News from Roger L. Jackson

Wednesday's Korner followers, 2013 commences with exciting news from Roger L. Jackson. You can now follow him and tweet to him your respectful praises regarding his voice work on Twitter.

"Dance Pantsed" is the title of a newly designed and re-imagined The Powerpuff Girls coming to Cartoon Network on January 20, 7:30 p.m. ET/PT. Mojo Jojo kidnaps Fibonacci Sequins, whom is played by Ringo Starr.

Roger will be appearing in 2014 (March 7-9) at the Monster Mania Con in Cherry Hill, NJ, celebrating the Scream movies. Become a follower of the Korner to keep an eye out for more convention appearances in the coming year.

Don't miss Khumba, opening in soon nationwide, in which Roger is the voice of Black Eagle. "Like" the movie on Facebook to get updates or follow on Twitter.

Thanks for visiting the Korner and I promise to keep you in the loop of all the great happenings to follow.

Mary Shelley's Frankenhole

To my favorite monsters, ghouls, werewolves, zombies and vampires: Adult Swim has begun airing the 2nd season of the stop-motion, puppet-horror series Mary Shelley's Frankenhole on Cartoon Network, Sundays at 12:15 AM. The series was created by Dino Stamatopoulos (Moral Orel, Star Burns on Community). I first heard of him when he worked on Comedy Central's TV Funhouse. The series revolves around Frankenstein getting crafty with famous historical characters who travel through the "Frankenhole" from other time periods seeking Frankenstein's services.

Frankenhole's voices include Scott Adsit (30 Rock, Moral Orel) as Professor Polidori and Jeff Bryan Davis (Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza, Whose Line Is It Anyway?) as Victor Frankenstein. Both actors are nominated for an Annie Award in addition to the show earning four other Annie nominations. Awards are announced on February 4, 2012.

Here is a feature from Wired and from Animation Magazine about the show. Check out clips and episodes online.

The Powerpuff Girls Special to air January 19

Set your TV tuners to January 19 for when "The Powerpuff Girls Rule" will air on The Cartoon Network. The one hour show will focus on Mojo Jojo, portrayed by Roger Jackson. Mojo Jojo sings two songs. One of the songs is "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," originally by Tears for Fears. Tom Kenny, whom plays The Mayor and the narrator among other voices on the 10-year old show, attended the premiere event that took place in Los Angeles. He said that Mojo Jojo stole the show, that when Mojo sang "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", it brought down the house.

UPDATE: Here's the full article about the broadcast and marathon of episodes preceding the special airing.

If you catch the new episode, feel free to leave comments under this post. I do moderate comments just to weed out the spam.

The Powerpuff Girls 10th Anniversary Collection and the upcoming TV Special

"The Powerpuff Girls" 10th Anniversary Collection will be released on DVD January 20, 2009
Stay tuned for the Cartoon Network's schedule because sometime in December they will air "The Powerpuff Girls" TV special in which Roger Jackson plays Mojo Jojo singing two songs. One of the songs is "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," originally by Tears for Fears. Roger says that it was a lot of fun making this special and he looks forward to seeing it on TV.

Pilot for Cartoon Network

Roger Jackson phoned and informs me that he was recently in the studio working on a pilot called "The Regular Show" for the Cartoon Network. "Guess who was in the studio with me!" says Roger. "Oh, I don't know," I answer. "Mark Hamill." Roger says he's a great guy and really fun to work with. Roger plays the Evil Voice and the Groundskeeper, while Hamill plays the Yeti. This is a show currently in production so there's no word on when it will ever air, but the blog will provide updates if there's any news.

We recalled a show we loved, that also had a Yeti, with superheroes comprised of marionettes. It was a scrappy version of Thunderbirds Are Go. Unfortunately, canceled by MTV before it even had a chance. It was called "Super Adventure Team," created by Robert Cohen and Dana Gould was the executive producer. The only identifiable real name actor is Daran Norris, but all the other actors had to fake their names in the credits. So it's been ten years since the show was on MTV and we both have a bootlegged DVD of all the episodes. Of course, Roger pulls a quote from it right out of thin air.

If anyone ever wondered what it is like to talk to Roger, the Ghost Voice from the Scream movies, on the telephone, well, I'll tell you. If you don't have caller ID, it's even more of a treat as he impersonates all sorts of people when you answer. This time, I saw it was him calling, so when I answer I just say, "Hi!" He was doing his Arnold Schwarzenegger voice which is Dana Carvey's impersonation skills multiplied times 100. He called just before The Sarah Conner Chronicles show (we both admit that we watch to see how great Summer Glau is on screen, though feel she deserves a better show). He tells me the news about his recent work, then goes back to the Arnold voice while the show is on, so I say, "This is just so much better than MST3K, but you should do Arnold a la Beavis and Butthead." The next five minutes is exactly that, Arnold's voice coming out of Roger's mouth with the stoner humor of Beavis and Butthead. "Oh, geez, that's a big haüs, heh-heh. They needz to vater their graz. Vhere'z the Terminator?! I vant to see the Terminator! Oh, yah, there she izz!" But it was funnier because his mind is so quick, I was laughing too hard to keep track of it all.

We're both fans of "Weeds," too. The announcer on the Mucinex commercial (where Roger is the voice actor playing the green guy) just so happens to be Andy Milder who plays Dean Hodes, Celia's husband. "Andy Milder and Elizabeth Perkins," says Roger, "have got great chemistry on screen."

Other shows we both watch are "Dexter," "True Blood," "Entourage," and "Lost."

Roger Jackson, working all the time

My latest conversation with voice actor Roger Jackson brings excellent news. Coming from Electronic Arts on June 17 is a free downloadable demo called Spore, which is really something to behold. "It'll be revolutionary," says Roger, who plays lots of creatures in this game that will be known as a "Universe in a box." The demo will also be included in the The SimCity Box, which ships on June 23. The full retail version of Spore for PC and Mac launches on September 5, 2008 in Europe and September 7, 2008 in North America and you can import the creatures and worlds you made with the demo into the retail version. It means some more opportunity to use YouTube because, according to the press release, "Gamers can then share these creations with their friends, including seamless uploads to YouTube." Read more about it. He says that he finished the session for The Powerpuff Girls anniversary episode which is for a one-hour time slot, probably will air in the Fall of 2008 on the Cartoon Network. A song will be sung by Mojo Jojo; there's only one song in the episode. He can finally talk about the American McGee project called Grimm where he plays all of the voices. "It's puppet theatre meets animation," says Roger. Watch new game episodes weekly, released through Game Tap starting July 31. Listen for Roger's voice in a new release of My Sims in Fall 2008 that will be called My Sims Kingdom. In EA's Dead Space Roger plays a lot of different mutants. Hope the fun jobs keep going to him!

Sugar, Spice, and Cartoonstitute

Famous for creating the girls known for "saving the world before bedtime" aka The Powerpuff Girls, creator Craig McCracken and Dexter's Laboratory creator Rob Renzetti have formed Cartoonstitute, "a new initiative designed to dramatically increase the animation development slate" for the Cartoon Network. I hope it really means it will create a lot of new jobs for people in the U.S. and not use cheap labor in foreign countries. I do love the shows that use this cheap labor, however there are so many promising animators-in-training in the U.S. eager to work for a television network like The Cartoon Network. I'll be watching for any developments so check back at Wednesday's Korner for word of any new shows.

 

Update: 11/08/2020 the above link is updated to shed light on why it wasn't developed beyond the formation.