James Avery - Interview...
 

...attempt.

Now on youtube.

When did you interview him? It sounds like you did this several years ago based on how Mr. Avery responded to a question about a new turtles show coming out.

Funny that he auditioned for the role of Shredder in the new series but didn't get it. :lol:

Thanks for sharing. :tsmile:

It was cool.

Was a interesting and fun interview to listen to. Thanks for sharing.

this was pretty neat i tell you :)

2004, 5, 6 ....around there. can't remember the exact year..

That was pretty cool.

Pretty cool interview

Interesting to hear. I think you sort of put poor James on the spot a bit there, but he seemed like a good sport about it, which is nice. He seems like a great guy.

that was good. added to my favs

the end site tag? Yeah. it was a last minute thought. but would you avoid the chance if you had one?

Haha, I dunno. That said, it was pretty cool that he did it and was able to turn on the Shredder voice that quickly.

A new interview from late 2009/early 2010 I found
 

http://unscripted.ca/episodes/show/136

Though there is no mention of TMNT here (though on the link it says so), this is probably the most complete interview of James Avery I have ever seen. This interview lasts a good 20 minutes, so the Youtube below is just the first five minutes. With this, you should know more about his career/life than you'll ever need to know ever again! I notice he played Silverbolt in the latest Transformers movie here! I thought he had retired after seeing that Season 4 DVD interview, so it's good to see ol' Shreadhead still workin'!

James Avery rules!!

Awesome interview. I'm glad to see he's still doing stuff.

A study by using "Facebook likes" shows that James Avery is the most popular OT VA
 

This evening, I just ran a query using the pages function for the Facebook number of likes, and found that James Avery edged out Rob Paulsen for the most number of likes on their Facebook pages, lots of this due to the Uncle Phil role. Here is what I found:

1. James Avery: 1313 likes (based on 2 separate pages)
2. Rob Paulsen: 1302 likes (based on 2 separate pages)
3. Cam Clarke: 182 likes (based on 2 separate pages)
4. Jennifer Darling: 93 likes (based on 2 separate pages)
5. Barry Gordon: 74 likes
6. Pat Fraley: 44 likes
7. Townsend Coleman: 32 likes
8. Peter Reneday: 25 likes
9. Renae Jacobs: 13 likes

Yes....but most of of those people probably know James Avery as Uncle Phil and liked him as such. Similarly Rob Paulsen is the voice of like half of our childhoods, I'm sure Raphael is but one of the characters people "Liked" Rob for. I mean, where is Jim "Leatherhead" Cummings in the list?

Jim Cummings would have beaten 'em all out with 2,240 likes, but given he only voiced around 30-35 episodes, is sort of in that "semi-regular" position with regards to the OT cast, similar to that "6th man" in basketball or primary substitution in soccer. To me voicing in at least half of all the episodes makes it feel like a "regular VA" in any show.

http://www.facebook.com/search.php?q...pages&init=srp

But Jim was Shredder...occasionally. :P

According to IMDB he was in 179 episodes...that very well may be more than Rob Paulsen.

That's simply due to his name appearing in the credits at the end of every episode for that particular season, though in reality he was basically one of the "Guest voices". In seasons 3 and 4 credits, he's on the right column of voice talent which are all alternates/semi regulars/one shot guests, which would later be billed as "Guest Voices" for seasons 5 and beyond, with the "voice talent" distinction belonging to the regular cast members. Plus, from my Youtube video I created with all of the different closing credits, I find no Jim Cummings in Season 1, the Planet of the Turtleoids special, as well as seasons 6 and 10. That's why I see him as a good "utility man" for the cast. Still, after the nine "regulars" listed above, Jim Cummings is definitely the tenth most prolific VA on the original series. He was just voicing so many characters during the show's run on other shows that he didn't have time to do them all on TMNT! And I feel after James he was the best Shredder alternate.