I brought this up before on another forum, but I’d to elaborate more.
No matter what role he played, Lorenzo Music just somehow made it his own–even though it always sounded exactly the same; it was his role, & he was meant to do it.
When Music’s Venkman was a jack@$$ to someone, you still sympathized with him because he had a certain humaneness in him; you may not have agreed with his decision, but understood where he was coming from because he put so much depth into the role.
I know people say that Coulier was brought on to sound like Bill Murray, but the big problem with that is even Murray had that humility to the role which made his Venkman really likable.
The only thing Dave Coulier brought to the role was sorta kinda sounding like Bill Murray. He didn’t have the heart in it, sounded like a parody of a California surfer, & when his Venkman was being a jack@$$ it was just that; you couldn’t even sympathize with it.
Dave Coulier almost sounded like a kid-ified version of Venkman. He was just…terrible…as Venkman.
I think even the Nostalgia Critic said it best: “man of 1,000 voices..and absolutely none of them accurate!”
I remember while watching the interviews on the RGB DVD set, Kath Soucie mentioned that while waiting for his cues, Dave Coulier would be in the back of the room entertaining himself with his cheezy little voices…
to which I must then comment “well, ya might as well entertain someone with 'em, even if it’s only yourself!”
that’s the thing though: Coulier wasn’t even a good Bill Murray; he kinda sorta had the sound, but not the heart to it; sounded sorta like a parody of a California surfer more than anything.
That’s the way I’ve always seen it. I mean, I like Coulier and it seemed like he tried, but Music had Venkman’s personality down, while Coulier kinda, sorta sounded like Bill Murray. The most irritated thing was him calling Slimer “Spud” all the time, along with the way he treated.
Sorry, No joke. Please remember I’m 40 so I didn’t have time to see a lot of the cartoon. Maybe 20 episodes and that’s guessing high. I do want to buy the super box set so I can watch them all with my kids’. When did uncle Jessie take over the voice on show? And how in gods name did he get in alanis morrsettes pants???
This reminds me of the fact that Frank Welker is now the current voice of Garfield for the new series. Someone once said that he sounds like a depressed Ray or Fred Jones. That being said, it’s pretty tough that they’d ever find ANYONE as good as Lorenzo Music in any capacity. If they ever brought back Gummi Bears, they’d have to drop Tug Gummi because it just wouldn’t be the same. Music was a great character actor, meaning he didn’t have to be a carbon copy, he could give personality and voice to characters that otherwise wouldn’t have any. Mel Blanc was like this too, and to a certain degree so is Billy West.
Coulier was doing a job and was paid for it. While it wasn’t good, I can only imagine that if he hadn’t, the series would have been cancelled after '88 and that would have been it.
I will never understand Bill Murray; he wants the character to sound like him, but it took him forever to sign off on an action figure of himself…and then has issues with doing a Ghostbusters sequel.
so…does he like the franchise, does he not..what’s goin’ on with that, exactly?
For the sequel stuff, Bill Murray just isn’t too interested in sequels. GB2 was a comeback film of sorts since he hadn’t acted in several years, and even then he’s always said he wasn’t keen on the project since.
I think Bill does have a certain reverance for the original film, of that much is certain, and for the franchise. Maybe not as much as Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis or Ernie Hudson, but he does have a soft spot for the film since it represents an era in his career where he was probably the funniest man in America.
Other people might know, but I’m willing to believe that it was a combination of timing, the money being good, and actually approving a sculpt he liked. I don’t know the full details of why NECA was unable to get the likenesses, but because of the fact that the franchise is split into fourths, between Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, and Ivan Reitman, if all four aren’t on-board nothing’s gonna happen and I suppose Murray wasn’t thrilled at the time with how concept art for his sculpt was looking.
I did hear he’s currently going thru divorce proceedings, and might’ve been a bit more willing to take the money in that case since he’s probably forking over tons in alimony and whatnot.
