RIP Peter Fernandez
I'm deeply saddened about this. More so than usual for such a notification. I actually got to meet and talk with Peter briefly at Anime Weekend Atlanta a few years ago along with several other fans. A kind, sweet gentleman with a ready laugh and a ton of small stories. You could tell he was truly getting an enormous kick out of seeing what the popularity of Speed Racer had amounted to and getting the proper recognition for his work. And truly curious (though somewhat bemused) about the rest of the anime world at the convention.
The most interesting thing at the time was the intersection of him, Corrine Orr (who voiced Trixie and several other voices through the years - including Nova from Star Blazers 3rd Season) and Amy Howard (who voiced Nova on the first two seasons of Star Blazers). Peter himself had done the voice of Mark Venture, the Argo's navigator and pilot in the 3rd season. And Peter actually went to some lengths to APOLOGIZE to fans (and Amy) for not using the original voice actors from the first two seasons! But like the rest of us in fandom at the time (mid 80s), he couldn't FIND them (due to the actors working non-union and uncredited. A fairly common practice at the time for voice-over work.)
Why the weird names like "Cruncher Block" "Inspector Detector" and "Snake Oiler" in Speed Racer? Why the run-on sentences? Well the translations they got were sparse. REALLY sparse. So he had to make up a lot of dialogue. And they were dubbing on a pretty tight schedule. So the names were whatever would fit best that the actors could REMEMBER without effort and having to check back to the script so often for! If some of the dialogue sounded like they were making it up as they went along, well... they WERE.
He also wrote the lyrics for the classic Speed Racer theme - "Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer..."
If you watch the Speed Racer movie. Peter is in it as a cameo. Corrine too. He's the old newsman at the first Thunderhead race in the beginning. The "Local Newsman guy" in the fedora commenting on Speed. Kudos to the Wachowski's for that bit of class.
RIP Peter. You were a gentleman. In the classic sense. A gentle man.
I'm deeply saddened about this. More so than usual for such a notification. I actually got to meet and talk with Peter briefly at Anime Weekend Atlanta a few years ago along with several other fans. A kind, sweet gentleman with a ready laugh and a ton of small stories. You could tell he was truly getting an enormous kick out of seeing what the popularity of Speed Racer had amounted to and getting the proper recognition for his work. And truly curious (though somewhat bemused) about the rest of the anime world at the convention.
The most interesting thing at the time was the intersection of him, Corrine Orr (who voiced Trixie and several other voices through the years - including Nova from Star Blazers 3rd Season) and Amy Howard (who voiced Nova on the first two seasons of Star Blazers). Peter himself had done the voice of Mark Venture, the Argo's navigator and pilot in the 3rd season. And Peter actually went to some lengths to APOLOGIZE to fans (and Amy) for not using the original voice actors from the first two seasons! But like the rest of us in fandom at the time (mid 80s), he couldn't FIND them (due to the actors working non-union and uncredited. A fairly common practice at the time for voice-over work.)
Why the weird names like "Cruncher Block" "Inspector Detector" and "Snake Oiler" in Speed Racer? Why the run-on sentences? Well the translations they got were sparse. REALLY sparse. So he had to make up a lot of dialogue. And they were dubbing on a pretty tight schedule. So the names were whatever would fit best that the actors could REMEMBER without effort and having to check back to the script so often for! If some of the dialogue sounded like they were making it up as they went along, well... they WERE.
He also wrote the lyrics for the classic Speed Racer theme - "Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer..."
If you watch the Speed Racer movie. Peter is in it as a cameo. Corrine too. He's the old newsman at the first Thunderhead race in the beginning. The "Local Newsman guy" in the fedora commenting on Speed. Kudos to the Wachowski's for that bit of class.
RIP Peter. You were a gentleman. In the classic sense. A gentle man.