[quote name=\'TalkingHeadsFan\' date=\'Sep 28 2005, 04:15 PM\']I think it was Mr. Barker himself who said "when Rich tells people to Come On Down!, it's happy! It's a happy voice!" His tone of voice and his enthusiasm certainly give off a genuine, natural vibe that fits the show perfectly. In my opinion, Rich is the most natural sounding person who's ever been behind the mic, aside from Johnny O. If we were to compare Rich's performance from his auditions, to current, I'd say he's made a hell of an improvement. I hated him during auditions, but he's improved so drastically, I now think he's doing a fine job. However, considering they made Rich the permanent announcer based on that audition is quite iffy. At that time, I would not have chosen him, I would have chosen Randy.
I've always felt that the best announcers never sounded like their stereotype, which is exactly why Burton was terrible on TPiR.
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Happy? I guess you could call overly-enthusiastic to just plain screaming happy. But how happy is too happy.
Natural? I can hardly call shouting
HERE IT COMES! and
LOVELY SERVEWARE! (OK, the last one was sarcastic, but, you get my point) so loud that you might have to take a Tylenol is not natural.
Improvement? If he's made any improvement, It's hardly noticable. He still growls when he says Bob's name, screeches during the "Here it comes!" on in Rich's tone
HERE IT COMES!, and he still has that nasaly annoying voice on almost every single one of his prize plugs.
On some of his announcing, I think Daniel Rosen could do a better job.
But, there are those people @ golden-road.net (Yes, I am a member there, under a different name though) who first acted like he was awful now all of a sudden has turned in to a "great announcer", who you're basically not allowed to say anything the least negative about, or else you get screamed at. (I like that website though, great people, great website), but anyway, back on topic, the only thing I like about Rich is that he does some prize plugs good.
He just has such a nasty and annoying voice, it sticks in your head and you can't get it out. He is going to give people nightmares one day.