The Great Richard Epcar Goemon Mystery

[WateredWillow]

This mystery has haunted me for over a year now and I figured to bring it up again here and see if I can get to the bottom of this; here are my words on this from exactly a year ago

So, I just got the bluray for a Woman Called Fujiko Mine, and there's a bonus English cast interview on the second disc. So I put it on because I wanted to hear what they said, Richard says his usual "I'm the voice of Jigen in some stuff and Zenigata in others" he always says, then he adds on something I hadn't heard before "I also did Goemon once" and I was like, wait in what? So, I pause and frantically search the internet and I see on Behind the Voice Actors; someone said that the site originally credited him on the performance done in the Animaze/MangaUK dub (which is credited to Michael Gregory), and I was convinced I mean Goemon has a fairly deep voice in that dub so I was like okay, but then why is Richard taking credit? So after that mild panic attack I'm like, okay, I think I basically have the mystery solved, maybe Richard was misremembering and saw himself credited online and said "Yeah sounds about right." I mean he's done a lot of things and Goemon has maybe three lines in Cagliostro so I wouldn't blame him. So I'm like, okay, mystery solved, continue watching the interview and he says "when I was Goemon I was dubbing for Streamline" AND I SCREAMED AT THE TELEVISION

I am literally skimming through all of the Streamline Lupin dubs and the other Cagliostro dub and like listening to it like I'm cracking a safe. Richard has a really distinctive voice, it can't be this hard, and the bigger mystery is why are so many sources saying different things. So far I can narrow it down to either of the Cagliostro dubs, and the Greatest Capers, so I'm like skimming through all of it to hear any voice discrepancies.
Okay nope I've listened to all of them and I'm still clueless
NO WAIT
Hold on
I think two people are playing Goemon in the Streamline Cagliostro dub
Someone doublecheck my hearing, I think the Streamline Goemon is two guys, and one of them may or may not be Richard Epcar lol
Here's my theory, one actor was brought in to do his lines, and then the script changed and they just put someone else on
Because the [Goemon] opening scene [where they are staking out] voice sounds different to my ear than the "asbestos suit" line and the scene with Lupin in bed. And the scene where Clarisse is thanking them almost sounds like two separate actors in the same scene

Okay so the TLDR of this whole mystery is, supposedly, and most likely for the Streamline dubs, Richard Epcar may or may not have been the voice of Goemon. Richard states in a few interviews that he had also voiced Goemon at one point. It also would have to be one of the Streamline dubs credited to Steve Kramer, the Mamo dub recasted Goemon with Ardwight Chamberlain and there's no wiggle room in that dub because the performance is consistent. But when I was listening to the earlier Streamline dubs, I noticed that the Goemon performance was not consistent at all, which doesn't necessarily mean that it was two actors, but it certainly was suspicious.

So if anyone can shed light on this mystery for me, I really would be eternally grateful, I've been losing my mind over this for a year.

 

[Giovanni]

Well Epcar is very active on his twitter so maybe try sending him a clip of the dub asking "Hey did you dub Goemon in these scenes ?", i think that would work

 

[Lupin34]

I need to double check, but I think in an interview he did for one of the Part 2 Discotek DVD releases, the interview brought that up, and he said that it was apocryphal, and that he wasn't the voice of Goemon in Cagliostro's dubs

 

[Tsushi]

I think asking on Twitter might work and as personal speculation, I would just say maybe there was a grunt or something that missed getting recorded that he filled in for? I know he did plenty of production work for this stuff, so it doesn’t seem impossible?

 

[WateredWillow]

I've thought about asking Epcar directly, but since he's been on both sides of the argument and if he actually had been Goemon for Streamline, it was probably a 10 minute recording session 30 years ago, so I doubt he'd remember truly. I still may try and ask though.
You know who I'd think would probably know the best, even more than Epcar? Carl Macek, I'd bet he would probably have known if there was a switchup and they needed an actor to rerecord lines; but he's been deceased for over a decade so that won't help me much.

 

[pago]

I haven't watched a lot of the older dubs besides the Greatest Capers episodes and Goemon barely speaks in those so it's really hard to hear if that could be Epcar.
I do remember watching this short interview he did for GKIDS YouTube channel for Lupin III: The First, where it seems he is unsure whether he has voiced Goemon (context: he's talking about characters he's voiced in the Lupin franchise)

"...There was talk of me voicing Goemon in some project years ago, I'm not sure if that's true or not, but if that is true, than the only other character I would have to play would be Lupin himself and Fujiko."

I think this situation is very similar to "The Viper" (the so called lost first English Dub of Lupin), where this info, whether true or not, most likely stems from some old forums, so if we wanted to know which specific dub it is that Epcar supposedly played Goemon, we'd have to search those old forums to find other people talking about this. I might do some googling one free afternoon in the future and see if I find any info. I've thought about also comparing voices that Epcar did around the time in the early 90s and comparing them to Goemon.

 

[pago]

Woah, that research went faster than I thought. I just googled "Epcar Goemon" and looked at the Fandom wiki page:

Myth​

Richard Epcar was the voice of Goemon in the Manga/Animaze dub of The Castle of Cagliostro.

In reality, the role was played uncredited by Michael Gregory. This error stemmed from Richard Epcar's VO resume [1] meaning that he might have originally be considered for the role but was given to Michael.

The citation leads to a PDF, so you can look for yourself. So he didn't do the voice in the Animaze dub, but maybe was considered for it, seeing as it's on the Resume. Maybe he was mixing up the two companies?

 

[WateredWillow]

Well that solves the case then, and I'm sure after a while the game of telephone got wires crossed and it may have morphed into the Streamline dub at one point or another due to Epcar's involvement in Robotech.
Still confused as to why he was so bold in stating he was Goemon in the Woman Called Fujiko Mine interview, I wish I had a clip of it to share.
Mystery solved then, Richard Epcar made several mistakes lol

 

[pago]

I get why you would be confused, I'm listening Michael Gregory on Behind The Voice Actors, and when he says "A woman?", it sounds very Epcar esque lol

 

[WateredWillow]

I get why you would be confused, I'm listening Michael Gregory on Behind The Voice Actors, and when he says "A woman?", it sounds very Epcar esque lol

See if you read my original statements, I thought the same thing, but that's not why I was confused, I figured the Michael Gregory thing was an explainable clerical error

See I'm more confused because in the A Woman Called Fujiko Mine interview, Richard specifically says, "In the Streamline dub I was Goemon" or something along those lines, and I think he also mentions working with Carl Macek. I'll have to pull up the interview to get Epcar's exact quote, but that interview is where I got confused.

So my confusion doesn't come from that original myth, it comes from Richard Epcar making another similar statement, about the other dub of Cagliostro lol

 

[pago]

HOLD IT!
There's more!!! I figured out where the mainstream confusing comes from! Epcar was miscredited as Goemon in the credits of the Discotek DVD release on Cagliostro! I saw it first on the TV Tropes YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) so it didn't seem legit at first, so I did some digging and I found an old screenshot on the LupinCentral tumblr blog!

(Context: They're talking about how David Hayter was finally confirmed as the voice of Lupin in the Animaze dub! Here's a link)
If I'm understanding correctly from other sites, it seems that the Discotek Dvd from (around 2014 I think) of Cagliostro miscredited Epcar while the Blu Ray fixes this mistake. I don't know if this miscrediting was a problem on previous DVDs, but maybe they did??? but okay, I think I've found real reason for why this rumour happened, and unless I see credits from previous releases, I think this case is closed.

 

[pago]

OK! Ok! I found the original credits for the animaze dub, and Epcar is not listed in there! (Credits) Now the reason why I think there's so much confusing is cause names in the og credits were a bunch aliases (cause the Animaze dub was apparently a non-union production) , if the tv tropes and fandom wikis are to be believed! That's why we didn't it was David Hayter before the Discotek DVD, he had to confirm it himself, I'm assuming.

But now somebody in the comments of an old Cagliostro review that they can hear Epcar playing one of the police officers???
Why am I in this deep? I haven't even watched Cagliostro yet! Yes, I am literally the Brian David Gilbert thing "I have never played a Sonic game!"

 

[Giovanni]

I searched and also found this tweet by Mike Toole, a discotek producer.

 

[WateredWillow]

Yep yep, that's what I figured in the end, Epcar heard that he played Goemon somewhere he just figured, "Okay yeah I'll take your word for it." lol
That's what I suspected had gone on but I was looking for confirmation, much appreciation to everyone who helped me get to the bottom of this!

 

[Tsushi]

This is a beautiful case of the ideal use of a forum I think. Thanks to all you internet detectives the case is solved!