'Animaniacs', 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' and 'A Goofy Movie' all have one thing in common you may not know

From Yakko in Animaniacs, Pinky from Pinky and The Brain, Carl Wheezer in the Jimmy Neutron series, P.J. Pete in A Goofy Movie, and both Raphael and Donatello in the 1987 and 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shows, voice actor Rob Paulsen brought some of our favourite animated characters to life and is now taking us behind the curtain of his impressive career.

The actor maintains that voicing Raphael in the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series changed his career trajectory after it was such a success, but Animaniacs in the 1990s, produced by Steven Spielberg, “changed [his] life.”

“It was Steven Spielberg, I got to sing in almost every half hour,...and it ended up being as good as we thought it was going to be,” Paulsen told Yahoo Canada. “World class writers, world class animators,...once you've got Mr. Spielberg running the show, you have to work to screw it up.”

Paulsen — who is happy to transform his voice into any of his iconic characters to put a smile on your face — continues to hear from fans just how important these characters have been to help them heal from their real-life traumas. The actor maintains that it’s a “privilege” to be in the “happy business.”

“Wherever I go, these characters are so ubiquitous that people will come up to me, once they find out who I am,..and just say, ‘oh my God, I’ve got to tell you what Ninja Turtles meant to me, or now what it means to me and my kids,” Paulsen said. “Every now and then I'll run into somebody to whom these characters mean far more than just an action figure.”

'Those characters did have a lot to do with saving my life'

In 2016, Paulsen experienced that healing first-hand after being diagnosed with throat cancer. His journey to not only recover but get back to work, led him to write the book Voice Lessons: How a Couple of Ninja Turtles, Pinky, and an Animaniac Saved My Life.

“I thought the last thing the world needs is another celebrity memoir from a non-celebrity,...so once I was diagnosed with cancer, and throat cancer no less, I thought, well now I have an interesting story, and maybe even an inspirational one,” he said. “It's very tough to get your mouth and your throat zapped with radiation, chemo for a few months, it beats the daylights out of you, but I'm fine, and now I think I have a good story.”

“Those characters did have a lot to do with saving my life… Those characters are very powerful and helped me in my pretty significant physical struggle with the side effects of radiation. So to know that I had that power of joy inside of me, that I could call on at any moment to make a joke at my own expense, was to me, kind of integral in my recovery.”

Bringing back 'Animaniacs' and 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'

Something that is particularly impressive about Paulsen’s career is not only the legacy of his work, but the longevity of his career, even coming back now and working with Steven Spielberg on new Animaniacs episodes on Hulu.

“It was a big deal and to be able to revisit it 25 years later, with the same cast and have it be, again, pretty much an unqualified success, is a rare thing,” he said.

“If you look at shows, unless they're The Simpsons or Family Guy or something that's lasted a really long time, it's pretty unusual for you to come up with a show that was popular when you were a kid that comes back now that you're an adult, with the original cast, with the king of Hollywood, and it is not a disappointment.”

But that’s not even the first time Paulsen returned to a new version of series, coming back to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as Donatello in 2012.

“That's another one where - I've been involved in two franchises now, at different times, with a 20, 25 year gap and the success of both shows has been pretty remarkable,” he said. “That version in which I was Donatello,...it was excellent.”

“The cool thing about Turtles is the extent to which it’s inspired so many young artists. There are so many artists when I go to these Comic Cons and events all over the world who will bring me their artwork inspired by ninja turtles, and sometimes they're 10 or 11 years old.”

Dynamic duo Pinky and The Brain

For Pinky and The Brain, the dynamic duet between the characters translates to real life, with Paulsen and Canadian Maurice LaMarche, who voices The Brain, still close friends today, teaming up for live (or live streamed) performances and autograph signing sessions.

“We became fast friends many, many years ago, we share exactly the same sensibilities with respect to our humour,” Paulsen said.

They also had an interesting connection to Toronto. Paulsen’s aunt used to work at a Shoppers Drug Mart at the corner of Eglinton in Victoria Park, and LaMarche used to pick up his prescriptions from that very drugstore.

“I speak with him not every day but probably three or four times a week, I talk to him more than I do my own brother for God's sake, and I I love my own brother so Maurice is right up there,” Paulsen said.

“I know a lot of really talented people… and Maurice is one of those people who every time he opens his mouth, I've known him for so long, I’ve worked with him I don't know 300 times, and every time I do it's just, where did that come from. He's the endless well of creativity, and one of the nicest humans you could ever meet.”

Cult favourite 'A Goofy Movie'

With so many iconic roles, there’s one in particular that means a lot to a specific group of people, a Disney movie that over the years has seen a massive cult following, P.J. Pete in A Goofy Movie.

“I had no idea how many people love that movie, that it really has gotten a little cult following,” he said, reminiscing about a Disney D23 Expo event he participated in for the film. “It is a charming movie, it really is.”

“The performances are fantastic. Billy Farmer, who's Goofy, has been doing it for over 30 years and he and Jason Marsden, who played Max in the movie, had some really, really excellent moments. It's just a good movie. It's not just because it's a cartoon movie that it’s entertaining, it's a really great picture.”

When it comes to Paulsen’s continued work with these iconic animated characters, moving into new ventures as well, the actor strives to maintain the integrity of every character.

“I'm pretty careful not to put them untoward circumstances,” he explained. “The last thing I want to do, especially as good as these characters have been to me, is to compromise them in any way, which might be offensive to the fan base.”

“I can laugh at a blue joke with the best of them, but that's not my job. My job here is to be entertaining, maybe even a little inspirational to the extent that some of these people find these characters to be such… My fan base, after all these years now, likes to hear what Rob does that’s going to make them laugh, and I accept that and I embrace it, and I use it in deciding which work I'm going to be doing.”