What do Ted Lasso and Pinballs have in common?

Adapt or Die

Bounced Around

Used by permission from Vladvictoria via Pixabay.

My wife and I have been watching Ted Lasso.  This is a recent show on Apple TV+, which is a service that provides you endless entertainment in exchange for all your money until the end of the age.  The titular character is played by Jason Sudeikis, and I would like to add that I very much enjoy saying "titular."

Lasso is a hillbilly coach hired by a vindictive-jilted-ex-wife-slash-soccer-club-owner to rain down revenge upon her ex-husband by sabotaging his soccer club’s chances of success in a nefarious plot to utterly humiliate him.  You know, the typical plot.

Lasso is a hillbilly at heart: loveable, genuine and sweet.  He is kind of the opposite of Satan, although I am told that when Satan speaks, he has a sort of gravelly, throaty Kris Kristofferson twang.  If you recall, this is why I took that joint-oath to neither listen to anything Kris Kristofferson nor eat pickles, which are cucumbers soaked in evil.

I am not certain that was where I intended to go with that, but at least now you know what CD's not to buy for me.

One of the most effective plot lines of any great show is when the protagonist is forced to grow: this can usually come through being uprooted from any semblance of comfort, and is thus forced to reckon with an alien terrain, and adapt accordingly.  In our own family’s case, we experienced this ourselves by moving out of our existing home in the middle of a pandemic, presumably because things were boring, and we felt like mixing it up a bit.  The first thing I needed to know about my new neighborhood was of course what we all need to know: where is the nearest Taco Bell.  We had to search to find out where our creature comforts could be found; where we would find seeds of familiarity amongst uncertainty.  Ex-pats are used to this, and my good friend and fellow blogger Paul Strikwerda just wrote a blog on this very subject; however, he is Dutch, and it will take you a long time to get all the way over there to read his, so you should stay and read mine instead.

Being uprooted and moving to a new place can be disconcerting.  It can be unsettling.  But is that not what we voice talent do countless times a day, day in and day out: moving?

The answer is yes.  May I explain?  Thank you, I will.

Pinball

"German KISS Pinball machine 3" by Consumerist Dot Com is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Voiceovers are one big giant pinball machine, and you and I, fellow voice warrior, are the pinballs.  I am sure you have played pinball at least once in your life.  If not, please visit your local Pizza Haven in 1986.  I cannot go back there because of the restraining order.  But the sheer thrill one gets from using flippers to swat around a small silver ball in an enclosed space is akin to that of bumper cars.  And everyone has ridden in bumper cars.

In fact, my family and I just recently visited the Washington State Fair, and I am pleased to report that my son and I bashed in and dented the fenders of no less than six cars before the ride suddenly stopped and the attendant walked away with my money.  To know that it only cost me seventeen dollars for two whole minutes of destructive joy feeds my soul, and makes wage-earning fun.  It was, however, distressing to find that I no longer fit completely into the bumper car because of A) my weight, B) my height, and C) cruelty.  Bumper car designers with sinister intent love to snicker at overweight people like me trying to fit into their tiny cars that you cannot fit into unless you are a fetus who drives.  It is alright though.  I stay a bit overweight because it would not be fair to all the skinny people if I were this attractive, intelligent, funny AND thin.  It is a public service, really.

As with bumper cars, we pinballs are sent flying off in randomized directions.  You may chart your course, sure, but ultimately someone else always controls your next destination.  It is a case of "second star to the right, and straight on until the next interruption."

Ted Lasso is no different.  WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

• One moment he is feeling optimistic.
• Then he gets divorced.
• Then he finds out that he has been lied to and used.
• Another time he finds out that he has been setup.
• At one point he discovers that he was sabotaged.
• And yet another time he is put in an impossible situation of having to release a cocky star player.
• And still one more time, he is forced to choose between the entire team, and one aging player’s feelings.

Actions and reactions.  Pinball.

Through it all, Ted Lasso is unswerving in his optimism.  He takes the beating and trucks on to the next point.  Takes a beating there too.  Ted is made of stern stuff, like a tree that is composed of titanium but is a tree.  I excel at metaphors.  Ted somehow always manages to emerge the victor.  Like the episode where he was in a darts contest.  I will not spoil it by telling you who won. (Ted did.)

Ted Lasso is bounced around repeatedly throughout the show.  Likewise, in our own voiceover "show", there are hidden mechanisms at work, things happening behind the scenes, that we have no control over.  Navigating this highly reactive career is very much like being a doctor with a pager.  I assume doctors still use pagers, because I am still at Pizza Haven in 1986 and cannot seem to get back.  Someone please water my plants.

So what do Ted Lasso and Pinballs have in common?

Us.

We, as Voiceover Artist Pinballs, are no different.

A Pleasant Ricochet

Used by permission from OpenClipart-Vectors via Pixabay

I am sitting at my desk eating some Chick Fil A. Then, just as I am about to sink my teeth into the original chicken sandwich (I can only assume this means from the very first chicken God created in 1 BC), that mortgage-paying audition comes in.

1. Put plate down, get up, go record.
2. Finish recording, sit down, edit, send.
3. Raise chicken to mouth, prepare to eat.
4. Audition arrives.
5. Put plate down, get up, go record.
6. Finish recording, sit down, edit, send.
7. Raise chicken to mouth, prepare to eat.
8. 2-year-old pops in to show me how dinosaurs can kill an Autobot with one whip of their tail. I note this down as being noteworthy.  I raise the chicken to my mouth once again, discovering that it is now the next day.

Voiceover colleagues frequently ask me what my typical day looks like.  It is like this:

1. Audition
2. More auditions
3. Marketing
4. Dad, who is old, calls me and we chat for a bit
5. Marketing again
6. Get a hairbrained idea for a blog that I must immediately note down so I won’t forget because my brain is old and can only occasionally remember my wife's name.
7. Run out to scrape off the back gutter because I keep forgetting
8. Three more auditions
9. Dad, who is old, calls me again, forgetting that he has already called me
10. Enjoy a chuckle with Dad
11. Record my job
12. SQUIRREL!
13. My kid comes in and needs to show me his kindergarten hand-drawing.  All life everywhere stops when this happens
14. Directed session
15. Refresh my book sales page to see where I am at
16. Hear my son disobeying and run out to help my wife
17. Run back to more auditions
18. Revisit the Nissan USA page for that new model Rogue that I want more than life itself
19. Work more on my next book
20. Marketing
21. Read from a colleague’s book
22. Saunter out to the kitchen to grab a few chips
23. More auditions
24. More marketing
25. Free voiceover consult for a colleague
26. Work a little bit more on my blog
27. Stare listlessly out my window for a few minutes reflecting on how much God has given me, and how grateful I am
28. SQUIRREL!
29. Work on my next book
30. Auditions

And the beauty of it all?  All of it, and less of it, and none of it can be part of every single day of every single week.  In the same order, in the reverse order, and in no order.

I am Ted Lasso.  I am constantly moving and adapting.  I am uprooted out of my element all the time.  I am a human pinball, at the mercy of the flippers of life.  Being batted around constantly, forced to adapt, forced to move, forced to change.  Just without the Southern twang.

Are you willing to be bounced around a bit?  If not, you will never score.  Those who are set in their ways will not be moved; I am petrified about becoming petrified.

Adapt or die.  Kind of like a titanium tree.  Or a different metaphor that actually makes sense.

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YOU HAVE MADE IT ALL THE WAY TO THE END, AND I SALUTE YOU.

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Joshua Alexander
Seattle Voice Actor & Voiceover Artist for hire
josh@asupervoice.com
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