Peter Mansbridge gets animated as Peter Moosebridge for ‘Zootopia’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/03/2016 (3852 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Good things happen to Peter Mansbridge at airports.

Back in 1968, the veteran news anchor was a 19-year-old ticket agent working in an airport in Churchill, Man., when a CBC station manager heard his booming voice over the airport PA system. The random “audition” led to Mansbridge being hired to host the local CBC station’s late night music program. News jobs in Winnipeg, Saskatchewan and Ottawa followed before the London-native replaced Knowlton Nash in 1988 as sole anchor for CBC’s “The National.”

Flash forward several decades. Mansbridge was at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on his way to Vancouver.

“I was going through the security line,” he says, “and the guy behind me said, ‘Hey, you’re Peter Mansbridge, right? I’m with Disney and I just came out of a meeting where we were talking about trying to get you involved in an animated feature we’re doing.'”

“Sure, you’re from Disney,” thought Mansbridge. Nevertheless, they exchanged business cards. “Very soon after I got an email and it was clear he really was from Disney.”

The offer was for Mansbridge to provide the voice of news anchor Peter Moosebridge in “Zootopia,” which opens Friday. The Disney animated feature is about a brave little bunny (voiced by “Once Upon a Time” star Ginnifer Goodwin) who helps clean up crime in a big city full of animals.

A few things had to be worked out before Mansbridge could answer his moose call. Outside work is a sensitive issue at the public broadcaster and the job had to be vetted.

“We take our journalism seriously,” says Mansbridge. “We don’t want our journalism to be seen in a light that doesn’t reflect well upon the series.”

This was, however, Disney, not “South Park.” As Mansbridge notes, CBC has carried Disney’s flagship TV series since the ’50s.

“They have a great legacy, and this is going to be seen by hundreds of millions of viewers, so what exactly is the reason to not be involved with this?”

Different if the character had been a weasel. A moose? Now that’s Canadian.

“It doesn’t look like me.” Mansbridge adds. “It has more hair than I do.”

A few years ago, it is suggested, the part might have gone to retired CTV anchor Lloyd Robertson. Disney could have gone with Lloyd Beaverton.

“He’ll always be Lord Beaverton to me,” quips Mansbridge.

Mansbridge has never done an animated voice-over before. He did not have to go far to pick up pointers: his wife, Stratford Festival veteran Cynthia Dale, helped with a little coaching. Besides, as he says, the part was hardly a stretch.

“They just wanted my voice — they didn’t want me to try and act like a moose.”

Mansbridge was originally supposed to record his voice in Los Angeles, but last summer’s federal election call kept him in Canada. A studio in Toronto was substituted, and Mansbridge marvelled at how two-way monitors allowed Disney producers to oversee the proceedings.

He’s not the only Canadian who can be heard in “Zootopia.” Edmonton native Tommy Chong is well cast as Yax, a trippy yak who runs the Mystic Springs Oasis naturalist club.

Originally from Toronto, Second City veteran Don Lake is paired with frequent comedy collaborator Bonnie Hunt as the timid parents of Goodwin’s brave bunny cop Judy Hopps.

Another cast member from Toronto is among the cartoon world’s most accomplished voice-over actors: Maurice LaMarche plays “Godfather”-like crime boss Mr. Big. LaMarche has been heard on everything from “Pinky and the Brain” to “Futurama” to “Robot Chicken” and “The Simpsons.” On one episode of the ’90s animated comedy “The Critic,” he provided 29 voices in one 22-minute stretch.

Besides Goodwin, “Zootopia” also features Jason Bateman as Hopps’ foxy con artist partner Nick Wilde. Idris Elba plays intimidating buffalo police Chief Bogo and J.K. Simmons is the mayor of Zootopia, Leodore Lionheart. Shakira can be heard as high energy pop star Gazelle the gazelle.

— Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.