Man echoes voices of past to instill life in characters
by Raphael Elizalde, reporter/illustrator

     Bill Farmer sounds as friendly on the phone as he has always appeared on television promoting his famous voice overs in such movies as 1995’s A Goofy Movie.

     Farmer, who is becoming as recognized as the famous Mel Blanc, the man of a thousand voices, has been the official voice of the legendary Disney character for nearly 14 years.

     “Pinto Colvig was the original voice of Goofy in 1932’s Mickey’s Revue,” Farmer explained in a phone interview with The Collegian. “He was a professional circus clown.”

     Colvig made such an impression on Walt Disney that Goofy began to appear in other cartoons.

     In the ’40s and ’50s, George Johnson and Bob Jackman supplied Goofy’s voice, so Disney did not need someone new until the 1980s.

     At that time, Farmer had been living in Dallas for eight years doing stand-up comedy incorporating funny character voices into his act.

     He laughed as he remembered a gig at Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth in 1986.

     “Jerry Lee Lewis was performing live next door and the music came right through while I was on stage doing my act. That whole night was funny,” he said.

     He moved to California and in January 1987 beat out several hundred others who auditioned to become the official voice of Goofy.

     Since then, his voice-over credits have included Space Jam (Sylvester the Cat, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam), Casper: A Spirited Beginning (Stinky), Murphy Brown (President Bush) as well as many other films, TV shows and video games.

     He can be seen in Robocop, the family film Pumpkin Man, directed by his wife Jennifer Wynne Farmer, and the independent film Bob’s Video.

     Farmer is currently recording voice-overs for Disney Studios’ House of Mouse, a new Mickey Mouse and the gang cartoon set to premiere in January.

     “I like going to work and having fun with my friends. It’s like playing,” Farmer said.

     Farmer proves the television commercial is right: “When you love what you do … you’re alive!”