Chris Edgerly: From Potamus to Koth
Chris Edgerly: From Potamus to Koth
Words: Bonnie Burton
Voice actor and comedian Chris Edgerly may be making his Star Wars debut as the Jedi Master Eeth Koth for The Clone Wars episode "Grievous Intrigue", but he's also known as the annoying co-worker Peter Potamus on Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.
Fans might also recognize his voice from numerous roles on such shows as The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, Drawn Together, Celebrity Deathmatch and the video games Kingdom Hearts II, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Ninja Blade, Valkyria Chronicles and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Here's an excerpt of my interview with Chris Edgerly for Starwars.com about voicing Jedi Master Eeth Koth and what kind of memo Peter Potamus would send Anakin Skywalker.
I'd say you're pretty high profile, especially considering the huge fan base for your character Peter Potamus on Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. In fact, you'd probably get endless tweets of his catchphrase "Did you get that thing that I send ya?"
No one knows that's me! I have two comments on my IMDB page and they're both about Potamus or about that thing he sent. The Potamus voice is the one I always enjoyed doing the most. I have this running joke with the assistants at our agency, when I'm done recording and they're engineering in the booth, I'll slip back into his voice and say something.
The guys who created the show -- Michael Ouweleen and Erik Richter -- said that the two actors who could get into character immediately were Stephen Colbert -- who could do the voice of Phil Ken Sebben simply by starting out with "Ha! Ha! Ha!" -- and then me. I have no idea why I don't have to get warmed up.
So if there's ever a Clone Wars - Harvey Birdman crossover, would Potamus make a good Jedi, trooper, Sith or droid?
Wow. They would all be such interesting choices. He'd make a pretty cool droid.
Aside from Palpatine's, you don't see a lot of offices in The Clone Wars. There's no copier machine moment, or office droids getting lattes for senior staff.
This would be a good cameo then. You could have a Jedi Council meeting, and have the crafts service table in the background. Then Potamus waddles over and grabs some bagels off the table. He'd look around and then say, "Hey Anakin, did ya get that thing I sent ya? About the midi-chlorians? All right, catch ya later."
Of course, Harvey Birdman himself would make a great addition to the Jedi Council. But Judge Mentok the Mind-Taker could give Darth Vader some trouble too.
Absolutely! Judge Hiram Mightor would be on the Jedi Council. I think Avenger is probably a droid. Birdgirl would be a great Princess Leia.
And where would Yakky Doodle go?
Yakky needs to be in the Jabba the Hutt role. You just have this little duck surrounded by people and he's motioning to Han Solo frozen on the wall.
So who gets to be Darth Vader?
Oh, it has to be X the Eliminator, because even in the end he ends up being good.
Some of The Clone Wars voice actors also played characters on Harvey Birdman. Phil LaMarr was the Black Vulcan, Dee Bradley Baker was Jonny Quest and Lizard Man, even original trilogy actor Mark Hamill was Ricochet Rabbit. Maybe one day this crossover could actually happen?
Harvey Birdman was on Cartoon Network just like The Clone Wars; call them up!
Read the full interview here:
Chris Edgerly: From Potamus to Koth
(via Starwars.com)