Differences between 'good' and 'bad' voice acting

bad voice acting...

-has a lot of yelling. (Thundercats, GI Joe Sigma Six)
-is overconscious of being articulate and is thus slow and phony (Thundercats, He-Man)
-overcompensates for the "they're just reading off a piece of paper" effect by sing-songing every sentence (most everything)


good voice acting...

-is directed by Andrea Romano (DCAU). Often understated, natural, unafraid to be quiet or low key.

 
I agree with most stuff that's been said already. For me, most of the time if a character has a purposely "goofy" or "silly" voice, it's bad voice-acting. This is because the actor probably focuses more on maintaining the unnatural tone or speech pattern, rather than on showing the right emotions or tone.

There are exceptions to this though-- one of my favourite voices ever is Bert Raccoon from the Raccoons, and he had a really silly voice. The difference was that Len Carlson didn't just give him one generic sound, he sounded pretty different depending on whether he was sad, excited, angry, calm, etc. In general, the voice acting on that show was pretty good, for its time at least.
 
Well, I really don't think their Pokemon dubs were that bad (granted, I've never seen the Japanese version), but otherwise I'd agree. The voice acting on Ninja Turtles was terrific, and Viva Pinata wasn't half bad;'I especially like Dan Green's Hudson Horsetachio.
 
Heh, well, can't blame them for trying. It's not everyday we get some unique voice like Yakko Warner or something like that. Course, if the director is good, they'd probably tell them what's wrong (speculating) and they'll try to improve.
 
Well its nice to hear voices one is not overly familiar with. I'm tired of every other voice in American children's cartoons today being done by Tom Kenny. Think Ed, Edd and Eddy - a cartoon produced in Canda. Ever hear voices like those before?
 
In general, I liked the 4Kids actors from the late 90's, like in the Pokemon and Slayers dubs (Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Lisa Ortiz, Veronica Taylor...) but I really didn't like the direction.
 
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