While Cuphead has endeared itself to millions of gamers around the world, its fan-favorite protagonists Cuphead and Mugman are entirely silent throughout the video game and communicate entirely through text boxes. The animated series The Cuphead Show! finally gives voices to the two wacky heroes, portrayed by Tru Valentino and Frank T. Todaro, respectively. The two brothers find themselves on a full set of zany adventures in the Netflix original series, leaning into its classic animation influences while appealing to modern audiences with madcap energy.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Valentino and Todaro shared how they found and developed the voices of Cuphead and Mugman, explained the cross-generational appeal behind the show's wild energy, and praised the show's team in bringing such a timeless cartoon to life.
CBR: How did the opportunity to bring Cuphead and Mugman to life for The Cuphead Show! first come about?
Frank T. Todaro: I got the audition from my agent. I recognized the property because I had been following it since the early days when they started releasing footage from the game. I was blown away by the game. At the time, I was living in Queens, New York and I remember sitting in my living room in Forest Hills looking at my phone. Some of the notes on the sides were mentioning people like Lou Costello and all these things that I personally love from a time in animation that I'm personally obsessed with. That's how it came to me. I imagine a miniature version of myself doing a backflip in my chest when I got the part.
Tru Valentino: I got the audition from my agent. I knew of Cuphead because I always wanted to play the game but never had at the time, and I was like, "Wait, the Cuphead?!" I was pretty excited about that. There are some auditions where you do it, but there are some where you do it and really, really want it. This is one of the first auditions I got for voiceover where I really, really wanted this part. I did the audition and got the callback. Literally, when I got the callback, they had us do a little song with it. Not to be cocky, I felt like I had this and it was something that was going to be handed to me -- and here we are.
You guys have the benefit of having a relatively blank canvas because Cuphead and Mugman don't really speak in the game. How was it finding their voices from the character breakdowns?
Valentino: I don't remember everything that was in the character breakdown, but I remember them saying [it had] an East Coast kind of vibe. That's where I started with it. For me personally, the evolution of the Cuphead voice has been all over the place. There's an evolution of the voice throughout the series, which is cool because Frank and I are kind of creating these characters from scratch. No one can be like, "That doesn't sound like him!" because it's a fresh, clean slate. It's been fun to create it and also fine-tune it. I think we're in a place where we've got both of these guys locked in.
Todaro: When we were creating these characters... It's an insane honor to get to originate a voice. I like to say it's as close to time-travel as you can get because these are basically cartoons from the '30s and '40s that we get to retroactively record the voices for and put the same DNA that we would hear in old Fleischer and Disney cartoons. The whole team is amazing. They were so open to everybody putting together this puzzle and finding out how these people are. Like Tru said, it was a constant evolution of these guys until you get to that sweet spot. I'm from Queens, my mother's from South Bronx and my father is from Canarsie, Brooklyn, so it's nice to let my vocal hair down and channel all those impressions I've been doing of my family.
Cuphead and Mughead are always so high-energy, even in the show's quieter moments. How is it maintaining that higher register of voice and energy in the booth?
Valentino: I feel like I naturally have a deep voice, so getting in there and doing it is a bit of a vocal workout. For the most part, I think Frank and I have been doing voices of other people our whole lives. I used to watch cartoons and try to imitate that. Just having that vocal muscle memory helps with going in there and being Cuphead. He is definitely a workout, for sure! [laughs]
You mentioned you evolved over the course of the season. What is something that you felt grew or changed by the end of Season 1 or going into Season 2?
Valentino: For me, a real quick answer is that his voice is higher now than it was when I was first doing him. That's the evolution. [laughs] Also, now I know what Cuphead sounds like and now there's enough material out there that, if I forget, I can go to hear what that sounds like. That helps.
Todaro: The voice itself changes but the attitude kind of solidifies. When you know a character so well from a property that you can probably infer what they would do or how they would react in a situation... Now I know Mugman so well, I know how he would react with these situations. There's a familiarity with this character that has been created by this insane team that [I] got to be a small cog in. That informs the character, too. The pauses you use, how you react to each character differently -- it only helps this two-man schtick that happens between the two of us.
I think that's a testament to how insane this team is because I've watched the show. We recorded the lion's share of this separately through the pandemic. It does not sound like that. It sounds like we are reacting off each other because of the amazing work they're doing on the other side of the glass. It just came together so well and I would never believe that it was the way that it was.
With The Cuphead Show! already renewed for two additional seasons, what are you most excited about in getting to share this animated series with the world?
Todaro: The most brilliant thing about the show is that it does appeal to everyone. It is not a kids' show or an adults' show, like Rick and Morty, but every single person sitting in that living room can finally agree on one thing. It's exciting to show this weird crockpot stew of how everything was put together and comes together in a way that everyone can enjoy it. Also, just the visuals, the parts we have no part in, just blow me away the most. There are actual models like you'd see in old Popeye cartoons that they'd film for the background. There's an opening shot that brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it, that we get to be a part of this thing. I'm very eager for people to see this thing!
Valentino: I'm really excited for my nephews to see this because they have been hearing about it but it hasn't really registered. They love Spongebob and those kinds of things and I think there can be a familiarity there with Cuphead, in terms of the tone of the show. For the fans, I'm really excited for them to finally have Cuphead in another medium. Rather than just playing the game, they can see and hear his and Mugman's personalities and how they are together. It might also make playing the game more fun for them, doing Cuphead and Mugman's voices while they're playing the game.
Created by Chad and Jared Moldenhauer and developed for television by Dave Wasson, The Cuphead Show! premieres Feb. 18 on Netflix.
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