basically, we'd hire a producer for ears and to help us with, you know, the work you were doing, but we, we were writing it. We were acting in it. We were doing almost all the voices, except for a lot of the women. When we could cast women, we did, we did a lot of money Python women's voices too, as you know, and and we could control the budget and lay out the budget. We we could hire the studio we were working in. We could control the sound effects, of the music, all the elements of the production, so that there wasn't anybody from the outside telling us what we had to do. We were creating our own movies for the mind with all of our own skills, and that was very satisfying, and that's one of the reasons why I gave up other aspects of my career, like a movie career and more television and more of stage, because the fire sign ultimately kind of satisfied all of those cravings. Since we toured, we performed all over the country, and then later as Proctor and Bergman, a two man act, half the witch of the fire sign theater, we were able to tour even more easily and play places like Canada and Hawaii, because in our group, one of the members, Phil Austin, who is unfortunately my, one of my late partners, he didn't like to fly, so he would put his dogs and his wife into a van, and they would drive from one venue to another when fire sign theater was touring, okay? And that meant that the rest of us, the other three guys, we could fly into a venue, go on a radio show, promote, okay, and then Phil would catch up with us in time to do the show. We made it work, but it's still it limited the the range of success that fire sign theater could have.

Dave Bullis 29:19
So and now, if you if you were to have, like, started something like fire sign theater today, you know, as we talk about technology, it's almost like what some others have done, where you could actually just, you know, record an episode, upload it to your website, or, you know, stuff like, all that, stuff like that. I see more and more artists doing, the guys from Mr. Science Theater, they've done stuff like that, but, but, you know, but as you know, as you toured, you know, all around, you know, all around the country to and then as you tour around we, I mean, what was your, your, your reaction to, the response of everything. I mean, were you? Were you, were you, like, just blown away about, you know, how big this had become.

Phil Proctor 30:00
Well, it's a good question. Dave, yes, we were because we didn't your question actually has created several little paths I'd like to touch upon, and I may have to ask you to ask the question again. But basically, our success on records, we were given a spoken arts record contract after our first album, waiting for the electrician or someone like him by an art by a producer at Columbia named John McClure, very respected producer, because they were going to drop us from the album, you know, four guys doing crazy, surrealistic comedy. What's that all about? And he said, these guys are geniuses. They're revolutionizing the recording of comedy in the industry. And you've we've got to keep them on, so I'll give them a spoken arts concert contract, which meant that we got free, unlimited studio time, and that's what allowed us to write our albums. Go in record, go back and write some more. Go in and record. And that's why we could make these layered, complex, surrealistic albums, surrealistic in the in the style of the goon shows and later Maddie Python, who are also surrealistically oriented, but we're lucky enough to be able to do it visually. So when we started to tour, because we became successful, people were playing our records uncensored in their own homes, right? We never expected that we'd be broadcast because we were using, you know, obscene language and things sweet language, I should say, and our albums were very revolutionary, and sometimes, you know, touched on social issues that were touchy during the the Vietnamese War period. But all of a sudden, a little thing called FM radio appeared, and suddenly in college stations all over the country, kids could play a 40 minute side of our record without commercial breaks, and people started listening to us in the college dorms and saying, Who are these guys? Then they go out and buy our records, and, you know, and, and, and we became famous because of that, and that's what allowed us to tour and to meet our our audience. Okay, so it was a conflux, a confluence, Congress, if you will, of of technology that allowed us to reach a particular audience, which I call a bad head cult, basically, you know, hip hip pockets on the backside of America, all right, because we were also the only comedians who were were reaching to a higher level of comedy. Nobody else was doing. You know what Bergman used to call college boy comedy, okay, Arcane comedy. And even though we, you know, we were, we were not, we would shame, shamelessly, stoop to punning whenever we possibly could, most of our albums in the storytelling had were, were redolent and redundant with many, many, many levels of meaning and understanding. So you could put our records on and play them over and over again and get different messages and different meanings and different jokes out of them. And this is even true if you played the record in a group of people, because there were people in that group who would get certain jokes that other people wouldn't get. And somehow, through the brain meld of being in their presence, it became funnier for you as well, see. So that's why I always consider what we do to be kind of mind messed minded, mind manifesting comedy, or brain exercising comedy, because we're making funny connections in the comedy that we're that we're writing in the writing itself that exercises your brain to make synapses. That is the way the brain works. The brain works by making unconscious and conscious connections to everything. And that's what we were, do we do? We did in our writing and fire sign theater, bingo!

Dave Bullis 34:27
It's that, you know, comedy, and you're able to put that idea like we were saying earlier. That's what I really like to Phil, is, you know, you're you're able to make a joke. When people say, hey, you know what? There's some truth to that. There's some truth to what they're saying, you know. And then they sort of, you know, they start thinking more and more and, you know, as we talk, you know, you know stuff about the, you know, fire sign theater, or even as we were discussing Mel Brooks, you know, a lot of you know, there was, there was that satire, there was a surrealism, where, on the surface, it made you laugh, but then as you started to sort of dig a little deeper, you're like, oh, there's a lot more going on here than yes, yeah.

Phil Proctor 34:59
One of the other things that we did very consciously was to parody regular commercial radio, News Radio, or I should say, news broadcasts and standard forms of entertainment, films and television. The album that was our breakthrough album was Nick danger third eye, okay? Because it was a parody of a noir detective radio show. And everybody in our generation who grew up on the radio could identify with that format, okay, but what we were often doing in all of our albums, including, I think, Rob bozos on this bus, which predicted, by the way, the computer revolution and was, and was and picked up as a fan Steve Jobs. And I'll demonstrate something bizarre that came out of that we were actually deprogramming you. We were un brainwashing you, because people who had been raised in the commercial society at that time in the 60s, particularly 60s and early 70s were, you know, we're taking for granted, in a way, that everything that we heard on the radio that was selling us things was true. You know, we had bad breath. We had under our we stank our feet didn't smell it smelled bad. We needed a fancy car, and we needed a new refrigerator with an ice maker and all. So we'd use those forms in order to kind of say, No, you don't. No, you don't. You might need something more important than that, like maybe a good marriage you know, or a girlfriend you know, or a boyfriend, I don't know, but it's yours. What is reality? What is your reality? Now, in the terms of the of the album, I think we're all bozos on this bus. I'm going to, I have in my hand an iPhone, and I'm going to ask a question of Siri. Here we go. Here we go. Or I'm going to make a statement to Siri. This is worker speaking, hello, see what you got. Clem, what function can I perform for you? Lol, hello, a Clem, what function can I perform for you? Lots of laughs. This is a reference to a character that I created in this album. I think we're all bozos on this bus, which as a character named Clem and I am a this the back story is I was a worker at this future Fair, which is a government fair that is designed to sell people on the idea that everything is going great. There's no unemployment, and, you know, there's going to be a job for everybody in the world. In the future, everything is going to be great, and it's like a Disneyland that the government creates with holograms walking around, making you happy, and all kinds of rides you can go on and and I come in because I've been fired, and I become a hacker, and I plant a virus in the mainframe computer, which is the direct readout, memory, computer doctor, memory, and I bring the whole system down. 1971 we predicted all of that. Okay. Now, Steve Jobs, I met him. He was a fan of this work, and it helped to inspire him to continue to develop the home computer. Okay? And I met him when I did voices for IT'S A Bug's Life, which Dave Osman did voices for as well Pixar, because he bought into he bought stock in Pixar. And I met him at the opening night party up in San Francisco, and he came up to me, or I came up to him to say, Mr. Jobs, nice to meet you. And he said, I'm a big fan of yours, and I that's when I learned he was a fire sign theater fan. So he put this hello. Ah Clem what function can I perform for you? Answer into Siri as an homage to the fire sign Theater Talk about cultural impact.

Dave Bullis 39:05
I was just about to say that, Phil, I've never have anyone have had on the show. I've never had anybody who has been embedded into the to the Apple iOS or to have, I mean that that is, that is freaking phenomenal. That is mind blowing,

Phil Proctor 39:22
It is. And the other thing that the the virus that I planted in our album is a question that the computer can't answer with a yes or a no. And the question was, why does the porridge bird lay his egg in the air? Okay, it's a Zen question. If you buy my book, where's my fortune cookie, which will be on Amazon after the 28 you'll find out the reason behind that particular koan. But if you say that to Siri, she will often say to you, you can't shut me down that easily.

So it's really exciting, you know, to be a part of the culture like that.

Dave Bullis 40:14
Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely amazing. Do you like? Do you show that like to any I don't know if you have grandkids, but I don't know if you do. You show that to them. Or

Phil Proctor 40:24
I show it when I go in to to a Mac store anywhere in the world, you know, to get a battery or something, I always show it to the people, the person who's waiting on me, okay, I share it with with one of the one of the workers at the back store, my grandkids. I have two grandkids, Bowen, who is eight and Audrey, who is six, and they live real close to me now, which is wonderful. My daughter, Kristen. Kristen proctor was an actress. She's been raising her kids now so but you can google Kristen proctor. She was on the wire, and even topless, she's a beautiful, beautiful girl, and now an even more beautiful woman of my Norwegian wife. So she's, you know, a honey blonde. But anyway, Mike, those kids, they know much more than I do. They're, you know, their faces are in these machines all the time. So much so that Jeffrey and Kristen have to wean them away from the iPads or from the games. You know, their favorite show that they like to watch online, I guess it is, is a show where these two characters, Jen and Ben, I don't know who they are, are talking while they're playing video games. Do you know about that?

Dave Bullis 41:45
Yeah, I've actually, I do know about that.

Phil Proctor 41:48
Okay, that's their favorite show. That's their favorite show. Besides playing video games, they like to hear these two imaginary characters, these two people, reality television. Okay, playing the games and making comments on it. So reality television has even invaded that area now. The other thing is, of course, I've done voices for all kinds of video games, and my longest run was as Dr. Vidick in Assassin's Creed. And what was fun about that was that I would wear this helmet that was developed in Montreal that has, you know, a feature capturing capabilities, computer capabilities, and so my facial expressions as I'd read the lines for Dr Vitt, the villain in Assassin's Creed, would be translated into a computer rendering of my head and my face, and then they would lay the character's face over my face. So when you play that game, all the expressions that Dr Vitt is making are my expressions. That's another what is reality for you? And I guess the thing that most people out there would would know me best for is that I was Howard on the Rugrats for 14 years. I'm the father of Phil and Lil, okay, and we did what, three movies and and and 14 years, or we had a little break, so maybe seven or eight years of of cartoons on Nickelodeon. They're still being aired, and they're aired all over the world. I get requests for autographs from China, from Poland, from Russia, from South America. I mean, England, Australia. You get so many countries where, unexpectedly, they're showing this cartoon. And I speak seven languages, so it's really fun for me to be able to write back in Russian to these people and communicate in in all these different languages, or to learn, you know, a little bit from a new language, so that I can communicate to them in their own tongue. And it's, it's just really fun. And I get, I got a stack of residuals today from Rugrats. Now the residuals, because it's not a network program, are like $1.56 10.59 12.30 .62 cents. But you know, it does add up, and it's thrilling to see that I get a stack of these residuals showing that it's still playing in the United States and all over the world.

Dave Bullis 44:26
You know, I do. I actually, I was a big fan of Rugrats growing up Phil, and you know it, I do remember you actually playing the dad of Phil and Lil and

Phil Proctor 44:39
Lots of other parts too, that you probably don't know the same. Nancy Cartwright, you know, she plays part, but she plays a slew of other parts as well. You know, they they take advantage of our voice talents as often as they can and give us multiple fun roles to play.

Dave Bullis 44:56
Yeah, and very true. I've noticed that too with cactus area. Was also on The Simpsons and, and obviously, you know, you've done work on Finding Nemo, you know, and you know, a couple of Disney films. And, I mean, you know, again, it's just, it's, you never know. That's why I always say Phil. That's why I was familiar with your work. And I was like, you know, he, he, Phil, you've done more than I thought you did. I was like, I might even pay attention. He's showing up everywhere. And I'm not even, I'm not even, I'm not even noticing it.

Phil Proctor 45:22
Well, the fun thing was, besides getting a chance to do at the first, the first Disney film I did was the, what's it called, The something down under the, not the remainders down under the the anyway, you know what I'm talking about. This the done. It does down under, oh, I can't remember. Anyway, it was followed by Beauty and the Beast, okay, and Beauty and the Beast was the breakthrough computer animation movie. And it was astonishing to work on that film. And then the Pixar movies started coming in Toy Story. And as I mentioned, well, I just mentioned a bunch of monsters incorporated Finding Nemo later on, the most recent film I did for Disney Pixar was inside out. Okay. But my, my days doing all kinds of car of animated voices and voices for movies and television ended about, I'd say, five or six years ago. You can hear my voice is tired today, but that's just because I'm talking a lot. But for the most part, it's okay. I had a terrific run doing voices. I started actually, on a show in New York called he, I think, here and now, no, wasn't called You Are there something like that? I did a Russian accented voiceover for a segment about the Second World War, and I was, I was 22 years old, fresh out of college. I was playing a juvenile delinquent on a soap opera called Edge of Night, okay? And then later went on to understudy Ralph, the singing Nazi on the sound of music. But I go into a studio in New York, and I worked for 15 minutes, and I made $365 and that's when I first went to myself, hmm, there's something to look into here. But it took me many, many more years before I was able to to really get into the voiceover industry seriously, and it happened pretty much after the fire sign theater. But I'm very grateful for all those wonderful years that I worked with with great improv groups adding crazy voices and different languages and different accents to the Muppets movies. And, my goodness, if you go and see my list of credits, you'll see that you can also visit me at Planet proctor.com where I post a weekly a monthly blog now, but I've been doing that for 20 years, and it's one way of keeping up with what I'm doing. I'm also on television right now. I should mention on a PBS documentary about Francis Scott Key by Philip Marshall called Francis Scott Key after the song. It's a three part documentary done in an interview style with the ghosts of famous people who lived in Francis Scott Key's time, including a character named John Randolph of Roanoke, who's the character I play. And Marshall interviews us as ghosts in our own words. We're speaking pretty much our own words. John Randolph had a very high voice, almost annoying, and he was quite a character. He was a senator in Virginia for many years, and he would hold forth on the floor of the Senate with his two white Afghan hounds and his black serving boy, his black servant dressed in Chinese, in a Chinese costume. And you'll get to see all of that in this amazing documentary. I can't tell you when it'll be on your local PBS station, but if you go to the website Fs key after the song, you'll find out, and it's really something, something to see. It's a revolutionary documentary,

Dave Bullis 49:21
Yeah, and I'll be look on the lookout for that, Phil, and you know, I am gonna link, by the way, everybody to all the things that Phil and I are talking about, all the websites, everything in the show notes. By the way, I'm always very good at that, Phil, I'm always very good at linking everything in the show notes. But my pleasure, Phil and I know we're starting to run out of time. Phil, so I just want to ask, you know, obviously your book is coming out September 28 of this year, 2017 where's my fortune cookie? You have quotes on the back from, from Weird Al Yankovic, Penn Jillette, and I'm you know, of all you know, all these, these, these great. Know people, uh, you know, have, you know, giving, giving you all these, these quotes, Tom

Phil Proctor 50:03
And Tom Hartman, too.

Yeah, yeah, politically, one of my heroes. And tell these people, which is great,

Dave Bullis 50:23
Yeah, that's actually, was gonna ask you was, you know, of, you know, of all the things in the book, you know, I mean, you touch on so much because, like, like, for one, I mean, I had in my listeners to talk about, but I know you had Amish upbringing, and I was gonna try to touch on that. But we, you know, see how quickly these interviews go it's like you blink Phil and they're over.

Phil Proctor 50:42
Well, I'm 77 years old. I've got a lot to talk about because I can still remember it. That's the good part. And yes, I'm of Amish Irish ancestry. And if you want to read about that, you can go online and find a book called Rosanna of the Amish written by my great uncle Joseph Yoder, which tells about the roots of that Amish Irish connection back in the 19th century, which is very unusual. And I guess that's why I'm so unusual.

Dave Bullis 51:13
Yeah, there's always amazing ties that tie in, Phil, there's always amazing tie ins. And about the book too. Is there anything? Is there any story you know, just as you talk about the book, as we sort of wrap up this whole interview, is there any sort of one story that really stands out that you really you just couldn't wait to retell?

Phil Proctor 51:35
Sure! Well, the fact is, the book is called where's my fortune cookie. It has on the front cover a picture of Peter Bergman and myself hiding under a restaurant table with Chinese food on top of it. It relates to the fact that Peter and I survived the golden dragon massacre in San Francisco, five killed, 11 wounded back in 1977 I think it was, and that particular gangland shooting that we were unfortunately in the middle of and hiding under the table occurred on the same day that I learned that my Norwegian wife, Barbro, was pregnant with my daughter Kristen, who is living nearby now. And the really weird thing about it, which is all recounted in the book, is that it was psychically predicted to me by a friend about a month and a half before it happened. And all of this is in the book, and it's called where's my fortune cookie because when Peter Bergman, who died of leukemia about five years ago at one of his memorial services, a friend of ours, one of the patrons of the fire sign theater made it, passed out fortune cookies to everybody with Peter Bergman's date of birth and death and a line a title of One of one of the fireside theater albums. And I asked her, I said, Gretchen, that was really sweet of you to do the fortune cookie thing. And I said, You did that because of the Golden Dragon massacre, didn't you? And she said, what? I said, you know Peter and I survived a Chinese gangland shooting. She said, You did. I never heard of that. I said, well, well, why did you, why did you make the fortune cookies? Then she said, Peter came to me in a dream, and he told me, I never got my fortune cookie. And it's all true that the book is filled with stories like that. Things like that have happened to me my entire life, and it ain't over yet.

Dave Bullis 53:51
You'll have to come back on, Phil, when you write this sequel and for the next, for the next 50 years that you're in show business.

Phil Proctor 53:58
Well, listen, when the book comes out. I'll be back in town probably at the end of October, yeah, so maybe when we get into the holiday season, we can figure out another excuse to talk together again.

Dave Bullis 54:12
Phil, I would love to talk to you anytime, because, like I said, there's a bunch of questions I didn't get to ask you, but I would love to chat again, and and just in case people didn't hear it the first time. Phil, where can people find you out online

Phil Proctor 54:25
planetproctor.com, is the best way. And if you like what you see there, and you want to subscribe to the newsletter, it's free. You just send me. There's my email address there, and you just send me your address and say, I want to, want to become a planet here, send me the planet, and I'll, I'll see that you're in a mailing group,

Dave Bullis 54:47
And everyone, I will link to that in the show notes, along with the the link to pre order Phil's book. Where is my fortune cookie? Out September the 28th of this year 2017 Phil Proctor it has been an absolute blast Sir.

Phil Proctor 55:00
Thank you very much. I hope I didn't talk your ear off.

Dave Bullis 55:03
No, not at all, not at all.

Phil Proctor 55:05
Great talking to you, Dave.

Dave Bullis 55:08
Oh, thank you so much, folks. Great talking to you as well. And you know I'm going to be on the and whenever you're in town, ever want to come back, please let me know.

Phil Proctor 55:15
Thank you. We'll do it again. Okay, bye for now!