Short Stuff: The Voice of God

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. This episode's sponsored by Ridwell. Ever tossed something into your recycling bin and just hoped it would get recycled? That's wish cycling. And most of the time, those items don't actually get recycled. Ridwell makes it simple to get it right. Ridwell helps you recycle the things your curbside bin doesn't take, like plastic bags, snack wrappers, pill bottles, and bottle caps. Getting started is easy. Just order a starter kit, fill the bags, send them back for free, and Ridwell takes care of the rest. Start today at ridwell.com.

0:38Chuck Bryant:Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's sitting in for Dave. So this is Short Stuff. Hit it, Chuck.

0:45Josh Clark:In a world where two doofuses podcast. That's my imitation, everybody, of Don LaFontaine. And this is a bit of tribute to the man that was known as the voice of God, Don LaFontaine, the movie trailer guy.

1:03Chuck Bryant:That's right. That's exactly what a lot of people call him, the movie trailer guy, because he has to credit, Chuck, this eye-popping number. I'm going to take this one, okay? Yeah, let's hear it. Over the course of his career, he recorded more than 5 ,000 film trailers. Oh, man. Previews, 5 ,000 previews, 750 ,000 television spots, like commercials and promos and all that stuff.

1:32Josh Clark:I bet Don LaFontaine, when he passed away in... 2008, I think. 2008 was a very, very rich man. I would think so. I would think so. And good for him. Sure.

1:50Chuck Bryant:I mean, he did it with his own hard work. I mean, by the end of his life, he was working basically till the end. And by the end of his life, he had built out a home office and was averaging seven voiceovers a day, which if you don't do voiceovers, you're probably like, that doesn't seem like that much. I'd knock that out in like 15 minutes. No, you wouldn't, because it's actually surprisingly difficult. And if you're actually working with the professional company, they will make you do that over and over and over again. And it is quite, it's quite awful. I don't recommend it for anybody who doesn't love voiceover.

2:27Josh Clark:Yeah, we read our audio book and it was not fun. And this is two guys who talk for a living into a microphone. And it was pretty painstaking.

2:36Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and the director was even great.

2:38Josh Clark:Yeah, no, everyone did a great job. Everyone was awesome. It had nothing to do with that. It was just very monotonous. It just wasn't for us, you know. We're very off the cuff, obviously, the way we do our show. and did not transfer over to, like, exact readings of things.

2:54Chuck Bryant:Yeah, for sure. Like, exact. It has to be exact or you'll get yelled at.

2:59Josh Clark:All right. So Don LaFontaine was born in Duluth, Minnesota. He served in the military in the—well, he was in the Army because he was in the United States Army Band and Chorus and worked as a recording engineer there. And once he got out, he continued engineering at the National Recording Studios in New York City. And in 1962, he got hooked up with a producer, a radio producer named Floyd Peterson. And Peterson just happened to be working with Stanley, the great Stanley Kubrick on Dr. Strangelove and was creating these kind of radio promos. And it was like really successful. So he and LaFontaine hooked up and said, all right, we should like be like legit partners from now on.

3:43Chuck Bryant:Yeah, they did legitimize it. They formed Floyd L. Peterson, Inc. And I think this is the impression I have is that initially Don LaFontaine just kept doing his engineering thing. Yeah, yeah, I think so. It wasn't until 1965, a few years into their partnership, that I guess there was some scheduling mix up. And a voiceover actor didn't show up on time or for their slot. slot. So Don LaFontaine had to step in and record some radio spots for the gunfighters of Casa Grande for MGM. And MGM said, brother, we are just going to buy this whole thing outright. This proof of concept is done. You invented the plane with the seatback trays and everything right out of the gate.

4:33Josh Clark:Yeah. They're like, hey, you with the perfect voice, give this a shot. Exactly. This was at a time when film production and promotion were all kind of done in-house. Like you made the movie and then you didn't go to a different company to cut the trailer or whatever. They did it all themselves.

4:49Chuck Bryant:Right.

4:50Josh Clark:And they were like, hey, I think we can disrupt this tradition. And I don't know why that was funny. Why was that funny?

5:01Chuck Bryant:Disruptors. There's disruption. It's just such like a 2013 horrible Silicon Valley horror show.

5:08Josh Clark:Yeah, I wasn't thinking of it in the terms of disruptors, but they literally disrupted. But yeah, you're right.

5:14Chuck Bryant:Yeah, but no, no, I mean, I wasn't laughing at you, Chuck. No, no, I know.

5:17Josh Clark:You're laughing at people that use the word disruptors with a straight face.

5:21Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and the disruptors themselves.

5:22Josh Clark:Yeah, yeah, sure. All right. So they were disruptors, straight faced. And they said they kind of developed the modern movie trailer as we know it together. It was, you know, it was it was a very creative time for them. And they were the first to create these like catchphrases that are now very ubiquitous across the trailer industry. And, you know, this example, I think this came from the New York Times obituary or maybe SAG-AFTRA or Don LaFontaine.com. But they listed some of these sort of catchphrases that are now just all over the place, like a one man army or nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no way out.

6:04Josh Clark:But, of course, in a world was was the money slogan. And LaFontaine just kind of crystallized it when he was like, it's just a very rapid way to set the scene when you can say in a world where where violence rules like that, that kind of says it all. and just a handful of words about what kind of movie you're about to see.

6:24Chuck Bryant:Yeah, because if a 90-minute movie is ideal to have like a nice, steady, crisp clip, a trailer has to be even crisper. And even at a steadier clip, you have to be able to, yeah, surmise a bunch of stuff from just a few words. And that was a great innovation. I saw basically everywhere that he's the one that came up with that. He's certainly credited with it. I get the impression no Hollywood historian has actually gone to the trouble of identifying that, yes, he definitely was the one who pioneered it. Everybody's like, yeah, it was Don LaFontaine.

6:59Josh Clark:Yeah. All right. Nice caveat. And we'll be back right after this with more on the voice of God.

7:20This episode sponsored by Ridwell. Ever toss something into your recycling bin and just hoped it would get recycled? That's wish cycling. And most of the time, those items don't actually get recycled. Ridwell makes it simple to get it right. Ridwell helps you recycle the things your curbside bin doesn't take, like plastic bags, snack wrappers, pill bottles, and bottle caps. Getting started is easy. Just order a starter kit, fill the bags, send them back for free, and Ridwell takes care of the rest. Start today at Ridwell.com.

8:01Josh Clark:All right, so In a World is the kind of thing that has been parodied many, many times over the years. Like once it became so ubiquitous, every comedian latched onto it. They were in Geico commercials. the Simpsons movie, like, used Don LaFontaine. And at the end, like, Homer was talking back to Don LaFontaine as the voice of God. And that was kind of fun. So obviously, that's the kind of thing that's going to be parodied. But as far as his real career goes, we can go back to 1976, when he started his own production company, Don LaFontaine Associates. And his first assignment out of the gate was Godfather Part II.

8:39Josh Clark:And two years later, Paramount Pictures said, hey, why don't you just come work for us and run our trailer department? Yeah.

8:48Chuck Bryant:And he said, ka-ching, I'll be right there. Yes. I always loved your mountain logo.

8:53Josh Clark:Yeah, me too.

8:55Chuck Bryant:That was such a great thing at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark where it dissolves from the Paramount logo into the actual mountain.

9:03Josh Clark:I knew you were going to say that. I just saw Disclosure Day, the new Spielberg, and I highly recommend it.

9:07Chuck Bryant:Okay, good. I saw back rooms in the theater twice within three days. Oh, wow. I really liked it a lot.

9:14Josh Clark:Yeah. All right. Did you see it twice just because you wanted to or you're like, oh, I got to take you and me back and see this?

9:20Chuck Bryant:Both of those.

9:20Josh Clark:Okay, cool.

9:21Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

9:22Josh Clark:That's fine.

9:22Chuck Bryant:Yeah. So, but yes, I recommend that as well. I'll go see Disclosure Day. Yeah. You're the second group of people who recommended it.

9:30Josh Clark:I'm a group.

9:32Chuck Bryant:You are.