With nearly 225 credits under his belt, Jason Marsden is a busy actor. In the ‘90s, Marsden had recurring roles on many hit family sitcoms, such as Boy Meets World, Full House, and Step by Step. His extensive body of work as a voice actor includes Max in A Goofy Movie, Chester in Fairly OddParents, Kade Burns in Transformers: Rescue Bots, and Bart Allen in Young Justice, among many others. Some of his earliest voice work was as Binx the cat in Hocus Pocus.

Marsden was part of the Hocus Pocus reunion at Creature Feature Weekend, where he took a break from signing autographs and doing custom voice messages to chat with Scoop about his career.

Scoop: What was the most fun part about voicing Binx in Hocus Pocus?
Jason Marsden (JM): Well, Amanda, the most fun part was the process itself. It wasn’t me in the beginning, it was the amazing Sean Murray as human Thackery. He was hired to do the face and the voice… somehow, the film was almost 80% done and they decided to change it. So I came in and in the process called ADR [Automated Dialog Replacement] where they show me the movie and I match the lip flap as best I can. It’s fun, it’s tricky, it’s kind of like a game. It was fun because I actually got to see the product itself, I got to see the cat, I got to see the animation. It was the first time they applied CG animation to an animal to make the lips move. Being a part of that new technology was fun and fascinating. It’s part of the wacky world of show business.

Scoop: When did you realize that Hocus Pocus had become such an important part of pop culture?
JM: Gosh, we were talking about that the other day. I can’t pinpoint the exact date, I just noticed that every year people seem to talk about it more. At this time of the year people will send me Instagram photos of their televisions like “Hey, look what I’m watching right now.” You go to a store and there’s more merchandise, Spirit Halloween has a whole wall of things. It just seems to get bigger and bigger. I can’t pinpoint an exact time, but it was definitely noticeable.

Scoop: Did you have fun last night doing the live commentary for Hocus Pocus?
JM: Yes, I did. It was the first time we did that. I like it because Omri hadn’t seen the movie in, like, a couple of decades. He claims he can’t remember a lot of the experiences. I thought, this’ll be fun, he’ll watch it and jog some memories. Any chance I get to hang out with those guys is a good time.

Scoop: You were in a bunch of the ‘90s family sitcoms/TGIF shows. Do you have a favorite show or character or scene partner?
JM: All of the above. I loved Boy Meets World because I got to solidify a friendship with [Will] Friedle who is still my bud to this day. Loved doing Full House, they welcomed me like I was part of the family. Step by Step was the same way. They were on, like, five seasons before they brought me on and treated me like I was there since day one.

Scoop: How did you get into voice acting?
JM: It was just one of the things my agent sent me out for when I was a kid. I started when I was, like, 11 and went to a workshop in Irvine, [California] they trained me for 12 weeks, sent me to an agent, the agent signed me and started sending me out on auditions. Movies, commercials, sitcoms, and voiceovers. It just sort of stuck.

Scoop: What’s the process like to train for voice acting?
JM: Well, if you want to get into it now, the recommendation is acting classes. A lot of people think it’s voices, it’s cartoons, I just have to make funny voices and do impressions. That’s part of it, but if you can’t perform, give life to these characters, it’s kind of useless. You need improv training, theatrical training. There’s a peer of mine, Dee Bradley Baker, amazing voice actor, he started a website called IWantToBeAVoiceActor.com because he gets this question all the time and decided to put it all on a website. He answers everything you want to know if you want to be a voice actor.

Scoop: What are the pros and cons of voice acting versus live acting?
JM: Gosh, you don’t have to memorize lines when you’re doing voice acting, which is great. You don’t have to get up at 6 AM. But, with on-camera, you get to wear costumes, you get to look the other actor in the face, sometimes you get flown to exotic locations. The pantomime of pretend is tangible there. These days with voice over, especially since the pandemic, we hardly work with anybody. I work in a closet in my house. But, you can show up in your pajamas, so I like that as well.

Scoop: Are there characters you’ve voiced that are nearest and dearest to you or most fun to do?
JM: That’s a good question, thank you for asking that. Everyone always asks, “What’s your favorite?” It’s like picking a favorite child. I do love Max from A Goofy Movie because I was always a Disney fan and now I’m part of the family. How much closer can you get than being Goofy’s son. I did a project called Transformers: Rescue Bots, which I loved because I was a big transformers fan growing up and the ensemble we worked with, we still share a text thread to this day. We were that close. It depends on the project, I have different reasons for each one.

Scoop: So, we’re at a horror convention, do you like horror?
JM: I do like horror. I’m not a fanatic about it. I go through phases. I grew up watching Poltergeist, which was my first horror film. I still remember being traumatized by watching the guy peel his face off when I was 8 years old and not being able to sleep for three weeks. But then, I think Gremlins kind of eased me into it. There’s the carnage of that movie. As I’ve gotten older I’ve watched the classic horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, the original Halloween. All that stuff.

I’m a director as well, so I’m in the DGA [Directors Guild of America]. The DGA used to do these retreats every year. They’d take us up to Lake Arrowhead and we’d spend three days hanging out with other directors, [Unit Production Managers], and [Assistant Directors] and they’d have a theme. One year was horror and they brought up Tobe Hooper, George Romero, Wes Craven, and we had their undivided attention for a weekend. George Romero screened a movie for us. They talked shop. The craft of horror, being an actor, being a filmmaker, I’ve always been a fan of that.

Scoop: Would you be interested in doing a horror movie now?
JM: I’ve done a horror movie. It was called How to Make a Monster on HBO. My friend George Huang, who directed Will Friedle and I in Trojan War hooked me up in that little role. It was me and Tyler Mane and a few other people and I fulfilled the actor bucket list of getting killed in a horror movie. Spoiler! Killed, covered in blood.

Scoop: What are you working on now?
JM: I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I do a show on YouTube called the Mars Variety Show, which I’d love people to look up, like, and subscribe. It celebrates the independent musician and stand-up comedians in Nashville and beyond. Still doing cartoons and a couple feature films I can’t talk about.

Scoop: Well, thanks so much, it was great talking to you.
JM: Thanks, it was great talking to you too.

To read more about Creature Feature Weekend, jump to our Main Event.