`THE MAN OF A MILLION VOICES'.

Byline: BRENT HOPKINS Staff Writer

Bugs Bunny sips his coffee in a Burbank Starbucks, then John F. Kennedy exhorts someone to answer their cellular phone. The patrons begin to stare.

Later, Tweety Bird will climb into a red Lexus and fight rain-soaked traffic home to Tujunga. Sylvester the sputtering cat will kiss his three daughters hello as Billy Graham gives his wife a hug. Dudley Do-Right will mount the stairs, Sen. John Kerry will turn on his computer and Tigger will check his spread of business projects. Elvis has entered the building.

The voices in Phil Snyder's head sound very, very familiar. He doesn't just channel them -- he becomes them.

He is a professional mynah bird, a mimic, an impressionist and voice actor. He has built himself a tidy life, with a nice house in the Verdugo hills and a handsome family, off a talent that for most people usually amounts to nothing more than a fun party trick. With a practiced ear and a dramatic vocal range, he can twist his voice through politics, cartoons, rock 'n' roll and religion without so much as a pause.

But The Man of a Million Voices, as he calls himself in homage to his idol, Mel Blanc, did not always have things so good.

``I was not a wise young man in any way,'' Snyder remembered, speaking in the smooth bass tones he uses for discussing regular life. ``I had a lot of gifts and didn't think about how to do things in a businesslike way. I was just getting high ... it didn't work out for me and I'm glad it didn't.''

The boyish-looking 53-year-old, whose ice-blond hair, huge eyes and pierced ear resemble an unusual combination of Michael J. Fox in ``Back to the Future'' and Rodney Dangerfield, does not fit into the normal businessman mold. He's an entrepreneur who makes money off a goofy talent, a self-described ex-hippie who dabbled in drugs but once held a top-secret military clearance, a born-again Christian who uses his elastic voice to speak the gospel.

Snyder makes his living in a spare walk-in closet, surrounded by dresses and sweaters, recording his yelps and yowls into a microphone and laptop computer. He knows the nuances of everyone from Bart Simpson to George W. Bush. He's never quite gotten the hang of Winnie the Pooh, but his Tigger is spot-on.

When he hears a voice, he doesn't just copy it, he breaks it down to its most basic elements. He knows just how to mumble through a sentence when voicing the president, how much Brooklyn to slip into Bugs Bunny. Like a jazzman hears notes in his head, Snyder maps out how to speak.

This has made for some unusual entries on his resume -- most executives can't claim to have played an orange in a Tropicana juice commercial or a blustering, English toad.

Snyder's latest venture comes from providing voices for cell-phone ringtones, which has proved to be a profitable undertaking. His Christmas elves sell year-round, and political-theme sound bites encouraging voters to elect Republicans in 2004 still bring in sales two years later. All told, cell-phone owners have downloaded nearly $1 million worth of his tones, bringing him thousands of dollars in royalty payments.

He began this odd vocation as a child growing up near Portland, Ore. When he wasn't ditching school to watch Popeye cartoons, he'd be called to the head of his Catholic school class to perform routines learned from Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Smothers Brothers. One of 10 kids, he learned quickly how to make himself heard amid his siblings' chatter.

So when Snyder got old enough to leave home, he became a comic.

``I rolled my eyes when he told me,'' said his mother, Beatrice ``Bernie'' Snyder. ``But throughout the years, Phil's always had it.''

He moved to L.A., auditioning at The Comedy Store in 1974, back before they paid comics to perform at the Sunset Strip landmark. Owner Mitzi Shore pushed him to do voice-over work, which he got into as a way to pay the bills.

Like plenty of his comedic contemporaries, he led a fairly bohemian lifestyle. He taught yoga, tried cocaine a few times but didn't dig it. He got burnt out, was born again and gave up on the wild life. No more comedy, no more partying. He studied electronics at L.A. Valley College and went to work drilling holes on the Lockheed assembly line. He started a new, though not particularly happy, life.

Time to grow up, Phil, he told himself. He hated it.

In 1987, after seven years on the line -- during which he received his security clearance, worked on the avionics of the F-117 stealth fighter and watched his first marriage dissolve -- the chameleon-voiced comedian pushed back into the performance world. In subsequent years, Snyder played Vegas, got into prison ministry and landed parts in commercials and animated series.

``Some of the best audiences you'll ever find are behind bars,'' he said. ``But let me tell you, they really don't like the `captive audience' comment.''

He met an intense, devout, beautiful young woman named Karen. Home- schooled, feisty, a ringer for actress Kate Beckinsale, she was as serious as he was silly. Though she was 21 years his junior, they started dating, broke up, got back together and married in 1992. Today, they've got three daughters, whom they're also home-schooling, a slew of business projects and a solid relationship.

This finally gave Snyder the foundation he'd needed, the focus to turn his unique ability into something serious, something he could make into a real living.

Mocking politicians and parroting cartoon characters wasn't just a novelty anymore. It became the foundation for a company.

From their Tujunga home, double-mortgaged to support the business, the Snyders run InnerMation Inc. He's the president, she serves as chief executive officer. They produce animation and games, edit videos and design Web sites, pulling in $200,000 a year.

She can rattle off statistics for the video-game industry -- another of their various entrepreneurial endeavors -- the same way a baseball fan quotes batting averages and home runs. While her husband explores the various avenues down which his voice will take him, she handles business strategy and finds ways to rope him in.

``Sometimes, it's, Well, honey, you're very talented, but we're not going to make it into the industry the way we thought we would,'' she said. ``But because of your talents, there's other ways we can go about this.''

So as Snyder's holed up in his closet, recording ringtones and voicing commercials, she's cooking up new business ventures. Educational games, Web site design, an Evangelical children's book on Santa Claus, the couple have found all manner of ways to try to make money using a comedic, Christian perspective.

``I had a taste of getting rich and famous, rubbing elbows with the biggest of the big,'' he said. ``But I wanted to see if I could do something worthwhile.''

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Photo:

(1 -- color) Phil Snyder calls himself The Man of a Million Voices. A former self-described hippie standup comic, he's now a born again businessman who puts his vocal talents to work recording celebrity impressions for cell phone ringtones, commercials and video games, all from a walk-in closet recording studio at his Tujunga home.

(2) Phil Snyder, the self-proclaimed Man of a Million Voices, works with his wife, Karen, in their Tujunga home. Together they run InnerMation Inc., with him as president and her as CEO.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer