Mary Kay Bergman could make a change of voice tell us who had authority and who was challenging it. We value her South Park work most: several distinct characters, with comic differences that survive the shouting.
Fi1m perspective
In South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999), the change from one of Mary Kay Bergman's characters to another is audible in how much authority the voice assumes. Sheila Broflovski, Liane Cartman and Wendy Testaburger remain distinct while taking part in the same noisy quarrelling. We laughed at those shifts because she makes it so clear who expects to be obeyed. The children and adults do not need an explanation attached to them. It is a considerable help in a film with so much competitive indignation.
Her earlier casting had made less use of that sharpness. She became Disney's official Snow White voice in 1989 and voiced a Bimbette in Beauty and the Beast (1991), working in the sweet, cute parts that had become her usual employment. We recommend that musical and The Iron Giant (1999), for which she supplied additional voices, but would not pretend that either recommendation rests on her contribution. For a clearer sense of her individual comic skill, we would turn to South Park.
The television series gave her that opening in 1997, making her its principal female voice performer for the first three seasons. With creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, she helped develop character ideas and vocal mannerisms as well as supplying the voices. In the feature, Parker's Eric Cartman is petulant without being made lovable, while Stone's Kyle Broflovski has a less abrasive rhythm. Bergman's ability to distinguish children from adults helps keep those exchanges lively, with no need to make every speaker equally forceful.
Her contribution is especially useful in a film so busy with parental panic, because the adults have to be funny as people as well as targets. Bergman gives us enough distinction to follow the quarrel, while Isaac Hayes's Chef offers a welcome change of pace. The film's weakness is that some jokes are allowed to outstay the laugh; no performer can make that a virtue. Start with the South Park musical; Cartman is not the only voice worth listening to.
Biography
Mary Kay Bergman (5 June 1961 – 11 November 1999) was an American voice actress. She provided voices for the Bimbettes in the 1991 Disney film Beauty and the Beast and additional voices in The Iron Giant (1999). She also voiced multiple characters, including Liane Cartman, Sheila Broflovski, Sharon Marsh, Carol McCormick and Wendy Testaburger, in the 1999 film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
Bergman was the lead female voice actress on the television series South Park from its 1997 debut until her death. She voiced the Disney character Snow White from 1989 to 1999 and appeared in other animated films including The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997) and Mulan (1998). She studied theatre at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Bergman was married to actor Dino Andrade. After her death, he established the Mary Kay Bergman Memorial Fund.
