As the series celebrates its historic longevity with a special ‘Teen Titans Go!’ show produced by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, the actress riffs on the show’s longevity, her original audition, and how the reimagined characters and stories are just laugh-out-loud funny.
Despite being well known for high-pitched voiceover roles – from The Powerpuff Girls’ Bubbles and The Fairly OddParents’ Timmy Turner to My Little Pony’s Twilight Sparkle and Gabby’s Dollhouse’s Kitty Fairy – Tara Strong says the low, almost guttural vocal range of Teen Titans’ Raven is much closer to the actor’s true voice.
And it’s a good thing, too. Because Strong has been voicing the role for over two decades.
“I’ll record myself in a Tik Tok and I just get Raven,” says Strong, who also played the first American speaking voice for Hello Kitty when she was 13. “I remember Jeff Bennett came to guest star on the original Teen Titans series and he sarcastically was like, ‘Wow, Tara, you’re working really hard.’”
But, working within one’s natural vocal range or not, carrying on a character’s legacy through multiple generations of viewers and through multiple types of shows is taxing work. And when Strong was tasked with voicing for a very different looking Raven on a very different looking take on the teen superheroes, Teen Titans Go!, she knew she had her work cut out for her.
But things seem to be going well seeing as tomorrow, November 30, Teen Titans Go! will air its 400th episode, a stop-motion special, on Cartoon Network, making it DC’s longest running animated series.
Produced by DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, the show follows the adventures of the young teen superheroes, known as the “Titans” – Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), Robin (Scott Menville), Cyborg (Khary Payton), Raven (Strong), and Starfire (Hynden Walch) – who reside in Jump City without adult supervision and with much more exaggerated personalities. Unlike most of the other superhero series, the situations are comedic and chaotic, full of juvenile jokes amidst new heights of danger, from crashing the Batmobile to figuring out how to clean blood stains out of suits.
“There isn't an episode that we would read before the session that didn't make us laugh out loud,” says Strong. “It's just ridiculous and funny. We went to way deeper places in the original series and the stakes were definitely higher. But I think this show has longevity because the writers and the animators and the musicians and the team behind everything are very conscientious. They want to make something that people respond to in a positive, fun way. And that's why we're at 400 episodes.”
To celebrate the series making its historical mark in animated television, the creatives are taking the Titans to a new realm, stop-motion animation, in a special episode that follows the Titans as they fight for their television lives after a vengeful Superman banishes them to the world of stop-motion animation.
Check out the sneak peek:
“When you think of all the animated stuff I grew up with, that we grew up with, and seeing Teen Titans Go! surpass so many of those shows, I think it's because we had those characters first in their grounded states, and now we get to make them really fun and funny and make people laugh,” notes Strong. “In episode 200, we got to see ourselves, the voice actors, animated and talking to our animated characters. We had no idea what was coming for episode 400 but everything Stoopid Buddy Stoodios does is extraordinary. I’ve toured those studios a few times and they’re so meticulous and conscientious. And the fact that they’ve managed to capture all our personalities within the medium is fantastic. And so funny. If you’re not laughing during this episode, then you’re not watching.”
Transitioning the character designs from the original series to the reimagined series and again to a stop-motion special, Strong says, is not something that’s always accepted by fans. But, when it comes to the Titans, Strong believes there’s a lot of room to play.
“The fact that the show kept the same voices and voice actors and gave us the chance to grow along with these characters, I think was a really, really smart move,” says Strong. “I love seeing that adults get to watch the original series with their teens and the new series with their young children. Teen Titans has a generational appeal that brings families together.”
She adds, “And our cast all authentically loves each other and loves playing these parts. We always knew that we had something special and hoped it would go on forever. Greg used to always say at panels that we got picked up for new episodes before we ever did. He just kept manifesting it.”
Strong still remembers the first day she auditioned for the original series, intending to play Starfire, who had been described as “the grown-up Bubbles.”
“I thought for sure I was going to book that,” recalls Strong. “I also saw Raven being described as a ‘very dark, tragic teenager,’ and I was already playing five of those – Kylie in Extreme Ghostbusters, Shareena in Detention, Ingrid Third in Fillmore! – and didn’t know how I was going to differentiate Raven. So, I did my audition and, on my way out, it just hit me. I said to Andrea Romano, who was the casting and voice director, ‘Do you mind if I try one more thing?’ Because Raven was half demon, I gave her voice this roll no matter what she said and the team was like, ‘Wow, that’s Raven.’ Thankfully I was brave enough to ask for the chance and the team was kind enough to give it to me.”
From that moment on, Strong made Raven’s character and her famous incantation, “Azarath Metrion Zinthos!”, entirely her own.
“The truth is, if you’re brave enough to say, ‘I have another idea,’ producers are excited enough to listen to something they haven’t heard before,” says Strong. “When I lay down here in my audition studio, I'll usually do what the producers and directors ask, and then I’ll do two completely different things because sometimes it works, and you have to be willing to take those chances. I will be sitting at home and a new voice will come out of nowhere and my boyfriend will be like, ‘Who the hell was that?’ This job isn’t really a job. It’s a life’s work. And Raven’s really become a part of me, my life, and has meant a lot to other people in their lives.”
And the character arcs, plot points and unanswered questions that had Teen Titan fans engrossed are still approached by the Teen Titans Go! crew with just as much intent as in the original series.
“All of us want to answer those questions,” says Strong. “And we've been bugging people. We're like, ‘The fans deserve answers to the pivotal story arcs!’ We want to tell those stories, and I don't see why we can't do both that and the funny stuff at the same time. Really, Teen Titans has become a multiverse situation. Teen Titans Go! is silly and fun for the whole family. And the original Teen Titans is there if you’re a comic fan and want that authentic, darker tone. It’s two different shows, but I think we can still answer questions and have love for all these shows that are so different.”
For Strong, she’s never pictured Raven in one specific style of animation, either. When Strong was first voicing for the character, she imagined Raven in the same way one would imagine the main character of a book, almost like an alternate version of oneself.
“Through my third eye, I’m seeing myself as Raven doing these things in the show,” explains Strong. “Voice actors are very good at creating visuals just with their minds and their voices. We’re creating stuff with our acting that we can’t see in front of us but that will still make people feel something. Sometimes I will hold a Raven toy or a crystal or something that helps me visualize being that character. But I’m never focusing on the art style as a way to dictate how I act.”
That’s why these characters are so versatile for their voice actors.
“If you were with your friends at a dance club and then the next day you were at your friend's daughter's birthday party, your vibe is going to be very different between the two,” says Strong. “But you know who you are in all those environments. It’s the same for animation. I can play Harley Quinn in high school for the DC Super Hero Girls, and then I can play a darker version of her where she was even weirder than the Joker. But it's still me at the core. It’s a symbiotic relationship and I can put myself into whatever world my character is in.”
Still, for Strong, it’s been a personal dream of hers to work with stop-motion and is excited for what this could mean for future episodes of Teen Titans Go!.
“Really good stop-motion is extraordinary and takes so much patience and skill,” says Strong. “This episode is an epic story. It's an epic adventure. It's funny, and it's got great music, and the character design is so great. All the guest voice casts are brilliant, and I think people are going to really get a kick out of it. And it's something unusual, something we haven't seen before in any other episodes. But now, Stoopid Buddy has the puppets. So maybe we’ll get to see more episodes like this in the future.”
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
