Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524863
50 M PS E . O R G you to work in that specifically? KZS: No, I showed up and it just felt right for me, you know? I never thought, "Hey, I want to be a voice director." I never thought that until I was part of the environment, and that started simply by typing Smurfs scripts all summer long. EM: Did you like animation growing up? KZS: Yes. I remember watching The Flintstones as a wee child. Saturday-morning cartoons were always something that I loved. I also remember Scooby-Doo, all those when they first started. I remember Dino, I think Dino was my favorite. And then I ended up working at Hanna-Barbera and knowing Bill and Joe. It was really great working there, it felt like I was part of a huge family. EM: So you progressed in your career, and you got to cast and direct voice actors. What do you look for in actors when you're casting the right actors to play characters that you're reading about on the page? KZS: It's important that they can take direction on a need-to-know basis. We don't have time to go into long explanations, so it's shorthand. Also, it has to come out of the mouth and body of the character. So, you want to find someone who matches the sound of that mouth and body of that character. I remember doing a show, I think it was called Franken-mutt. They were looking for a Mrs. Addams- like character, like on The Addams Family show, and I had this one actress—everything was fine. And then I told her to do a celebrity impersonation, which I don't "Great job, kid." It was really, really fun. From then on, anytime Gordon was out, I'd substitute for him, and eventually, Turner let him go, along with several other department heads, and I started directing some of the shows. A lot of them were from What a Cartoon, which was 52 shorts. We'd do all the auditions for those, one of those was Cow and Chicken and I was asked to direct the series. That one ended up being 152 episodes. Back in the day, all the animators were still on staff at Hanna-Barbera. It was a big, huge family, and it was a lot of work, but it was just a lot of fun. An awful lot of fun. EM: Was there anything about animation that initially inspired