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Eunice Beady
JAMES PARKINSON: NBA Jam was the first video game that Tim ever worked on, but back in 1992, he had no idea just how much a few hours in the recording booth would shape his voice acting career.
TIM KITZROW: I was fortunate to have a good background, with my dad being in charge of the audiovisual department at a school, where he was a teacher, and he would bring home movies on the movie projector. And we watched the Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin. So all the great classic comedy, physical comedy I loved. And then when Monty Python came along, I was just knocked over, it was you know, they were the Beatles of comedy, and just could not get enough of those guys. And that was really the start of it. Then Second City - SCTV, the Canadian TV show was another huge influence; John Jandy Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, all those great people. So I was really hardcore into that style of comedy and improv.
TIM KITZROW: I was one of seven children and all was a big ham and entertainer in the family. And the goal was to get someone to spit milk through their nose at dinner. Same thing in school, just loved horsing around, got involved with theater very early. And decided I would - with watching SCTV, that I would get my own video camera which at the time was a Betamax for $1700 and start making my own comedy videos, and got all kinds of outfits from thrift stores and played multiple characters, lots of physical comedy with my brother. So it was always going, on-going, along with playing drums in both high school, college after college, always had a band going so yeah, just kind of a natural progression of loving creativity on any level,
TIM KITZROW: My roommate was Stan Tucci. Ving Rhames was in there. So a lot of big names came out of that place, but it was more classically focused training. And I had always enjoyed comedy so much. So I wanted to kind of balance my training and came to Chicago but loved sports, loved improv, had my own improv group, made comedy videos back in the 80s. And made audio recordings, trying to shop them around to radio stations, comedy audio recordings, so I had been kind of grooming myself, without realising it, for the perfect job, which would include acting, voice, writing, etc.
JAMES PARKINSON: Full time gigs were hard to come by though, so like many working actors, Tim was also a waiter in restaurants. But he still found ways to be creative in a completely different industry.
TIM KITZROW: The fun thing is, I wasn't one of those bitter waiters because I actually enjoyed the industry and enjoyed the camaraderie. It's kind of like acting, kind of like the game world, it's an interesting group of creative people who usually wind up in restaurants. I was also, for some reason, very interested in design, because I was part of a lot of restaurants that were actually built from the ground up. And with my theatre background, painting sets, collecting furniture from thrift stores, I had this sense that I could always make a great space. So I started to offer design services and painting services. And that led to me doing a total interior design for a 10,000 foot nightclub, oddly enough, and that went to doing a restaurant that ended up being a Michelin star restaurant. Two or three more restaurants. So I started to do interior design and loved the creativity of putting together a room, hiring artisans, fashioning things out of found items and antique and salvage stores. So, yeah, that was the other balance for my career.
TIM KITZROW: I was pursuing acting in Chicago, New York and LA, various different places in the late 70s, early 80s, and wound up here in Chicago to attend Second City, to go to their training center. And in the meantime, I was auditioning for acting roles, commercial roles, etc, and had some friends that would get together on the weekend and I played drums for them and a couple of guys in the band worked at Midway Bally/Williams, were responsible for putting sound in the games, audio for pinball games. So I was hired to do Mr. Howell from Gilligan's Island, and did that and went on to do about 15 other pinball games, so I was kind of their voice at their studio.
TIM KITZROW: I mean, the whole studio, as I said was just kind of an afterthought. They had two buildings, one where the video game offices were for Mark Turmell and those guys. And their only recording studio at that time, because up to that point, they were just doing pinball games, was in the back of a pinball factory. So it was like the size of a football field. There'd be hundreds of games and workers and noise and sound. Then you go to this back darkly, you know, scummy looking hallway and a couple little rooms with no windows and drop ceilings. It was kind of a depressing little place, but it was cosy. It was like our little world, it was just the sound guys. And there was this thing that kind of looks like a big meat locker, you know, not much bigger than a household, giant refrigerator, and a little window for me to see Jon. But you know what, that's so cool. Like, that was the early days and it was a very comforting feeling, like, when I got in that booth, it was my booth. And, you know, I've been to sessions in state of the art, million dollar studios since, and gigantic rooms and ten people out behind the window. And you know, anything's fine, you know, I've seen it all. But that is actually, like, my rosebud of the recording industry. Like, just my guy, Jon and me, a meat locker. And I had a poster of Scottie Pippen, I remember for one of the versions, probably for Showtime, dunking over Karl Malone. So it was just like me, I would have a, you know, piece of inspiration there to look at, you know, I would always try to channel the game, I would always be seeing the game in my head, as I called it. Yeah, it was great memories. So although it was kind of dingy and dark and small, and everything else, it was home. And you know, it's where some of the best best work was ever done.
JAMES PARKINSON: When Tim entered the video game industry, he was just enjoying the ride and the extra cash on the side. But when it became clear that NBA Jam was a billion dollar hit, he started thinking differently about his approach to the work.
TIM KITZROW: The fun thing is, that back then it was just literally all fun and games and as my career went on, it became like this kind of test of wills, as far as you know, a lot of business things, money things, because people in the voiceover industry have never, you know, been paid and protected the same way actors, Screen Actors Guild union actors are. I wasn't a member of the Union back then. So that was a kind of tough part to reconcile that there was a lot of business stuff, as I kind of grew up in the business to learn that, you know, I've got to fight to make a living here, because suddenly it turned into my living.
JAMES PARKINSON: By 2009, Midway had filed for bankruptcy protection and eventually sold off its assets to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. With Acclaim also out of business since 2004, the rights for NBA Jam ended up in the hands of EA Sports. And with a remake on the cards, Tim soon found himself back behind the microphone. A member of the EA team had found Tim on Facebook, and they wanted the original voice of NBA Jam for their game.
JAMES PARKINSON: But next thing he knew, Tim was on a plane to Vancouver, getting picked from the airport in a limo, and being greeted by employees at EA Sports HQ. Coming from working double shifts at a restaurant, 5 days a week, Tim was only too happy to meet them.
TIM KITZROW: You know, my brand of Mr. Boomshakalaka is to entertain NBA fans, and it's worked. So hopefully, that for me is that step that takes me to the next level, because it's brought a lot of attention. You know, people love seeing that because they're just so used to seeing the same kind of highlights. So what can I do to give you something you haven't seen before?
TIM KITZROW: You know, people around the world still care, still have a sweet spot for NBA Jam, and my contribution for it is appreciated by a lot of people, and that's really good stuff. You know, after all these years, as I said, money is always one thing, but it's the fact that people actually genuinely enjoy what I did and I have some good memories. So I consider myself one of the luckiest people on Earth, you know, to be in the right place at the right time, the right city. And it turned out that all my different talents and passions kind of came together. So a very, very lucky moment in my life.
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