The Bank of Voices

Last week, we asked a "Bonus Question: Who was Oblio?" The answer is, he was the hero of the cartoon movie "The Point?" This was a cartoon that was on tv in 1971. It had songs by Harry Nilsson. A childhood favorite about how it's ok to be different.

Anyway, while double-checking the spelling of "Oblio," whose voice was played by Mike "Bobby Brady" Lookinland, I noticed an odd thing: The voice of the Narrator was played by different people the three different people the three times "The Point" was shown on tv, and someone else for the home video release. The four narrators were Dustin Hoffman, Alan Barzman, Alan Thicke and Ringo Starr. Dustin Hoffman is a huge movie star and was, among other things, the "Rain Man." Alan Thicke had a couple of tv shows in the 80s and discovered Leonardo DiCaprio. Ringo Star will be the leader of "The New Beatles" the day after Paul McCartney dies. But who is Alan Barzman? The Internet Movie Database was no help. He only had a couple of other credits. So I did some Google searching. And the answer is, ultimately, he's apparently a journeyman voice-over actor.

But the other thing I stumbled upon, was Voicebank.net. It's a website that allows talent agencies to provide samples of actors' voices for tv or radio commercials. Say you're a commercial producer, and you need someone to narrate a Volvo ad, you can go to this website and hear snippets of hundreds of different actors.

Here's some examples:


Rob Lowe

Alan Barzman

Demi Moore

Ellen Degeneres

Bobcat Goldthwait

Billy West

Anjelica Huston