I am bringing you the first Wilhelm Spotlight of 2024 and I am honored to share with you audio from my panel with the legendary Peter Cullen, voice of Optimus Prime for the past 40 years. It was a surreal experience being able to share the stage with Peter and I hope you enjoy this audio from our panel at FanExpo Philadelphia last year. Special thanks for Kyle Williamson from Fandom Spotlight for capturing audio of the panel.
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[00:00:00] Welcome everybody to another episode of Wilhelm.
[00:00:23] I of course am because of this one. This is a panel that I did from fan expo Philadelphia last to you guys in the form of a Wilhelm spotlight. Before I bring you the conversation, however, I do want to mention real quick that the Patreon is coming, should be launching within the next week or two officially. And again, as I've
[00:03:02] mentioned before on previous episodes, this is not to reach out if you have anything you want to say to me, whether it's you want to be a guest, you have ideas for the podcast, or you just want to leave some feedback for anything. Easiest ways to do that, go to willhelmpodcast.com. There are links there for everything, or you
[00:04:24] can email me directly feedback at willhelmpodcast.com. There I came around that corner, I only saw three people. And I said,
[00:05:40] Where'd everybody go?
[00:05:43] Anyway, thanks for being here. Transformers Revenge of the Fallen was filmed here in Philadelphia. There were a number of scenes that were filmed here in Philadelphia. And in that honor, I get to say that I'm actually in a movie with you. Because I am in two scenes of that film, so I actually get to say that you can't see me.
[00:07:00] It's all right.
[00:07:01] I'm like very, very background.
[00:07:04] But I'm there.
[00:07:05] I'm in the movie. And I was going through a period of my life, wasn't a very pleasant one, and my brother Larry a hero be a real hero. Don't go yelling and pretending you stuff and he's I said kids are gonna love this you know. So I read this script and it was I could have just been these could have been the words. The words were my name is Optimus
[00:11:00] Prime from the planet, I know for me and maybe for some others, it really was the first instance of that for some young people. And it I mean, who did I piss off? What the hell? You know, I mean, again, it had been 20 years, but thankfully I know I, I'm sure other people are agreeing that would agree with me. You got the job. Yeah, I did. And you came back and you got to portray that character. Yeah, I felt really nervous about it too. I didn't have that old confidence I used to have
[00:15:00] when I was doing the series with the guys, you know.
[00:15:02] We had a great time.
[00:15:04] It was always fun, you know.
[00:15:05] We always had something going on in the 80s when you guys were recording the series as opposed to you know, what they do now where you are usually alone in a studio. Back then in the 80s were there many of you in the booth at the same time? Yeah, there'd be probably about 12 of us. All recording together. We'd all be in a line and then we'd be looking straight towards the glass
[00:16:23] barrier between us where the producer,
[00:16:26] directors and other people
[00:17:22] You're going to like this movie, folks. I'm excited.
[00:17:23] I know you can't talk too much about it
[00:17:25] because the movie hasn't released yet.
[00:17:27] But I'm actually excited.
[00:17:28] I'm getting to go to a screening of it on Monday.
[00:17:31] So I'm going to be seeing it within the next two days.
[00:17:33] And I'm really excited about that.
[00:17:35] This Monday?
[00:17:36] This coming Monday, I'm going to a screen.
[00:17:38] That's the premiere.
[00:17:38] I mean, that's the, oh, you are?
[00:17:40] Yeah.
[00:17:41] I get to see it about a little less than a week early.
[00:17:44] So I'm going to it too.
[00:17:46] But it's in New York.
[00:17:47] Oh, now mine's written in front of me. I don't have much control over what to say. And sometimes I have to say things that I don't want to say. And I've only had that a couple of times, and I lost.
[00:19:01] There was one line in the movie where I said,
[00:19:03] I'll kill them all.
[00:19:06] That's not Optimus Prime. Commander Hawkins. So how did that come about and do you remember the narration? Could you give us a little? How did the, how did the, how did the job of narrating for Voltron come about? And do you remember what the narration was? I don't know. I don't know. I said, I don't know.
[00:20:20] I'm all I forget.
[00:20:23] Geez. For two shows. Yeah, for a few episodes. Yeah, a couple episodes. Well, I learned years and years later that I was brought back because mothers in America and Canada were so upset by the activities of their children hiding under the bed,
[00:21:45] hiding in closets.
[00:21:46] They wouldn't come out.
[00:21:47] They would be so afraid. and they started talking about me, and I wasn't paying particular attention to the internet because I didn't have a computer, and I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I somebody's sitting there, I'm sitting here, and she started reading Ironhide. She said, whatever the line was, and I said, here, let me take that. I do Ironhide this time. Oh, come on, pram. Let's kick some bird.
[00:24:23] And whatever the line was, you know, not Well, I don't know if he dropped. I made that up. Sorry, Michael, if you're out there. I buy it. Yeah. So. Thank you so much. All right, thanks for your question. Let's go over to this side here. What's your name and your question? Hi, my name is Benson. First of all, I want to say thank you, Mr. Combe,
[00:25:40] for coming out of the business here in Philly.
[00:25:42] Thank you.
[00:25:43] I've been a huge G1 Optimus Prime versus the Transformers Prime version of them? How you approach the character? And what was your experience also like versus when you're doing the G1 Optimus Prime, like doing the recordings and everything versus how they did it in Transformers Prime?
[00:27:02] It kind of felt like the character.
[00:27:05] Like it was great for me when I was a Prime seemed to be the, you know, the epitome of a great hero. And those traits are inherently strong to himself you know as another character. I did on several occasions and it was fun. It was really fun. I gave you a little taste of that earlier but we we were a little more polished back in those days you know because you had a script in front of you
[00:29:43] you didn't have to add a little bit., whether it be of any G1, Transformers Prime, which You do. I love you, man. That's good. Thanks a lot for your questions. We've got a couple minutes to get in maybe one or two more before we're going to start to wrap things up. So we'll go over this side.
[00:32:20] What's your name and your question?
[00:32:22] Hi there, Mr. Colton.
[00:32:22] My name is Ilya.
[00:32:23] And of course, like many others here, I grew up with you,
[00:32:26] not just as the voice of Optimus, Okay, the simple version of that question comes down to what? Oh, so you know, what makes you most excited about the future? What are you most optimistic about, no pun intended, with regards to, you know. In regards to anything or like specifically technology or?
[00:33:43] Anything really like, yeah.
[00:33:45] So basically just what gets. But for the TV series and all that other stuff,
[00:35:01] and whatever they call them, zooms and whatever those words,
[00:36:05] I'm going to tell you this honestly because I love you guys and girls. We love you Peter.
[00:36:07] Thank you for being optimistic.
[00:36:11] Thanks.
[00:36:17] I feel the way about you guys and I hope that I'm for everybody in this room, you have been and will always be Optimus Prime to each and every one of us. And before we get out of here and I let you say goodbye, anyway, we can just wrap this panel up with an Autobots rollout.