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.
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:
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
