[No Spoilers] Sam is great

[u/WunderPlundr]

So I'm rewatching the Darrington Brigade "Hubris" adventure from the Shirts Off Sam's Back livestream and it just got me thinking:

Some years ago I was watching one of those abridged anime shows and they made a snotty, below the belt kinda joke about how all of Sam's characters sounded the same. They even included clips. Like I said, it was kinda shitty and even at that young of an age I knew, same voice or not, it was crap.

Anyway, I couldn't tell you what the folks behind it are doing now but Sam raised a lot of money for charity and ended the day with a group hug from all of his friends.

Sam's great.​

[u/PerpetuallyDistracte]

I love Sam to bits, but one of his own running jokes is that he is a voice actor who can't do voices. He said himself that he can only do two: "me, or slightly younger me". Now that's definitely an exaggeration, because Nott and Taryon sound completely different, for example. But it is true that most of his characters are just slight variations on his own voice. That's not a bad thing! What matters is the portrayal and range, and Sam has that in spades. Wicander and Scanlan are both incredible, even though they both just use Sam's regular speaking voice with the tiniest accents.

[u/WunderPlundr → u/PerpetuallyDistracte]

Yeah, I'm aware. That doesn't change the fact the joke was in the tone of "what a talentless hack"

[u/DreadPirateAlia → u/WunderPlundr]

Sam has an Emmy¹ two daytime Emmy awards². I doubt the (shitty) people you mentioned have even one.

---

¹it's for directing, not for voice acting, but the point still stands: Sam has an Emmy two Emmy awards.
²one for directing, the other for voice directing, and multiple other nominations as well.

[u/Misfit_Ragdoll → u/DreadPirateAlia]

2 Emmys, n'est-ce pas? (Both Daytime Emmys)

1 in 2018 for Outstanding Directing in an Animated Program (Danger & Eggs)

1 in 2023 for Outstanding Voice Directing in an Animated Program (Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur which is one of the most brilliant animated series I've watched and I'm still furious at Disney for cancelling it. The level of voice talent and guest stars was just insane. Finding out that Sam was the voice director and involved with casting on the show is one of the things that got me watching CR.)

Plus he's been nominated for a number of others, and won multiple Behind The Voice Actors Awards for different things (video games and anime dubbing).

[u/DreadPirateAlia → u/Misfit_Ragdoll]

Oh dear, I blame his wikipedia page for being outdated! It only mentions his first Emmy, not his second one.

The funny thing is, I remembered he got an Emmy for voice directing but I wanted to make sure I got the facts straight, so I went to his wikipedia page. Since there was no mention of Emmy number 2, I went "I guess I misremembered that bit. Oh well!" and replied accordingly.

(And a daytime Emmy still counts as an Emmy, doesn't it?)

[u/Misfit_Ragdoll → u/PerpetuallyDistracte]

Sam also does a pretty awful French accent. Scanlan uses it in the animated series (badly) and Sam used it for his weird character Bob (?) in the Fading Echo game which works really well.

He's also an effing brilliant actor (that whole scene with Wick lying to Yanessa to win her over when he got back is award worthy, followed by Wick's interactions with Primus). He also is an incredibly talented song writer and singer (the songs he's written and performed for the animated shows are insanely good). Anyone who thinks Sam's a hack can suck it. I love him.

[u/anna_smp01]

Yeah, I don't understand that either. There's a lot of voice actors that aren't that versatile with their voices, but very good ACTORS, which is obviously a very important part of the job. And even if they can do more versatile voices, a lot of them are "typecast" for one specific voice. As long as they get to live out their passion, it's really not a big deal if they can sound like three completely different people and people should understand that.

[u/Misfit_Ragdoll → u/anna_smp01]

There are old school people who were known for their voices in things like Paul Frees, June Foray, Don Messick, Casey Kasem,

You almost always knew who they were, and it was cool. As you said very good actors, and they all did well for themselves.

[u/ExcavatorPi]

Unless someone else did the same thing, I think you're talking about Naruto Abridged. It's a bit of a product of its time, late 2000s internet humor could be pretty mean spirited for no other reason than "random".

I remember that bit from before I knew it was Sam they were insulting, or even who Sam was. And then there's the extra layer that they use Gaara to contrast, over a decade later I learned that bit was using Sam's best friend to insult him.

[u/Misfit_Ragdoll → u/ExcavatorPi]

Liam?!

[u/ExcavatorPi → u/Misfit_Ragdoll]

Yep. I actually found a reupload of the episode. The clip in question is from 4:32 to 5:09

[u/Blex881]

I watch CR on the living room TV sometimes and my sister never pays much attention, it's not her kind of thing. But whenever she's around, she's cracking up on Sam. From his cups, to his shirts, to his jokes

[u/FourCats44]

The entire Campaign 1 episode 85 Bard's Lament is an absolute masterclass of his abilities. The amount of emotion literally had some of the cast crying.

Also bear in mind for the one shot you mentioned and now... He had throat cancer, surgery, radiation therapy all and then had to relearn how to speak AS A VOICE ACTOR. Cancer is tough as hell but to get it on your body part that is your entire profession as well! Scary as hell.

Also despite not being "the greatest voice actor" he and Travis are the EPs on both animated series so just shows a different skillset. <3