Voice actress Mary McDonald Lewis Storyboard Director Doug Vandegrift Story editor/writer Buzz Dixon Story editor/writer Flint Dille Story editor/writer Steve Gerber Writer Christy Marx Back

Mary McDonald Lewis was the voice of Lady Jaye. How did you get the role of Lady Jaye? --I already had experience as a voice talent, and as an animated voice; I was Lois Lane on Hanna-Barbera's Superfriends prior. So I was called in to audition (actually for a mcuh smaller role) and landed this one! Wally Burr, who directed all the Joe sessions I was in, was also the casting director. When you first got the part, what did you think of GI Joe and especially the character Lady Jaye? --Well, I was concerned because it was a "war" show, and I'm a pretty non-violent type. But it was a job, and it allowed me the financial freedom to do my non-paying, animal rights work (vice president of Last Chance for Animals--you can find them on the Web--it's an antivivisection organiztion. I'm not V.P. nnow because I don't live in LA anymore, but still am an antivivisecionist, 14 year-vegetarian, you get the picture!) But after I read the scripts I was impressed with the way no one was at least dismembered on-camera, and by today's standards, it's pretty tame. The writing and animation were quite good, the characters well-deliniated and the female characters were espcially strong. I liked that. I like Lady Jaye a great deal--whe was strong, atheletic, bright and had heart (that's why she was sweet on Cap'n Flint, right?!) She and I were, coincidentally, about the same age, and interestingly enough, looked alike! At a party at Marvel to launch the show, I was talking to some animators--we'd already taped several episodes but we hadn't seen any drawings yet--and when I told them who I was playing they got this amused look and said, "come with us!" They took me to their drawing boards, and showed me Lady Jaye--the resemblence waas uncanny! What went on at a typical GI Joe voice over session? --Lots of laughs, lots of fun, lots of HARD work! It was a big cast, as I know you're aware of, and we all worked at the same time, like an old-time radio show, taping it "live," that is, just as though it were happening, real-time. (Usually one or two actors had conflicting gigs, so out of maybe 10 parts, 8 or 9 of us would be there, and the other two would come in separately and do "pickups" on their own later. That's harder, because you have no one to play off of, and this show really required that kind of interaction because of all the, well, action!) So you had 10 folks gathered in a semi-circle of mikes facing the control booth, with an engineer running the board, and Wally directing us. We were all pros, and we worked efficiently, but Wally was a real perfectionist and the sessions could take 5 or 6 hours. (At Hannah-Barbera they take 1 to 1 1/2 hours, by comparison.) But I think the quality shows in Joe. We had lots and lots of laughs, as a cast. It was a good group, with the finest animated voice actors in history all working on it. When recording the show, did you have any input as to what Lady Jaye > would say; could you ad lib? --No, that was all pretty tight. There are shows where you can adlib a bit (Mask is one I worked on recently; Rob Paulson, who voices the Mask, is a great ad-libber; and Jim Cummings, who does so much work in town, is another. But when the writers know those fellows are playing the characters, they leave room for some ad-lib stuff.) But with Joe it was all so tightly choreographed, you had to move along and just get it right the first time! The writers were good, though, so her language always felt like "her." Were all of your lines for an episode recorded at one time or did you have to come back and do pick ups or looping? --All at one time, generally, as I wrote above, except when another job conflicted and I had to come later. Do you have a favorite episode? --Any episode with my character in it. Mary McDonald Lewis has a resume web page on http://www.voiceprofessionals.com.