When I was little, I was obsessed with Roland Rat. I also loved Danger Mouse. Later on, when I got a bit older, I was obsessed with Ren & Stimpy, but Roland Rat and Danger Mouse, they were my guys. They were my team.
My role models in the business were the older guys on my team when I first got there: Gray Scott, Adrian Smith, Roland Taylor. These were the guys who took me under their wing, and really schooled me in terms of what the business was about.
I've always been more of a nerdy, academic type. I loved 'Star Wars' growing up. I have three older brothers, so they were a big influence on me. We loved 'Danger Mouse,' and we love 'Monty Python'. We loved any kind of British comedy and 'Wallace and Gromit' and all of that stuff.
My life has never been defined as Roland Martin, CNN; Roland Martin, TVOne; or Roland Martin, 'Tom Joyner Morning Show.' I'm appreciative of all of those platforms, but I've done all different things. I'm still Roland Martin.
You're a mouse studying to be a rat.
Mickey Mouse to a three-year-old is a six-foot-tall RAT!
The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat: If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse. If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat, If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house. If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat, If you set him on a rat then he'd rather chase a mouse. Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat - And there isn't any call for me to shout it: For he will do As he do do And there's no doing anything about it!
I had role models in my community, guys that were older than me and played at university or on the national team. Eli Pasquale was always around UVic when I was a young player, and the national team was around Victoria a little bit, so I got to watch those guys and learn from them.
A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.
Danger Mouse' is James Bond essentially. A rodent James Bond. Oh and slightly Batman too I suppose. And let's chuck in a little bit Superman while we're there. He's an old-fashion swashbuckling hero.
This is going to sound strange, but I really feel I know Roland very well. In Wizard and Glass, I got to know the young Roland, and then as I traveled with him from Eluria (found in the story "The Little Sisters of Eluria") through Tull and the Mohaine Desert (The Gunslinger), and then all the way to the Dark Tower.
Oh, the twenties and the thirties were not otherwise designedThan other times when blind men into ditches led the blind,When the rich mouse ate the cheese and the poor mouse got the rind,And man, the self-destroyer, was not lucid in his mind.
People say never work with children and animals. I actually like working with Oliver Bell, and working with a rat really opens possibilities to you because you don't know how it's going to be. It's just a rat, so you can just react to this rat being a rat, if that makes sense.
[I am more than happy to invite my five favorite fictional characters.]Roland Deschain from Stephen King's Dark Tower series. There's a whole world about Roland left to know. I've got questions. He'd have answers. So pour him a glass of wine.
My relationship to comics isn't nearly as strong as some people's. Ha! I mean, I grew up with a comic book fanatic. My older brother was, and still is, obsessed. And I was obsessed with the fact that he was obsessed, because I was obsessed with him. But not necessarily with comics themselves.
Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out. Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse.
Mickey Mouse should be in the public domain by now. What a better world it would be if other people were doing things with Mickey Mouse!