Who's That Voice on A Fistful of Soundtracks? #4: Hugh Morgan

Hugh Morgan
Who is he?: Not to be confused with Fun Lovin' Criminals frontman Hugh "Huey" Morgan, former WQXR classical music radio DJ and Face the Nation announcer Hugh Morgan has one of the most distinctive voices from the current crop of trailer announcers. His delivery is like a cross between George Takei and an accent-less, not-so-mumbly Sylvester Stallone.
Most memorable voice work: "Scooby Snacks." Kidding!
Back to seriousness. Most memorable voice work: It's a toss-up between Morgan's voiceovers for the Matrix TV spots and his narration during the White Noise trailers and ads, the most eerie of Morgan's many horror trailer voiceovers.
When can you hear him on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel?: The trailers for The Matrix Revolutions, Rosewood, The Last of the Mohicans and Heat. As I said once before, when I was a university freshman, Heat's tantalizing trailers and TV spots got me sold on the teaming of Pacino, De Niro and Michael Mann. But having to buy that Pacino could kick Henry Rollins' ass--not so much.



Previous "Who's That Voice?" bios:
Paul Frees
Percy Rodrigues
Adolph Caesar

Trailers from hell (yeah)

A Tumblrer recommends listening to A Fistful of Soundtracks if you need to get your screenwriting mojo back. His favorite part of my channel is the movie trailer clips I've inserted into the "Assorted Fistful" block:

The coolest thing is that every now and then it plays a random old movie trailer. I just heard one for an old kung-fu flick. It sounds like the ones you’d hear on an old VHS tape before the feature presentation.

There's a reason why I included trailer clips during "Assorted Fistful." Four years ago, the names of the tracks during "Assorted Fistful" weren't being posted on iTunes Radio's ticker for some inexplicable reason, which made the block a difficult listening experience for iTunes listeners who wanted to know the track names. So to help those folks out, I started attaching audio clips of trailers or radio/TV spots to tracks from the movies that were promoted in those trailers or spots because I didn't want to go through the trouble of switching on both my mic and GoldWave and recording a back-announcement for every single track.

First, I experimented with attaching the vintage radio spots for Black Caesar and Foxy Brown to the themes from those movies and liked how the old ads sounded as intros (any old ad or trailer that features the voice of either the late, great Adolph Caesar or the equally late and great Percy Rodrigues is always fun to listen to). Then shortly thereafter, the Batman Begins soundtrack came out, and I was looking for an effective and ominous way to announce "This next track is from the Batman Begins score" without having to say those words. I found it in an audio clip of the Batman Begins TV spot that consisted solely of the bat swarm graphics from the film's opening titles and thought that was an even niftier intro than the blaxploitation radio ads, so from then on, I attached trailer or promo clips to almost every single "Assorted Fistful" track (in another example, each score cue from Battlestar Galactica seasons two, three and four that's in rotation during "Assorted Fistful" opens with the TV spot for the Galactica episode from which the cue was taken from).

Here are two trailers that can be heard during "Assorted Fistful"--the trailers for two of my favorite flicks, the original Assault on Precinct 13...



... and Heat. I like the Hugh Morgan-voiceovered Heat trailer so much that I didn't shorten it for broadcast (unlike other trailers I've shortened because either they don't translate well to radio or they're too lengthy), so the trailer airs in its entirety before the Kronos Quartet's Heat suite begins. The trailer includes a couple of deleted scenes, which are a bit of a treat for Heat fans like myself (footage of De Niro's crew at what appears to be a dinner celebration and additional dialogue between De Niro and Jeremy Piven):



In June 2007, iTunes finally got its act together and started posting my channel's track names in the ticker, so I was thinking of getting rid of the trailer clips, but because listeners have told me they always enjoy hearing those clips, I haven't removed them. (I'm surprised AFOS listeners enjoy the trailer clips because people on the Film Score Monthly boards always complain about the movie dialogue clips that XM's Cinemagic channel intersperses between tracks.)

However, one listener once wanted me to get rid of the Black Caesar radio spot because he was offended by the clip of Fred Williamson referring to himself as a "jungle bunny"--and this listener was clearly a white guy. Listena please. I'm not going to censor or remove something from my channel just because one listener can't stomach it. That's such a stupid request. I hate censorship in any form.

"The Best of Jimmy J. Aquino on Twitter," Part 4

My sampling of what I've been up to on Twitter continues.

Previously on A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Blog: Parts 1, 2 and 3.

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@aots I'm dying to know the reason for Richard Alpert's agelessness. I bet it has to do with that guyliner he's always wearing.
11:18 AM May 13th from web in reply to aots

A FISTFUL OF SOUNDTRACKS: THE BLOG: An old G.I. Joe comic has some eerie parallels to Laura Ling's ordeal: http://tinyurl.com/otblwr
12:42 PM May 15th from web

A FISTFUL OF SOUNDTRACKS: THE BLOG: Rattle and hurm: My alternate Watchmen movie soundtrack: http://tinyurl.com/r49ejv
4:51 PM May 16th from web

Maya Rudolph admits her Michelle Obama sucked. Now if only someone can get the otherwise funny Fred Armisen to admit his Fauxbama sucks too.
5:25 PM May 16th from web

@gcdb Kevin Smith on Superman Returns: "Shouldn't [Lois'] first question to [Supes] be 'When did you rape me?'": http://tinyurl.com/242kjp
11:33 AM May 17th from web in reply to gcdb

@gcdb I would have had Supes come back to find Lex is President of the U.S. instead of rehashing Lex's real estate plot from the '78 film.
11:38 AM May 17th from web in reply to gcdb

Saw Far from Heaven for the 1st time on IFC. Man, I miss Elmer Bernstein. Ghostbusters made me fall in love w/ NYC and Bernstein's scores.
8:26 PM May 17th from web

@ALBaroza I'm finding out the L.A. quake was 4.7. On March 30, I woke up to a 5.6 shaker up here in San Jose. Beat that, Angelenos.
8:56 PM May 17th from web in reply to ALBaroza

@ALBaroza @JavierHernandez 6.7, huh? Well, say hello to... my 6.9. The same 6.9 that made Al Michaels shit his pants on live TV.
9:22 PM May 17th from web in reply to ALBaroza

Why did Michael Mann shoot Public Enemies on digital video? It worked for Collateral, but I'm not sure if DV would work for a period piece.
11:52 AM May 19th from web


Digital video makes the fedora-clad Depp, Bale and Crudup look like they're in a very low-budget gay porno gangster movie (Pubic Enemies?).
11:53 AM May 19th from web

But if there's any director who can make digital video not look shitty, it's definitely Michael Mann.
11:54 AM May 19th from web

I mentioned earlier that Elmer Bernstein was a key reason why I enjoyed Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters II wasn't the same without him...
4:50 PM May 19th from web

... and I'm not sure if Ghostbusters III will measure up without Elmer Bernstein either: http://tinyurl.com/o58nby
4:50 PM May 19th from web

Dushku as a Ghostbuster? I'm so there--though NY is a far different NY from the '80s NY. Will GBIII be less funny in a kinder, gentler NY?
4:52 PM May 19th from web

@gcdb I wonder why you hate Mann's Miami Vice film. I've never seen it because Colin Farrell as Crockett was such a dealbreaker for me.
4:54 PM May 19th from web

@gcdb Farrell as Crockett: one of the worst cases of miscasting ever. Josh Holloway, a.k.a. Sawyer, should have been cast as Crockett.
4:55 PM May 19th from web

R.I.P. Frankenstein. http://bit.ly/x3tSf. (Frankenstein in Death Race 2000 is my favorite Carradine role.)
11:32 AM Jun 4th from web

A FISTFUL OF SOUNDTRACKS: THE BLOG: Jimmy J. Aquino's Lacuna Matata: MIGHTY MOUSE: THE NEW ADVENTURES: http://bit.ly/19n2wg
4:20 PM Jun 5th from web

One Million B.C. + Pertwee-era Doctor Who + Jonny Quest - the xenophobia and the neo-Nazi scriptwriters = '70s version of Land of the Lost
6:54 PM Jun 6th from web

'70s version of Land of the Lost - the drugs Sid and Marty Krofft were on + a hot cave-chick = '90s version of Land of the Lost
6:55 PM Jun 6th from web

Scrubs - everyone except Carla + House's pill addiction + the twist ending of Mad Men's pilot episode = Nurse Jackie's pilot episode
4:10 PM Jun 7th from web

A FISTFUL OF SOUNDTRACKS: THE BLOG: I got a basketball jones, oh baby, ooooo. Favorite b'ball movie scores: http://bit.ly/4UPwR
4:26 AM Jun 8th from web

A FISTFUL OF SOUNDTRACKS: THE BLOG: Jimmy J. Aquino's Lacuna Matata: BLACK TIE AFFAIR starring Bradley Whitford: http://bit.ly/kdqni
4:27 AM Jun 8th from web

Why did they put a cover of "Dancing w/ Myself" in ads for Eddie Murphy's latest kids' movie? That's a song about masturbation, you sillies!
1:12 PM Jun 9th from web

Didn't expect to crack up so much during a rerun of the Married... with Children 2-parter in which Al fights the cancellation of Psycho Dad.
5:30 PM Jun 14th from web

"I Want My Psycho Dad" has great jabs at Washington DC, the DC murder rate and lame '90s sitcoms (Blossom, Full House, Saved by the Bell).
5:30 PM Jun 14th from web

"Uh, close your eyes first, Dad, 'cause there's still a few minutes left of Saved By the Bell: The Prison Years."
5:31 PM Jun 14th from web

To be concluded.

Why so many damn '80s songs about heartbeats?

I heard King Crimson's "Heartbeat" on Radio Nigel recently, and it got me thinking the above question.

Pop songwriters must have really been out of ideas in the '80s, a decade that gave us such gems as Reaganomics, widespread Asian-bashing humor, crappy sitcoms featuring creepy little girl robots and wisecracking babies who share a roof with third-rate stand-up comics who think Bullwinkle impressions are the height of comedy, and of course, overly earnest power ballads about heartbeats.

Manhunter is my favorite movie based on a Thomas Harris novel, but the one thing that dates that movie is Red 7's very '80s closing credits theme, also entitled "Heartbeat." Michael Mann has great musical tastes (I'm looking forward to the Public Enemies soundtrack), but I don't get his love for Red 7's "Heartbeat," which he used in both the original Miami Vice and Manhunter.

Okay, I somewhat get it. Joan Allen listened to a tiger's heartbeat earlier in the movie, hence "Heartbeat." But otherwise, I'm not feelin' the song.

And somebody at the "Heartbeat" video shoot should have told the Red 7 lead singer, "Dude, the mullet's not gonna cover up the fact that you're balding."

Or "Hey, party in the back, dying lawn up top."

Speaking of things dying, Don Johnson's "Heartbeat"--his attempt to launch a singing career during Miami Vice's run--makes me die inside. It was the lamest of 25 videos Jon Stewart, Denis Leary, Janeane Garofalo and Chris Kattan literally destroyed during MTV's legendary and unlikely-to-be-rerun-again 25 Lame special in 1999. In the case of "Heartbeat," Leary and Kattan destroyed the channel's master copy of the Johnson video by stuffing it in a blender. The four hosts' commentary during "Heartbeat" was one of many highlights of 25 Lame. (What's the difference between 25 Lame and the countless VH1 Awesomely Bad Videos specials it spawned? 25 Lame was funny.)

An agony booth recapper wrote that when they watched "Heartbeat," "the comedians were mostly sitting in stunned silence. Was this post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the Vanilla Ice [baseball bat] incident? Or were they just completely stupefied and confounded by what they were watching?" Actually, they weren't mostly silent. I remember they got in a few good lines about the Miami Vice star's overdramatic lip-syncing, the constant footage of exploding stuff and the baffling storyline (Johnson as a war photographer who's into dead terrorist chicks? Huh?).

The one '80s heartbeat song I like isn't a power ballad. It's Taana Gardner's funky and frequently sampled "Heartbeat" from 1981. Otherwise, like I said, '80s pop tunesmiths must have really been out of ideas. The fact that I'm blogging about this means I'm out of ideas too.