EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE VOICE OF TOWER OF TERROR ATTRACTION MARK SILVERMAN #173

Have you ever wondered, how did Disney get Rod Serling to do the announcements for the Twilight Zone Tower Of Terror?
Well they didn't. Rod Serling had already passed away before 1994.
We are excited to announce, we had the great pleasure to interview the man behind the voice. You may not know him by his face, but Mark Silverman is the voice actor behind the Walt Disney World attraction.  He recorded the voices in 1993 for the opening of the attraction, which opened in 1994. Can you believe next year will be 25 years since it opened? He also was the voice of the Disney California Adventure version, before they changed it to Guardians of the Galaxy, "Mission Breakout".
We are pleased to welcome Mark Silverman to join us here on the E Ticket blog.


DCA's Version.



1. Question ETTT: We understand that you loved doing voices when you were younger. Did you ever call your school trying to call out sick by using your parents voice?

   

   Mark Silverman's Personal model of the T.O.T. ride.

Answer MS: "No. I did not do that, but I did impressions of the teachers, That was always funny. Everybody thought that was funny except the teachers. I never really got in trouble for doing that, but to this day I still do the teacher impressions. I had a English teach named Mr. Brandfield. One of my favorite teachers."
 

   2. ETTT: We heard your father knows Richard Sherman, Did you ever hang out at the Walt Disney Studio's with him?

Richard Sherman is on the left,

Answer MS: "Well...I know Richard Sherman, because he was a friend of my father's years ago, and I went to parties and talk to him about all sorts of things and that was great. And then I ended up working on the restoration of  "The Happiest Millionaire" with him. when I re-voiced Fred MacMurray."   

   3. ETTT: If you could do any other voice other than Rod Serling's from the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, who would it be? or what attraction?

Answer MS: "I would love to narrate the People-Mover if it ever came back." ( He gave us a sample of the narration. It Sounded great).

   4. ETTT: I saw on a interview on YouTube you do a great Maxwell Smart (Get Smart). Did you ever do the cartoon voice of Inspector Gadget?

Answer MS: "No but I should of been I think,  but it was Don Adams doing that. But if they ever brought Inspector Gadget back, It would be nice to do that voice. Well there are these things that factor in to getting a voice job in this business, and a lot of the time and talent is not main thing, you know, so many things factor into it. But Don Adams, that was my first impression I did." I threw in a quick question asking Mark, if he had his own recording studio. and jokingly he said "I do... it consists of my closet.. and my microphone... and that's about it."

   5. ETTT : We understand Walt Disney's Pinocchio is your favorite Disney Animated film. What is your favorite scene from that movie?

 Answer MS: "It is.. Walt's masterpiece.   It was the first Disney film to win a Oscar, for both best score and best song.  Probably the whale chase. The whale chase is probably the greatest, most intense scene ever animated by Disney or any studio really. Especially on the big screen its truly just a incredible sequence. I never pass up the opportunity every time there is a screening on the big screen I'm there . And I got to meet a through a few Disney Christmas Parties I became friends with Dick Jones, the voice of Pinocchio. He passed away a few years ago. It was wonderful to finally get to meet him. The two greatest Disney icons I've met since doing Tower of Terror with out a doubt, was Dick Jones and X`tencio because I'm such a Pirates of the Caribbean fanatic. I was there with him, in his house and talked about the ride doing pirate voices. It was such a thrill for me."

   6. ETTT: We have met you at the past Disneyana show and sales, we had brought you smarties candy. What is your favorite candy, for the next time we see you?

 Answer MS: "Sure Snickers are good, Snickers are great!! I like a snickers bar right out of the freezer, not the ice cream version, but the fun size Snickers." I asked if Mark would be at the next Disneyana show? and he asked when is it? the next Disneyana show and sale is Sunday Oct. 7th, and the new location is at the Double Tree Suites.in Anaheim. So maybe we will see him there. 

   7. ETTT: What is your favorite ride or attraction at Disneyland?

 Answer MS: "Pirates of the Caribbean, I have been obsessed with that ride since I was a kid, It's the best thing Disney ever did. It is like two rides in one, you get the caves and waterfalls and then the cities.. It is so well thought out." (we chatted about the changes taking effect on the rides) and Mark says "The original at Disneyland is the greatest ride of all time."

   8. ETTT: When you did the Lego video game, what voices were you? Batman?

Answer MS:  "I did a few characters in the video game. I did Lincoln in the game."

   9. ETTT: Do you have any upcoming movies in the near future you are working on?

Answer MS: "I did narration for a movie, but there is no release date yet, But it looks like a real compelling movie with big Oscar winning stars in it. that is all I can say."

Don't worry Mark we are almost done asking questions, which are great btw.
  10. ETTT: Will we see you ate the next Disneyana show, or next years D23 Expo in 2019 in Anaheim Ca.?

Answer MS: "I hope so, I always love being there for whatever reason but, the voices of the parks panel is always fun to do, I always have a great time doing that. very exciting..." (If you haven't seen it like me) Mark explained "It is a panel of the people who are the voices of the different attractions sit there on stage and talk about their careers and the rides, and do a little sample." I asked Mark what year he did the voice for Tower of Terror in Fl. He said 1994. 

  11. Last question ETTT: Do you have any advice for people who want to become a voice actor like yourself?

Answer MS:  "Yeah, For anybody who wants to be a voice actor, you have to love it! And if you don't love it, you shouldn't try to get into it. There is too many people that do love it then you'll have to compete against and you'll never be good enough if you don't love it. That's really the key to it.  It's really the key to anything if you want to do, you know.. But I've just loved doing voices and impressions since I was a kid and I have always loved taping my voice and hearing myself back,  So that's the key. You really have to love it and watch a lot of old Disney movies and hear those voices and great voice actors and practice, practice ... and keep doing it."



We here at "E" Ticket to Tomorrowland Blog, Want to thank you Mark Silverman for taking the time out of your busy day.
Please stay tuned for more interviews in the future and new attractions opening up at your favorite Disney Parks and Resorts. 

Newer updates added Mad Imaginear on the loose!! Building my own Disneyland Theme park. #56

Hello Friends...
Many have asked me lately, why have we not seen any posts about Disneyland or even the Shanghai Disneyland?
Well, I have been busy working at a new job.

I have not had time to get to the parks in Anaheim, CA.

But since I cannot go at the moment, I've decided to build my own Disneyland.
I have always wanted to work for the theme parks, as a Imaginear. But since I haven't achieved that yet.
I will build my own park with a working railroad.
I will post pictures of the progress.
I have decided to build it in the scales of Z and N.
The layout is 44" X 36" so you can see I don't have much room to work with.

Please be sure to check out the video at the end of the blog.



Started with a drawing

Bought a board, but then found out it was too small, so I added more.

Wired the track to run two trains at the same time. 

built the loop with 2 power packs to run two engines at the same time.

I was not happy with the way Main Street Station came out.

Added hedges and grass.

Added brick walkways



put in some Ballast



Side view of Station.

Bachmann 4-4-0 N scale engine, Turned into the #1 Disneyland Engine

cut out overlay of the Flowered Mickey Mouse

Drew it in so I could glue in the color flowers.

Atlas 4-4-0 Engine  Excursion passenger car and what will be converted into the Lilly Belle car.

Some of the paper models of Main Street USA

A overhead picture, still adding black foam board.

You can make all pictures larger by clicking on them.

Yes those are Subs from the Battleship board game.

IHC N Scale Working Carrousel, Painted to look like the King Arthur one.

a Closer look.

Removed the paper Main St. put in N scale ceramic village buildings. 

Was not happy, so remade Main St. in a smaller size.

 

 

Found a website, that has G scale paper models, of Disneyland I scaled them down.

I will be adding the Sleeping Beauty Castle and Space Mountain.
Just added a mash up of two rides. Disneyland Sub Lagoon and Memo Sub's.
Please remember You can click on the pictures to see them bigger.
This is a scratch built Model layout in N scale of Disneyland.
I hope you have enjoyed the pictures, and I will add more later.
Thanks for looking, and please share this blog. 
So Time to add a behind but newer update. marching forward to the year 2016-2018. I have built the Sleeping Beauty Castle. And The Skyway ride (which was short lived. Thanks to my cat) it ran through the Matterhorn Mountain. From Fantasyland to Tomorrowland over the Sub Lagoon. I made some of the subs ,the original grey and some yellow just like Finding Nemo. I used the submarines from many garage sale Battle ship games.
Here are some of those pictures.

             As the white water drys, It becomes clear and the you can sea the bottom of the lagoon.

                                 Laying in the water on top of the bluish green seafloor of the lagoon.

                                              A front view as the sub enter and exit the waterfalls.                                                                                         

                                                 The underside of the polar ice caps

        

Once the wet water effect dries, you can see the colorful lagoon bottom and the water turns clear.

We are now in the year 2017, You can see pieces of the castle being built. a G scale paper model that I shrank down to a size close to N scale. As we all know Disneyland is all out of scale.

Oops Did you catch a glimpse of the new MARK IIV Monorail? and Space Mountain. Those are both  Metal Earth models, But I painted them.

                           Here is a Metal Earth model I built of the Haunted Mansion Hearse.

        As you can see by the size of my hand, The castle is very small (And might I add hard to build)

      After building all the towers and turrets I had to glue the top half of the castle all together.

                                       Finally after 3 weeks the castle emerges from the paper.

    

                                         Now to build the bridge and add real working lights.

Wow 26 pictures that was a lot of work. I then sprayed the whole model with a clear coat  to preserve it.

Next came inserting the castle into the train board, good thing I had glued down the thin black foam.

I drew out the moat, carved it out, Glued the castle and the bridge in.

             The Moat got that Disneyland Green water bottom, before adding the water effects.

                                  Time to make it shine at night with 4 real working lanterns.

                                           You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

Speaking of bigger,, Time to build the Matterhorn Mountain with Bobsleds and Skyway tunnels.

I used McDonald's straws to build the bobsleds. Then I cut off the people at their waists, so they would be sitting down.

The Matterhorn was slimmed down, due to the limited space i had on the board. It was made out of cardboard, Plaster cast and N scale train track. I decided to paint it to match the modern day finish.

       I glued it in, the same way I did with the castle, and cut out places for water at the bottom. 

                           In the picture above, you can see the Skyway lines before my cat ate it.

As you can see, I have put much details into my N scale Disneyland.

I am now working on the Jungle cruise in Adventureland, and will continue to build the Rivers of America and the Grand Canyon Diorama.

Thanks for looking. I will continue to post new blogs on the progress.

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