2016: The Tom Martin Backup Takes

Tom Martin, narrator of the 2015 party, plays a very brief role in “2016: A Christmas Odyssey.” He has just a couple of lines when Dr. Floyd first arrives at the Yuletide Christmas Station. The role was far smaller than his talents and personality, but we gave it to him in an effort to feature all three previous party narrators in the film (J.M. Bock has a brief role and Tyler Esselman plays Dr. Floyd).

But on the night we were set to record his lines it looked like we might not get the chance to record with Pete Winfrey (who was set to play the important role of Melchior) before the final cut of the movie was due. So in an effort to cover our backs and to give Tom more room to play, we asked him to record Melchior’s lines for us to use if Pete couldn’t record.

What Tom did next can be described as nothing short of legendary. Whenever we bring someone in to record for one of these overdubbed movies we brief them on our desire for their performance to hue as closely to the original film as possible. The job is not so much to act as it is to repeat the exact tone and pacing of the original audio, simply inserting any new words we’ve written.

Tom blatantly disregarded this request, even as we repeatedly explained it during the recording session, and delivered the most comical, bizarre vocal performance we’ve ever captured in the making of one of our overdubbed movies. Enjoy all of his takes, set back to back to back, here: