Famous Cartoon Voices!

[Omniscient]

First a question that has been eating at me forever. Does anyone know who the voice of one of the old Thundercats characters. For some reason think of the charaters name right now, but he's the blue bald one who is the oldest Thundercat. I know this guys voice, but can't match it to anyone I know of. I am guessing its so familiar because he does regular acting now. Is Liono a common actor too?

This leads me into a more general question that is probably better suited to MPSIMS, but since we're on the subject....Does anyone know of any actors who got their start doing cartoons? We all know some of the big name voice artists, but what about guys just trying to make and then succeed. Listening to the voices on Cartoon Network I guess that there are several who likely have made it big somehow.

[ThufferinThuccotash]

If you are talking about "Panthro", the voice was performed by Earl Hyman. I'm not sure if he has done any live acting, but he does a number of voices on the "Thundercats". Check this out:

Thundercats (http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Set/3331/cast.html)

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TT

"Believe those who seek the truth.
Doubt those who find it." --Andre Gide

[GuanoLad]

Earl Hyman? Isn't that Wilson from Home Improvement?



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"So what you are telling me, Percy, is that something you have never seen is slightly less blue than something else that you have never seen."

[Omniscient]

This is Earl Hymen, and now I finally know how I know of him :D.

http://www.myhost.com/nicks/Pallph.jpg

He's the grandpa on The Cosby Show.

[GuanoLad]

Oh yeah. Wilson is Earl Hindman.

Shucks.

;)

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"So what you are telling me, Percy, is that something you have never seen is slightly less blue than something else that you have never seen."

[Louie]

What about the guy who does the voice for Garfield in "Garfield and Friends"? I swear I hear that voice in almost every cartoon I watch.

[RealityChuck]

That's Lorenzo Music, who first gained promenance at "Carlton, your doorman" on RHODA.

Back to the original question, Arsenio Hall did voice work for THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, but he had done some TV before. He didn't become a star until later, though.

[Undead Dude]

Casey Kasem did (and still does) cartoon voices. I think the most easily recognized one is Robin from the old Batman & Robin and Superfriends cartoons. His biggest cartoon character is Shaggy from Scooby Doo. IMDB says that he did Mr. Magoo, but I can't remember what Mr. Magoo sounded like.

Ted Knight (from Mary Tyler Moore) was the narrator for Superfriends. You hear him a lot, because that show is extremely dependent on exposition, esp in the Aquaman scenes :)

[astorian]

I remember Ted Knight as the voice of the hero on "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Beyond that, William "Cannon" Conrad did a lot of cartoon voices.

[timmar68]

What is IMDB? I thought Jim Backus was the voice of Mr. Magoo.

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MaryAnn
Sometimes life is so great you just gotta muss up your hair and quack like a duck!

[Undead Dude]

Oooh boy, MaryAnn! Allow me to introduce you to one of the most useful websites around (in a trivial sort of way).

The Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com)

[Undead Dude]

Oh and incidentally, it looks like Jim Backus was the voice of Mr. Magoo, and Casey Kasem also did some other voice on the cartoon. They don't specifically say who Casey did the voice or voices of.

[Undead Dude]

And of course Michael Dorn is the voice of I.M. Weasel from "Cow and Chicken" and the "I Am Weasel" spinoff.

Of course that's hardly a career starter. It might actually be an indication that he's not getting many offers other than Worf.

[GuanoLad]

Half of Star Trek is in Gargoyles.

Wanna know something cool? I have a page on the IMDB :)



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"So what you are telling me, Percy, is that something you have never seen is slightly less blue than something else that you have never seen."

[Koxinga]

Slightly OT, since he was famous for quite a few things before The Hobbit, but I've always thought that John Huston was the definitive voice of Gandalf.

DHR

[Koxinga]

More in line with the original question--did Hank Azaria (sp.?) get his start in cartoons? IIRC, he did the voice of Apu in The Simpsons for many years before he appeared as Agador the Butler in The Birdcage.

DHR

[GuanoLad]

Hank Azaria and Yeardley Smith were both in Herman's Head, but that began post-Simpsons also.

I had seen Yeardley Smith in some minor roles pre-Simpsons (she has a very distinctive look) but I don't know what Hank has done (travels to IMDB...)



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"So what you are telling me, Percy, is that something you have never seen is slightly less blue than something else that you have never seen."

Cheryl Ladd (of Charlie's Angels fame) started out in cartoons. She was the singing voice of Melody in Josie and the Pussycats. And Tim Matheson (Otter in Animal House) was the voice of Jonny Quest.

[GuanoLad]

If you look at Hanna Barbera cast lists for things like Scooby Doo or Flintstones etc, you see names like Rip Taylor and Rene Auberjonois.

Wasn't Cary Grant one of the cats in Top Cat?
Bwahahahahahaha!!!!



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"So what you are telling me, Percy, is that something you have never seen is slightly less blue than something else that you have never seen."

[AWB]

Ann Jillian did a voice on "Sealab 2020"

I saw Space Jam the other day, and noticed that Warner Bros. now has several actors doing the various Warner cartoon voices. I was under the impression that when Mel Blanc died, that his son, Noel, took over the job of providing the voices (I saw him on TV once, and he could do the voices perfectly). Does anyone know why Noel Blanc does not do the voices? Does he not want to, or is it a case of Warners not wanting to put all of their eggs in one basket?

[kunilou]

Wasn't Sally Struthers the voice of Pebbles Flintstone, or am I thoroughly confused?

[SMWestLA]

Regarding Noel Blanc--his father trained him to do all his voices before he passed on, so he could continue the Blanc legacy.

...Fortunately, though, Warner Bros. decided to instead go with various people who actually *sounded* like the original characters instead.

Apparently Noel wasn't particularly adept at mimicking his father's voices, at least not very closely. ...Least from what I've heard him do.

With the various actors voicing them now, some of the new voices are better than others, in my opinion. I think this guy named Joe Alaskey does a number of Blanc's WB characters' voices, but I think he really shines as Sylvester--it sounds almost identical to Blanc's version.

Speaking of new actors recreating older cartoon voices, one thing that blew me away recently was a quick little promo on Cartoon Network where Fred Flintstone is driving the Flintmobile around the Cartoon Network parking lot, looking for a parking space. Instead of getting character actor Henry Corden, who has been mangling Fred's voice into a bad Ralph Kramden impression since the mid-1970s (and continues to do so in almost all other current Flintstones productions, most visibly in the Post Pebbles cereals commercials), they got someone else to provide Fred's few lines, and geez, it sounds almost dead-on like Alan Reed, the original voice of Fred. I hope there's some way to gently force Corden into retirement from his yabba-dabba-duties and get this new guy to do it from now on.

As for Pebbles Flintstone, Sally Struthers provided the voice of teenage Pebbles for "The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show", which ran for one season in the early 1970s (Dennis the Menace's Jay North was Bamm-Bamm). The show came back in a different format the next season, with musical numbers, and quick Laugh-In type black out gags, and really bad animation (Comparing the animation on "Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm" to the following season's "Flintstone Comedy Show" is like comparing night and day)...and someone else was doing Pebbles' voice. ...Perhaps Struthers had gained success as Gloria Bunker by then and didn't have the time or the need to continue at H&B...? --SM

[tracer]

And let us not forget, the late, great Scatman Crothers was the voice of Jazz on The Transformers, and also the voice of the title character in Hong Kong Phooey.

[torq]

On The Simpsons, Marcia Wallace (the receptionist on the Bob Newhart show) does Edna Krabappel, and the voice of Troy McClure was Phil Hartman from SNL and News Radio.

There have been a LOT of celebrity guest appearances on The Simpsons, too.

[tracer]

Mike King wrote:

Cheryl Ladd (of Charlie's Angels fame) started out in cartoons. She was the singing voice of Melody in Josie and the Pussycats.

You mean she was type-cast? :)

[Yankee Blue]

Voice over work pays really well and it's not too taxing. Just listen not only to cartoons these days but to the commercials. You'd be surprised who's out there hawking cars and breakfast cereal. Everybody from Richard Dreyfuss to Eric Roberts. And Mark Hamill is a regular cartoon voice over at Captain Planet among others.

[MrKnowItAll]

Yankee Blue:
And Mark Hamill is a regular cartoon voice over at Captain Planet among others.

IMHO, the most intriguing Mark Hamill VO is his recurring role as The Joker on the current [i]Batman[i] animated series.

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Carpe hoc!

[divemaster]

Shannon Doherty was the voice of one of the little mouse children from The Secret of NIMH, which come out in the early '80s.

[dwtno]

Wow! "Sealab 2020" That brings back the memories! How about "Fantastic Voyage?" Very little relation to the movie, but a hellava adventure cartoon series for the (then) 9-year-old crowd! (CMDF - Combined Miniature Deterent Force... how's THAT for dredging things up?)

And back to the topic at hand...

A local television personality here in New Orleans whom I do regular work with is now providing the voice of Betty Boop (as well as a number of other voices). I get such a kick knowing that I'm hanging out with the succesor to Mae Questel!

Also, last year when TV Land was running 70s saturday morning TV, I caught one of the old "Brady Kids" episodes. Only about three of the kids provided their own voice. 'Greg' was a no-show - the character had a definite lisp. But Marcia's voice really stopped me cold - I swear it was Jodie Foster! The IMDB says she was Pugsley Addams (?!) in the 1973 animated "Addams Family" series. It's not a stretch to believe she cut a few extra line for a missing Eve Plumb one day. Anyone know a way to confirm this? (She wasn't in the credits, BTW.)

[Jake]

IIRC, June Foray was the voice of Rocky the Flying Squrrel on the old Rocky & Bullwinkle show. Anyone remember who did Bullwinkle?

[dwtno]

That's Rocket J. Squirrel, thank you very much, voice provided by the very talented June Foray.

Bullwinkle J. Moose was voiced by Bill Scott, the talent also behind Dudley Doright and Mr. Peabody. Bill was also a prominent writer in the Warner Bros. animated shorts section.

And how about cartoon characters that are supposed to sound like famous people? Sugar Bear originally was a Bing Crosby rip-off; the Toucan (what cereal is he shilling?) is Ronald Colman, and Hardy-Har-Har the hyena was supposed to be ZaSu Pitts.

Oh, and the original Scrubbing Bubbles were a decent imitation of Hugh Herbert (woo-hoo! woo-hoo!).

[HubZilla]

Looking at IMDB's Filmography on cartoon voices can dig up all sorts of neat stuff. (Most of these you might've guessed)

Optimus Prime is Peter Cullen, who also does Eeyore in the newer Winnie-the-Pooh cartoons. I always thought the voice was James Gammon, the manager in Major League and Nash Bridges' Dad.

Pooh's voice in the classic (and better) series was Sterling Holloway who sometimes played a professor on the old George Reeves Superman series.

Mel Blanc, mentioned about with Bugs, Daffy, etc, also voiced Barney from Flintstones.

Casey Kasem was Robin from Superfriends and Norville "Shaggy" Rogers from Scooby Doo.

Don Messick was Scooby, Boo Boo, Astro, Papa Smurf, and Godzooky from that Godzilla show.

Ikue Ootani is Pikachu's voice, in case you (or your kids) might be curious. I prefer Squirtle, his Japanese cute "Zemigane!", not the croaky dubbed "Squirtle Squirtle!"

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"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument" - William McAdoo

[ThufferinThuccotash]

Does anybody know who does the voices for Vince and Larry, the "Crash Test Dummies"? My WAG is Jack Burns and Lorenzo Music, but I can't support that.

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TT

"Believe those who seek the truth.
Doubt those who find it." --Andre Gide

[dwtno]

That's definitely Lorenzo Music as one of the CTDs. Carlton Your Doorman is indellibly bruned into this brain. I've alwasy assumed the other CTD was Jack Burns, but I can't prove this either. Jack does voice work, so it probably is him.

I think most of us know who Lorenzo Music is by now. For the unfamilier, Jack Burns played Warren Ferguson on the Andy Griffith Show. Warren was the replacement deputy after Don Knotts left the show.

[SoxFan59]

Oh, and the original Scrubbing Bubbles were a decent imitation of Hugh Herbert (woo-hoo! woo-hoo!).>>>>

The scrubbing bubbles were voiced by Paul Winchell, of Tigger fame.


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SoxFan59
"Its fiction, but all the facts are true!"

[Torgo]

Does anybody know who does the voices for Vince and Larry, the "Crash Test Dummies"? My WAG is Jack Burns and Lorenzo Music, but I can't support that.

Lorenzo Music and Pat Harrington (Schneider the super from "One Day at a Time")



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Tim
"My hovercraft is full of eels."

[dwtno]

Sorry Torgo, but I don't hear it. I've just spent far too much time trying to verify either Jack Burns or Pat Harrington (Jr., by the way... his father acted, also) as a CTD voice, and I'm afriad I can't. I found a site confirming Mr. Music, but not the other voice. So for now it's my ear against yours.

I can't say with 100% certainty that Burns is a CTD, but I am certain that the voice I'm hearing is NOT Harrington's.

Can anyone out there settle this? Please?

[ChiefScott]

I must give props to Larry Storch. He provided the voices in many of Hanna-Barbara shorts and series. He's probably best known to the boomer generation as Corporal Agarn of F Troop.

[MrKnowItAll]

The IMDb confirms Music as a CTD, but doesn't mention either Burns or Harrington as the other one. My guess would be Burns, since he has done voice-over work before. I also think it sounds more like him.

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