Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Comedian Morton is ‘tooned into animation

Lisa Ferguson

Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 | 8:33 a.m.

Saturday-morning cartoons aren't only fun to watch -- turns out they're also a blast to create.

So says Greg Morton who, before beginning his stand-up career, had a hand in drawing, directing and supplying voices for dozens of animated series from the mid-1980s through the early '90s.

Morton, who headlines through Sunday at The Comedy Stop at The Trop, brought to life characters on "The All-New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show," which aired from 1983 through '84; and an updated take on "The Flintstones"; and animated versions of the sitcom "ALF" and the flicks "RoboCop" and "Police Academy."

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in southwestern Ontario, Canada, Morton graduated college and stayed in his home country, where he went to work for a firm owned by legendary animation company Hanna-Barbera. There, he drew Scooby and his crew, as well as the Flintstone family, and worked on the 1981 animated sci-fi film "Heavy Metal."

"What a great opportunity to have these kinds of projects, to get to work on that right out of the gate," he recalled recently from Raleigh, N.C., where he was performing his comedy.

"It was very exciting. The pay, however, was not. I got one check at the end of one week where I made $60." To supplement his income, Morton started a mobile disc-jockey business, entertaining at weddings and other events on weekends.

Beyond playing music and serving as an emcee, "It kind of evolved into a show," he explains. Morton donned wacky costumes and told jokes in an effort to coax partygoers onto the dance floor. "I would make (a spectacle) of myself so they wouldn't feel bad."

The comedy portion of his shows proved popular.

"There were a couple of times I would do almost an hour (of material) before I even got to the music."

Morton began dabbling in stand-up in 1986. By the mid-'90s, he'd abandoned his DJ business to focus entirely on comedy. Around the same time, he was pulled back into the cartoon business.

"After I got into stand-up, animation came back" and enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, he explains. He eventually auditioned and landed a role voicing a bulldog character on the "Hello Kitty" animated series.

"After that, I started getting all these other shows," he says, including "The New Archies," which aired from '87 through '89; "Hammerman," an ABC series based on rapper M.C. Hammer; and 1992's "Stunt Dawgs," on which Morton also served as director -- jobs he juggled with his stand-up gigs.

When devising voices for cartoon characters, Morton explains, the series' directors "usually have an idea of what they want for the characters, so they'll give you suggestions ... They give you a feeling of what they're looking for, but they pretty much give you carte blanche to kind of work your magic."

Unless it's Wayne Gretzky you're attempting to portray. Morton, who declines to reveal his age, recalls how he was once tapped to voice the hockey legend in an animated series that portrayed him, along with Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson, as superheroes.

Ironically enough, "I grew up 30 minutes from Wayne Gretzky's hometown" in Canada, Morton says, "so I know that accent really well -- it's very rural ... But Wayne didn't like the way it sounded. It sounded too kind of dumb, too oafish, but that's what we sound like."

Morton's vocal "magic" continues to come in handy as part of his stand-up act, which the Toronto resident performs on the road 42 weeks a year.

He describes his act as "kind of a sandwich," explaining how it begins with impressions, followed by a section of "straight stand-up," and is topped with still more impressions of Tina Turner, Mick Jagger and Prince, among others.

His signature bit is based on the "Star Wars" movie series: Using self-generated sound effects, Morton mimics the voices of Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and Yoda while recreating the unmistakable (to the films' devotees, anyway) whirring sounds of lightsaber duels.

A self-described "geek at heart," he devised the bit years ago at the urging of a comedy club bartender.

The barkeep "threw on the (film's) soundtrack after the show was over ... So I walked up to the microphone and I started doing impressions of the movies because I was such a huge fan," Morton explains. "At first, it was just kind of goofing around, and then I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if it was a big production number,' " complete with dramatic lighting effects.

"It really lends itself to a Las Vegas or an Atlantic City showroom, where you can dim the lights and create that atmosphere."

Besides mocking Jabba the Hutt and C-3PO, Morton also rants about a slew of topics including phobias, "homeland insecurity," his childhood and even the weather. Case in point: the multiple hurricanes that battered Florida last year. Morton recalls seeing news footage of highways jampacked with people evacuating as storms approached.

"Then, on the other side, there's two or three (people) driving the opposite direction and I'm thinking, 'Why are they doing that?' and then I figured it out: They're going back to steal their (stuff), that's what they're doing, so it makes sense."

"There's lots of things that get my goat," he explains, including the current slate of animated offerings on television.

"I'm so cartooned out. I can't watch," he says. "There's no story; there's no characters ... They're not like the cartoons we had when we were kids. The cartoons we had when we were kids, you could watch them over and over again. They had good stories, good characters."

Though the industry is "kind of more actor-driven" these days, with big-name celebrities frequently voicing animated characters on TV and in films, Morton continues to audition for roles and says he hopes to land one soon. "I really do miss it," he concedes.

Out for laughs

Our bad: In last week's column, Joe Lowers' hometown was incorrectly identified. The car-accident-prone comic hails from Pittsburgh. Laugh Lines apologizes for the error.

By day, local comedian Carole Montgomery is the doting mother of a teenage son. At night, she's the bawdy host of the topless "Midnight Fantasy" show at Luxor. Balancing the two jobs is no small task. It's also the subject of Montgomery's new one-woman show, "Confessions of a PT&A Mom," being staged at 8 p.m. March 4, 2 p.m. March 5, and 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. March 6 at SEAT inside The Arts Factory, 103 E. Charleston Blvd. Call 736-4313 for ticket info.

Shecky Magazine (www.sheckymagazine.com) has posted an item that links to a recent article featured on www.backstage.com, a publication for performing artists. The piece explains that HBO -- sponsor of the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, which earlier this month had its 11th annual event in Aspen, Colo. -- is in the early stages of planning a "consumer-focused comedy festival to take place in Las Vegas in late fall, likely November."

Ray Romano settles into the Mirage's Danny Gans Theatre for a pair of shows at 9 p.m. tonight and 10:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $80.

"Saturday Night Live" alum Norm MacDonald is slated to play House of Blues at Mandalay Bay on March 18. Tickets range from $35 to $57.

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