Catholic voice actor Jim Cummings is pictured in an undated publicity photo. Cummings is up for a Daytime Emmy for outstanding performer in an animated program for his work on the series “My Friends Tigger & Pooh.” (CNS photo/handout)

WASHINGTON – Jim Cummings didn’t exactly study his chosen career field during his 12 years of Catholic schooling, but he certainly honed his craft.

The thrice-Emmy-nominated voice actor was a relentless mimic when going to Immaculate Conception and St. Columba grade schools and Ursuline High School, all in Youngstown, Ohio.

“I’d be doing dolphin sounds in the background,” Cummings recalled during a July 22 telephone interview from Los Angeles with Catholic News Service. Cummings then proceeded to do some dolphin clicks and chatter straight out of the old “Flipper” TV series.

“Sister Mary Agnes would say, ‘We don’t allow dolphin sounds in the classroom, Mr. Cummings,’“ he said.

Cummings, a member of St. Jude Parish in Los Angeles, got reprimanded over the course of his scholastic career for his mimicry. But he doesn’t hold it against his teachers or principals. The feeling is apparently mutual.

“I have a scholarship at my old school in my dad’s name, so they don’t seem to mind me anymore,” Cummings said.

It wasn’t all trips to the principal’s office for Cummings. He also parlayed his talents into championships for Ursuline during state and regional speech and oratory contests.

Cummings has been plying his trade for 20 years in Hollywood. He’s been involved in more than 300 different animation projects, performing multiple voices on many of the shows, according to the Internet Movie Database.

He’s up for a Daytime Emmy for outstanding performer in an animated program for his work on the series “My Friends Tigger & Pooh” – although he’s up against bigger names such as Joan Rivers, Amy Poehler and Vanessa Williams.

You probably wouldn’t know him if you saw him. Because he has been a voice actor, his face has rarely been on screen. “I’m a stealth celebrity,” he joked.

Cummings created the voice of title character Darkwing Duck, a popular Disney cartoon series of the 1990s. He also has moved into more hallowed territory, taking on the voice of Taz, the Tasmanian Devil originally voiced by cartoondom’s original man of a thousand voices, Mel Blanc, but also the voices of Tigger and Winnie the Pooh, the latter’s voice originally done by actor Sterling Holloway.

It’s a challenge to stay true to the voice created by another actor a generation or two earlier, Cummings admitted.

One of his biggest challenges was to record practically every conceivable child’s name for a talking Winnie the Pooh toy. “Esquire magazine gave it a prize for ‘most interesting name’: My Interactive Pooh,” Cummings told CNS.

At the end of a long day, when Cummings said he must have done “25,000 names where Winnie the Pooh would mention your name,” he came home, answered the phone when it rang, and slipped into his Pooh voice. It’s been the only time he’s slipped into character when he wasn’t supposed to play one, he said.

One of Cumming’s upcoming projects will hit the silver screen later this year. It’s a new Disney movie called “The Princess and the Frog,” in which Cummings plays a frog with a Cajun accent named Ray. The project – which also features the voice talents of Oprah Winfrey, John Goodman and Terrence Howard – will be Disney’s first cartoon movie to feature African-American lead characters.

“It’s a steady gig,” Cummings noted, and if he has any regret, it’s for being too sick to audition 20 years ago when a new cartoon series called “The Simpsons” was auditioning actors who could do multiple voices. “Other than that one, I’m a happy camper. I don’t look back in frustration and anger,” he said. “I hope for the best, expect the worst, and take what comes.”

Cummings’ TV debut came much earlier than his online resume would suggest.

“I was in sixth grade and I remember that Mother Rosemary – who was going to be my speech teacher (in high school) and sort of one of the great shining lights of our scholastic career – she had written and directed a play that they had put on television,” he said. “It was called ‘The Catholic School Story.’ It was in black and white and I didn’t know what to do with myself, I was so happy.”

Another Ursuline grad also performed in the TV special and went on to bigger and better things: Ed O’Neill, who, even after it’s been off the air for a dozen years, is probably still best known for playing put-upon dad Al Bundy in the TV sitcom “Married With Children.”

“I keep meaning whenever I run into him to say I suspect we made our TV debut together. He was a senior in high school,” Cummings said. “Ed played Father O’Neill and I played the cute little kid.”

The following info comes directly from Jim Cummings’ PR team who were kind enough to send us this photo and the following release:

Photo (Left to Right) Scott McIntyre and Jim Cummings

“American Idol” finalist Scott McIntyre and voice legend Jim Cummings attended the 2009 Braille Challenge Awards Banquet Saturday night at the Universal Hilton in Los Angeles, CA. Cummings, who served as the event’s master of ceremonies, voiced a slew of popular cartoon characters for invited guests including Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. McIntyre offered words of inspiration to children and their families who were the top finalists in this year’s Braille Challenge event.

Braille Institute of America is a non-profit organization whose mission is to eliminate barriers to a fulfilling life caused by blindness and severe sight loss.

Photo Credit: Braille Institute of America

The Braille Institute itself also posted this photo and a little more information in an article entitled Winners of the 2009 Braille Challenge Announced at Star-Studded Ceremony:

After a full day of competition on Saturday, June 20, at Braille Institute in Los Angeles, the 15 winners of the 2009 Braille Challenge® were announced at a gala Awards Ceremony at the Hilton Universal Hotel. Winners received their prizes, U.S. Savings bonds from $500 to $5,000 and a PacMate pocket PC for first place, from voiceover artist Jim Cummings, who is best known as the voices of Disney’s Tigger and Winnie the Pooh and Warner Bros.’ Taz the Tasmanian Devil. The evening culminated with an inspirational speech by special guest, “American Idol’s” Scott MacIntyre. As a blind adult who has been lauded as both a classical musician and a scholar, Scott spoke to the students about the importance of perseverance and defining their own dreams.

It sounds like it was an amazing event! If any of the attendees would like to share any comments about the day, please feel free to do so below.

Voice actor Jim Cummings has lent his voice to everyone from Winnie the Pooh to the Tasmanian Devil. His Imdb.com credits look like the ultimate animated character wish list. For The Clone Wars series airing on Cartoon Network, Cummings voices the Weequay pirate chief Hondo Ohnaka in the “Dooku Captured” story arc. StarWars.com chats with Cummings about his work on the new TV series, his preparation for his role, and how he snuck in a little tribute to Yul Brynner.

When you auditioned for the role of Hondo Ohnaka in The Clone Wars, how did you go about creating a voice for a brand new character?

You’re trying to voice it as something familiar but also exotically different. You know that the characters can’t sound like they’re from Omaha. I was trying to do almost a bad Yul Brynner. When you go in for an audition, they give you a basic age range, personality traits and background information of the character. He’s a pirate with a heart of gold. He’ll steal from you but he won’t break your legs while he does it. That kind of thing.

How did you prepare for this role once you got it?

You go in with a good idea of who the character is. He’s more of a lovable rogue than a cruel mercenary. His background also develops as you go along and get to know the guy. Certain things work and others don’t as the show progresses. His story is written as it unfolds in some way. It’s also nice to have the whole cast of voice actors there in the same room, which is great because you’re ping-ponging dialog and playing off each other to elevate the scene. You’re not acting in a vacuum. I’ve done so many other projects where you’re in a room with a reader and you’re acting your lines out (Cummings says in a booming voice): “We have to get out of here! Any minute the building will explode!” And then the reader says (Cummings says in a bored, stilted voice): “Yes…we have to get… out of here.” So it’s not easy to be in the moment in that kind of situation. Reading with the entire cast in the room for The Clone Wars makes the experience much more organic and I love that.

As a voice actor, what are the specific challenges that differ from being an on-camera actor?

It’s great when truly gifted animators appreciate the voice actors, and the voice actors appreciate the animators. I do very little on-camera acting, so within a phrase as a voice actor you have to know how to convey when someone is 95 years old or 19 years old. Are they tired? Are they dying of thirst? All that has to be in your voice. When I was the lead singer of the California Raisins commercials there was a traditional actor there as well and he would do all these body movements without saying anything because he was “acting.” And the only acting the microphone picked up on was silence.

You’ve done many voices for a lot of amazing franchises like Pokemon, The Little Mermaid, Teen Titans, Winnie the Pooh, The Boondocks, and many more. Aside from Hondo Ohnaka, who is your favorite character to voice?

I have a brand new favorite for a Disney animated feature coming out next Christmas called The Princess and the Frog. I’m Ray the singing Cajun firefly. New Orleans is my second hometown. I was a deckhand on a riverboat there when I was 18, so I have that Cajun accent down pat. Ray is a lovesick firefly who’s near-sighted and falls in love with the Evening Star. Of course, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger will always be favorites of mine too.

As a dad, do you often find yourself at the dinner table doing voices to entertain your kids and their friends?

I have four daughters, with the two youngest being four years old and a year and a half. When one of my older daughters was in sixth grade, a classmate brought in their talking Winnie the Pooh doll for show and tell, so the next week my daughter one upped her classmates and brought me to school in for show and tell. Now I have that all over again with my younger daughters with The Princess and the Frog.

You were the narrator in Mark Hamill’s Comic Book: The Movie; how did you get involved in that project?

I ended up doing a narration because Mark wanted the wacky Sterling Holloway scientist voice from the ’50s Superman. I also got to play a jerk on camera as well. He knew I collected comic books and he came to me to be in the movie. You never know who is going to be one of us — in this secret society of voice actors. I was so excited to work with him in the early ’90s on Taz-Mania. He’s a great guy. It was cool to have Mark ask me to do all these voices for him like he was a fan. I was like, “You’re not meeting me, I’m meeting you.”

Why do you think fans will like the new Clone Wars TV show?

The show has a fantastic story and it’s a pleasure for the eyes and ears. It carries forth everything you love about the franchise and about the characters. Little things pop up about the characters in Star Wars saga overall. It’s that multi-layered history that we all love to delve into as fans.

For more information about the Braille Challenge, you can visit it’s page at the Braille Institute here.

Here is the original press release for this event:

Putting Their Braille Skills to the Test: Nation’s Top Blind Students Compete in Unique Academic Competition

The top blind and visually impaired students from across the U.S. and Canada meet in Los Angeles to compete in the 9th Annual Braille Challenge Competition.

LOS ANGELES, CA UNITED STATES

LOS ANGELES, June 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — On Saturday, June 20, the top blind students from across the United States and Canada put their knowledge of the braille code to the test in the only national academic competition for blind students in the country — The National Braille Challenge(R).

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090620/DC35722 )

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090618/BILOGO )

Sponsored by Braille Institute of America(R), the competition serves to encourage blind children of all ages to fine-tune their braille skills, which are essential to their success in the sighted world. The 9th Annual National Braille Challenge(R) took place on Saturday, June 20, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., at Braille Institute’s headquarters, located at 741 North Vermont Avenue, in Los Angeles. The participants, ages 6 to 19, competed in challenging categories that required them to transcribe, type and read braille using a device called a Perkins Brailler. Each category was designed to test their braille skills in several areas–reading comprehension, braille spelling, chart and graph reading, proofreading and braille speed and accuracy–all of which they need to master in order to keep up with their sighted peers.

“We know that employment numbers for blind people are significantly lower than those of sighted people in the same age group,” said Nancy Niebrugge, director of the Braille Challenge(R). “But 90 percent of blind people who are gainfully employed are braille readers, and that’s very telling. It’s essential that blind children learn to read braille at an early age.”

This year’s competition featured a diverse group of high achievers — from athletes to musicians to junior activists. Most were born blind, others lost their sight due to cancer or viral infections, but they all share a tenacity that drives them to succeed in spite of their disability. They are the top 60, chosen from among more than 650 students throughout the country during a round of preliminary testing. Following the competition an awards ceremony will be held at the Universal Hilton Hotel, from 6 to 9 p.m. The first- through third-place winners in each age group will receive a savings bond, ranging in value from $500 for the youngest group to $5,000 for the oldest. Legendary voice-over actor Jim Cummings, who has lent his voice to characters such as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, will present the awards. In addition to these prizes, Freedom Scientific has donated the latest in adaptive equipment for the winners — a pocket PC with a braille display called a PacMate, valued at nearly $4000. KNBC4-TV will also sponsor the Braille Superstar Award for Excellence in Reading Comprehension. Although the stakes are high, The National Braille Challenge(R) serves to bridge the gap between a unique group of students from across the country.

“The great thing about The Braille Challenge(R), is that it gives us the opportunity to celebrate braille literacy in a unique way,” said Niebrugge. Most of the participants are the only blind students in their school. They go through their entire lives being the exception. This competition gives them the opportunity to build camaraderie among kids who have shared similar life experiences.”

If you would like additional information on the National Braille Challenge(R), please contact Courtney Goines, director of Marketing and PR, at (323) 663-1111, Ext. 3176. The Braille Challenge(R) Finals Competition was made possible in part through the generosity of Freedom Scientific, Walter Lantz Foundation, dot.dat.inc, Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg, and Dot and Rick Nelson.

SOURCE Braille Institute of America