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Hank Azaria Channels ‘The Simpsons’ Characters In Commencement Speech, Debuts New Comedy Show ‘Brockmire’

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 03:08 PST, Jul 2, 2016

Hank Azaria plays a famous Major League Baseball announcer in an upcoming series on the IFC Channel, according to the Examiner. The comedy titled Brockmire will be debuted on the IFC Channel later this summer.

In the new IFC Channel series, Hank Azaria plays alongside Amanda Peete, best known for her roles in Togetherness and The Ex. Azaria is set to play Jim Brockmire, the baseball announcer who suffers a meltdown on the air after learning about his wife’s infidelity.

After suffering for almost a decade, Brockmire, played by Hank Azaria, decides to renew his career as a basketball announcer and starts dating while living in a small town. Peet, meanwhile, plays Jules, the owner of a minor league baseball team Morristown Frackers. Jules is a determined woman who believes her team can return its strength and play professionally again.

In his interview with the Examiner, Hank Azaria revealed a few details about the upcoming series. In fact, Hank Azaria also serves as the producer of Brockmire, which is why he revealed what motivated him to make the show, which centers on the announcer from the golden days of baseball.

“I think men really love the deep voice, golden ‘throated’ announcer voice that you heard in the 70’s and you don’t hear it anymore really. It is the sound of the ‘baseball’ game.”

And Hank Azaria had this idea to put the life of this announcer, who had just ruined his career, on display. And the 52-year-old actor thought it would be “funny” to show all the heavy drinking, drugs and this man “going wild” after learning about his wife’s infidelity. And even though Brockmire is a comedy and is supposed to be funny, Hank Azaria also made sure it would be a heart-wrenching show. Azaria, who is best known for his voice work on hit animated sitcom The Simpsons, said that while he wants people to laugh, he was “surprised” at how emotional it turned out to be for many people.

Hank Azaria also complimented the show’s writers for doing “an amazing job” at exploring Brockmire’s pain and channeling it for the audience to truly feel it.

“We noticed that in the short when it was the funniest when it was happening in the real world and the mistakes were real.”

But Hank Azaria revealed that his main goal was to make the show feel real for the audience, and he claims that he accomplished that goal. In fact, the writers and producers of Brockmire did such a great job people even came up to Azaria and asked if the events described in the show were real.

But working on Brockmire is not the only thing Hank Azaria has been up to lately. The actor, whose voice talents on The Simpsons raised him to prominence in the TV industry, returned to his alma mater – Tufts University – to give his commencement speech, according to the Greek Reporter.

Hank Azaria gave a long speech with guidance and advice to graduates of Tufts University in 2016 and ended that address by entertaining the guests. He decided to spend the last five minutes of his address by talking in various voices of characters from The Simpsons. Hank Azaria used lots of comedy and humor in his tips to the graduates but wanted to include as many life lessons as possible in those tips. For example, one of his tips was about how to escape from a police car. The line was delivered by Hank Azaria in the voice of Chief Wiggum.

“If a cop even thinks you’re going to throw up in their back seat they will immediately let you go.”

Watch Hank Azaria’s commencement speech here.

[Photo by RW/MediaPunch/IPX]

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