tim-curry

So how did Tim Curry, camp icon and transgressive titan of pop culture get his start in animated voicework? Where did he begin? Voicing a drag queen serial killer in some seedy Ralph Bakshi picture?

No, he got his break in straight-to-video Christian media.

Don’t try to put him in your little boxes.

The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible was a series animated by Hanna Barbera which had three children from the modern day travelling back in time and meeting various figures from the Bible. And holy shit, this thing had a STACKED cast! Rob Paulsen, Alan Oppenheimer, Ed Asner, Jeffrey Tambor, Helen Hunt, Helen Slater…TONY JAY AS CAIPHAS?!

EDWARD FUCKING JAMES FUCKING OLMOS AS PHAROAH!?

YES! AND IT IS AS PERFECT AS IT SOUNDS!

But, anyway, you knew as soon as I said it who Curry ended up playing. Come on. You knew.

“Plaaaaay me the best soooooong in the world. Or I’ll eat your souls.”

It’s often been said that Morgan Freeman is the Voice of God. As in, he’s just how people naturally assume God sounds like. I would like to propose Tim Curry as the Voice of Satan. There’s not really that much I can say about his performance as the serpent, suttlest beast in all the field.

I don’t know if I was expecting some sign of inexperience or roughness given this was his first voice role. But, no, he gives exactly the performance you’d expect and it’s pretty much perfect. No notes. I also do like that they gave him limbs. In Genesis, the serpent only became legless as punishment for tempting Adam and Eve which almost every depiction forgets, so kudos.

Apparently, Curry had such a nice time working with Hanna-Barbera that he decided that voicework was definitely his bag. Hallelujah.

Now, all that’s left is to categorise this in one of the four categories of Tim Curry performance.

Evil, Sexy, Evilly Sexy or Funny Accent?: Very much Evilly Sexy.

Hello friends. Sorry. I realise this has probably been my worst year for posting since I started this blog. Book stuff and personal stuff (also I am technically without internet at the moment and am trying to get this down before my phone explodes). Hopefully things will eventually calm down and I can get back to some kind of regular schedule.

Anyway, I have two pieces of news. Firstly, the new episode of Now That’s What I Call Nostalgia is now up where we discuss Bravestarr, a much beloved cult classic from the eighties. Well, I say “we discuss”. It’s more Aoife and Esther being held hostage as a I deliver a half hour monologue on the history of Filmation Studios.

Secondly, I think I speak for everyone when I say August 2026 can suck a big one. And while the deaths of Dolly Parton and Peter Cullen hit hard, I have to say that for me Tim Curry was the real kick in the goolies. I may have mentioned this before, but for many years I was actually Frank N Furter in the Dublin Rocky Horror Picture show. I spent many a happy evening lip-synching Curry’s voice in fishnets before a crowd of merry Dublin perverts (never could learn the lyrics to “I’m Going Home” so I just used to mime “Never Gonna Give You Up”). I simply mention it because now that image will haunt you forever. It’s what he would have wanted.

He was a fantastically prolific actor who appeared in hundreds of films, TV Shows and computer games and I never saw him give a performance that didn’t seem like he was having the absolute time of his life. But, round these parts, we cover animation and Curry was also one of the most recognisable and successful voice actors of his generation. So, for this year’s Shortsember, without any particular rhyme or reason, we’re going to do a potted history of some of his most memorable voice roles.

We shall begin shortly.