Toy of the Year.  Best selling toy in the United States.  A product of the fastest-growing toy company in history.  The LeapPad.

The LeapPad toy is basically a talking book.  To be more exact, it is a device in which one places a sold-separately book and cartridge.  The LeapPad has a sort of electronic stylus attached to it, and whenever this stylus is pointed at a word on one of the pages of the book, the LeapPad will “read” the word. 

Ben was hired to provide voices for several characters in three of the sold-separately books.  The recording studio near Boston, Massachusetts was everything one would expect a recording studio to be:  Soundproof foam lining the walls.  Microphones of all shapes and sizes.  Mixing tables with countless knobs and lights and buttons.

Ben was handed a five-page script and sent into one of the recording booths.  After he warmed up, the lines were recorded.

Ben had to create character voices for a talking door mat, a talking kite, a talking squirrel, and last but not least, a talking baseball hat.  These various anthropomorphic characters inhabited the worlds of the following LeapPad books:  That Was That!, At the Lake in June, and I Spy in the Sky.

Ben’s voice work has not stopped.  He recently served as an announcer for a non-profit website, welcoming visitors and detailing the mission of the website’s organization.