Collider Interviews with Peter Cullen and Frank Welker

While most of their fans likely know the duo from their Transformers work, Cullen and Welker actually go back even further than that:

Peter Cullen: We go back to a cartoon series called Mighty Man and Yukk. [1979]

Frank Welker: Ah yes, yes, yes.

Cullen: And that’s when I first met Frank. But Frank had met me many, many times because he used to go to hockey games and I served hot dogs. [laughs]

Welker: I was a big fan of Peter’s. I used to watch him on the Sonny and Cher show when he did that little character up front. I did not know it was Peter at the time, but when I heard him doing that…

Cullen: The little man in the ball?

Welker: Yeah, the little man in the ball and those sound effects. I thought, whoever this is, I think I’m going to retire, he’s just too good.

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Obviously they’ve done both Transformers movies and TV shows. Here’s the biggest difference between those performances:

Cullen: One of the most obvious, for me, was when we did the cartoon series, we’d all be together in a small recording booth. It would be 8 to 10 characters staring into the glass with the director on the other side with the sound men. With the feature film, it was always working one-on-one with Michael Bay, the sound engineer, and a camera on your lips. So, yes, they were very, very different.

Welker: As Peter was saying, when you have a cast, you kind of play off each other. You can build … almost like a play, because obviously you read it as a play, so you have this nice interaction. When we did the series, standing next to Peter was always a benefit because you really get into it. You’re going hand-to-hand, but physically, you get the feeling of that person being there.

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With on-the-job hazards like that, you might wonder how Cullen and Welker have stayed healthy in this business for so long:

Welker: Early in my life, I probably abused my voice more than I should have. It is an instrument. You need to take care of yourself. If you have a session the next day, go to bed early, do vocal warm-ups on the way to the studio, that’s just about all you can do.

Cullen: My mom used to say, “Peter, don’t do this, you’re going to ruin your voice! It’s going to stay like that!” But when I was an acting student, I studied under an operatic coach named Bernard Diamant from New York. He described the basic instrument, as we all have, the human voice. I was particularly impressed with a remark that he made: A baby, when it’s born, has the most perfect vocal ability. Opera singers study to get back to that for years through the use of your diaphragm, the expansion of air in your chest and lungs, the use of tonal cavities that are built into your upper chest and your head.