Robotech

Tony Oliver

Tony Oliver began his career over 25 years ago as an actor on stage and on camera, performing in several feature films and dozens of plays. He found success as a voice over artist, lending his voice to one of the first foreign made animated features to receive wide release in the U.S. ("The Sea Prince and the Fire Child"). His first foray into television was as the lead voice in the popular animated series "Robotech". Following that, Tony turned his attention to writing and was soon working as a freelance writer on several cable series for children including "Macron 1" and "Mapletown". In 1988 he joined Saban Entertainment as a story editor where he wrote and produced an award winning adaptation of "The Jungle Book" and story edited the long running Nickelodeon anime series "The Noozles". Soon after, he produced a number of specials and home entertainment projects and began working as a development writer. He participated in the development of several animated series including the critically praised "Little Shop" series on FOX.

In 1992, Tony was tapped to help create a new kind of children's television show. The result was the mega children's hit, "The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers". Tony not only served as the development producer but also wrote the pilot episode, produced the network presentation and story edited the first season. As Supervising Producer, Tony took on the additional responsibilities of writing, producing and directing the Power Rangers live appearances including the February 1994 appearance at Universal Studios, Hollywood, which drew an estimated 50,000 people on a single day. Later in the year he co-developed and wrote the script for the international sensation "Mighty Morphin Power Ranger - Live Tour" and spent several months in Sydney, Australia consulting on the 20th Century Fox summer release "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - The Movie". In 1995 Tony co-executive produced and co-directed a family feature film entitled, “Rusty: The Great Rescue” starring Hal Holbrook, Rue McClanahan and a menagerie of talking animals. Before leaving Saban Entertainment, Tony wrote, produced and directed a “Power Rangers” retrospective special, which earned significant Saturday morning ratings among kids and was the top rated program on FOX Kids the day it aired.

In 1999, Tony left Saban Entertainment. He has continued to develop, produce, voice and direct numerous projects for TV, Film, Video Games, and New Media. More recent projects include “.hack//GU” a multi-player online video game; “Daigunder”, an anime series for ABC Family/Disney; and “Gurren Lagann” a breakthrough anime series airing on the Sci Fi Channel, “Aussie & Ted” a live action family feature film, “Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers” which premiered on screens nationwide, “Gormiti” a new original animated show airing on Cartoon Network and "Martha & Friends", from Martha Stewart and 4Kids Entertainment as well as voice directing numerous video games.. Tony’s many voice acting credits include, “Hoodwinked 2”, Lupin in “Lupin the 3rd”, Hibiki in “Vandread”, Gojyo in “Sayuki Reload”, Harry in “Gun Grave”, Ranmaru in “Tokko”, Shinbo in “Cho-bits”, Ulquiorra in “Bleach” and Saba in the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” as well as voices in video games such as “Delta Force: Black Hawk Down”, “Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring”, “Dynasty Warriors”, “World of Warcraft”, “Everquest”, “Neverwinter Knights”, “Xenosaga”, “Magna Carta II”, “Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight”, ”Basara 3” and“BlazBlue”. He is currently directing the English dub of “K-ON!”

Related Links: 
Tony's Site
Tony on Facebook
 

Barbara Goodson

Barbara Goodson was born in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of three sisters. She lives in Santa Monica, CA and has been happily married to her husband Bruce for 25 years. Their son Andrew is an English Major in his senior year at UC Berkeley.

She became aware of her mimicry skills early while imitating friends and family and quickly got wise to the positive attention she received. The camaraderie and connection that her antics sparked in others filled her heart with joy.

Barbara delights in the task of putting her own stamp on a character, whether it be dramatic, musical, comedic; in film, cartoons, V/O, nightclubs, theater, TV, the supermarket, you name it.

Being stuck in a tiny woman’s body has always been a challenge for her since she experiences herself as being much bigger than her under 5 foot stature. Among other talents, Barbara has been recognized for her powerful vocal range, playing many nasty, humorous and/or sinister “bad ladies” on screen and off.

She is what you would call a “lifer” in Show Biz. Barbara has no intention of ever retiring and continues to focus on working with more of the Industry “heavyweights” and being cast in meaningful, well received projects that also make her oodles of dough!

She truly believes acting is a blessed career that can move mountains. It’s not for sissies and contains a community of (mostly) evolved, concerned humans. Barbara is proud of the successes she has achieved and is still awed and inspired by the magical unfolding of this wild and crazy business.

Some of her earlier work includes Marie Crystal and Sera in Robotech, Doris in Vampire Hunter D, Apple in Zillion, Pazu in Castle in the Sky, Queen Regina in Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Takashi and Kaori in Akira, and Star in Tekkaman Blade. Her more recent voices include Naota in FLCL, Granny Chiyo in Naruto, Laharl in Makai Senki Disgea, Masaru in Kikraider, Lacan in Ergo Proxy, Lynn Jackson in Yukikaze, Coda in Eureka Seven, Mitsune Konno in Love Hina and Mother Talzin in Clone Wars. She also can be heard on several interactive games, such as Lady Vashj in World of Warcraft, Silva in Suikoden V and Ryoko Leingod in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time.

Related Links: 
Barbara's Website
 

Kevin McKeever

A graduate of the lighting design program from Emerson College, Kevin has been working in the entertainment industry for nearly 15 years. He has worked in theater production at world class venues such as the Goodspeed Opera House, the Emerson Majestic Theater, Foxwoods Casino, and the Mohegan Sun Resort which he helped open in 1996.

His television production credits include Jackass, Kids Say the Darnedest Things, Guinness Book of World Records, Krypton Factor, Farmclub.com, The 60's as well as various television commercials. His film credits include Mystery Men, For Love of the Game, and Billy Frankenstein. Kevin has also served as Assistant VP of Production for feature film producer and New York Times best-selling author Lynda Obst.

Kevin's first official assignment in the Robotech universe was as an audit of Robotech's television ratings and viewer demographics during its original run in the 1980s. Kevin's analysis of the ratings in a cost effective manner along with his years of production experience made him a natural candidate for the Robotech team.

 

Rebecca Forstadt (Reba West)

It’s hard to believe that Rebecca Forstadt (aka Reba West) has been a voice over actor for over 30 years, because her voice still sounds like a kid. This is very convenient when telephone solicitors call. All she has to do is say, “Sorry, my Mommy is busy right now.”

Rebecca has voiced radio, TV Commercials, background voices for film, but is particularly infamous for her portrayal of hundreds of anime characters. She fell into the anime genre because she happened to be quite good at dubbing. This is a skill that not all actors can do very well. Once she started she never stopped.

Rebecca is best known for playing the part of Lynn Minmei in the cartoon series Robotech. She has played every type of character imaginable from a zombie to a cockroach. However, her specialty is little girl’s voices. Her voice timber is extremely natural as opposed to sounding like a squeak toy. She is often asked to replace children’s voices in film who either have an accent or weren’t available to do ADR. The advantage of using Rebecca in these roles is that she doesn’t require a studio teacher and is potty trained.

Rebecca has fans all over the world and is occasionally invited to appear at anime conventions. Although, she is not on the convention circuit, because seriously, she has a life, she enjoys those mini vacations and would gladly take trips to Paris, Australia, Rome or London. Surprisingly she very much enjoyed visiting Columbus Ohio. Who knew?

If you are a fan, you are welcome to join Rebecca’s Facebook group. Rebecca is a Facebook junkie. She is also more than happy to give actors tips on how to break into the voice over field.

Step 1: It really helps to be an actor
Step 2: If you live in Podunk, it might be harder than if you lived in Los Angeles.
Step 3: Keep your day job. It is much more fun if you have money to eat with.

Related Links: 
Rebecca's Website
Rebecca's Facebook
Rebecca's Twitter
 

Tommy Yune

Tommy Yune has worked for over a decade in the comic book and video game industries. His early game development experience includes character design of the pioneering 3D fighting game FX Fighter for the Nintendo SuperFX chip and conceptual design of the award-winning Journeyman Project series. He also wrote and illustrated hit comic book titles such as Speed Racer, Racer X, Robotech, and Danger Girl: Kamikaze which were published by DC Comics' Wildstorm and Cliffhanger labels. His first work in feature animation was creating the computer-generated opening sequence of Kevin Altieri's Gen13.

Tommy grew up on a steady diet of anime, watching as much Prince Planet, Gatchaman and Casshan as he could in Asia and the United States. Then he shunned television and went back to being a responsible student to the delight of his parents. However, right before entering the UCLA School of Engineering, Robotech brought anime back into his life and he eventually found himself at the ArtCenter College of Design instead. His parents wept.

Tommy first worked in an official capacity for the Robotech universe by helping design Robotech.com for its launch in 2001. He has since come aboard as Harmony Gold's creative director and oversees new development, including Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, which completed production in 2006.

Related Links: 
Tommy's Robotech.com Profile
 

Steve Yun

While still a young college student and part-time hacker in 1998, Steve got his first job at an anime company as a digital animator. It was a dream come true for any fan who grew up on Robotech and Macross to be working somewhere in the anime industry. After slaving away through 80 hour work weeks and one really bad 100 hour work week where he started hallucinating from being awake too long, Steve called it quits and went back to Riverside where he got his B.A. in Creative Writing. Stay in school, kids!

Soon afterwards, Steve joined Harmony Gold, where he slept and ate and even showered at the office while under grueling deadlines to put Robotech.com together in time for its February 2001 launch. After being caught working overtime after being told not to, Steve has been allowed to keep a cot at the office ever since.

Since becoming part of Harmony Gold, Steve Yun has had fansites and fanclubs devoted to him, as well as internet stalkers, convention stalkers, petitions to get him fired and websites devoted to exposing the "real" Steve Yun. Steve has co-produced and associate-produced several other projects as well, including the Macross restoration, the Robotech: Battlecry video game, the Robotech: Invasion video game, Robotech Remastered and Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. Steve has also been featured in an anime documentary called Geeks, which he has still not had a chance to see.

Since its launch, Robotech.com has constantly been one of the busiest anime-related destinations on the internet, being the subject of a Slashdot article, a Conan O'Brien feature and mentioned on countless anime websites. You can email Steve at info@robotech.com to send him Robotech-related fan mail, complaints, constructive criticism and suggestions.

Related Links: 
Steve's Robotech.com Profile
Steve's E-mail Address