I really like the voices on Bob’s Burgers, but I expecially like Tina (who is a teenage girl voiced by a guy) and Gene (voiced by Eugene Mirman). I assume the voice direction on the show has a lot to do with it. Giving Tina that voice, and putting Mirman in a cartoon were both brilliant moves.
Other than* Bob’s Burgers*, my faves right now are Finn on Adventure Time (Jeremy Shada) and also The Ice King (Tom Kenny). I am just totally in to the way they had Finn be voiced by a teenaged boy and the affectations in his voice. Now that the kid is older, the character’s voice has changed a bit but the actor seems to have learned to mock his younger voice. As for the Ice King, I just love the accent he uses or whatever. I think I like how he’s supposed to be scary and powerful but his voice (among other things) make him silly.
I think when I was younger I woulda been all over loving Wakko Warner and Pinky, but other than The Ice King I think now I am not as appreciative of “silly for sillyness’s sake.” I like more subtly funny voices.
How about you? Doesn’t have to be current cartoons, of course!
Boomhauer (Mike Judge)
Garfield (Lorenzo Music, who’s voice I’d loved since Rhoda).
Peter Venkman (also Lorenzo Music*)
Super Friends narrator (Ted Knight)
Trivia: Venkman was Bill Murray in the live action movie, Lorenzo Music when animated. Garfield’s voice was Music in the animated, Murray in the live action movie, although of course Garfield himself was computer-animated.
The worst, at least among the DC adaptations, is Michelle Monaghan’s turn as Wonder Woman in Justice League: War. Just awful, awful business. Andrea Romano must have been on an extended coffee break.
He is also the voice of Archer. The Animators of Archer used that connection to make a gruesome and hilarious short parody/crossover with Bob’s Burgers.
[Spoiler]
In it, the idea is “what if Bob is really Archer in the future trying to live a normal life after retiring from being an spy/assassin?”
Frank Welker: Fred Jones from Scooby-Doo, Nibbler, and also does a killer Lorenzo Music imitation as the current voice of Garfield.
Mark Hamill, as the Joker in most incarnations of the animated Batman series. He stated voice acting in 1970 and probably has more voice credits than live action credits.
As for voice actors recreating classic characters, Jeff Bergman was the first and best actor to take over Mel Blanc’s Looney Tunes characters, with Joe Alaskey as a close second.
I never knew how amazing Kevin Michael Richardson was until I saw that in addition to doing those deep-pitched Barry White style voices for all the Seth McFarlane cartoons, he also did Cleveland Jrs’ falsetto and Lester Krinklesack’s redneck voice in The Cleveland Show.
I always liked the many cartoon voices of Paul Frees – the Undertaker in Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Catol, Ludwig von Drake on Disney’s TV show, Boris Badenov on Rocky and Bullwinkle. The zillion little one-off voices he did. There was always a nifty sense of deep character that I didn’t get elsewhere.
The current Harley Quinn, Barbara Gordon, Raven on Teen Titans, various supporting voices on Family Guy, Timmy on Fairly Oddparents, Bubbles in Powerpuff Girls, Mary Jane Watson in Ultimate Spider-Man, Risha and Holiday in Star Wars: The Old Republic, Scarlet Witch and HERBIE in Super Hero Squad Show, and many, many others.
Tress MacNeille – Dot Warner and Babs Bunny. Brilliant.
June Foray – Rocket J. Squirrel. Beyond brilliant!
And, yes, definitely, Mel Blanc. Although I hate Foghorn Leghorn with the fiery heat of a thousand suns – a fat, ugly, cruel, stupid blowhard! – Bugs Bunny was magnificent.
Obscure, but fun when you find him: Larry Storch. I found this fun tidbit on Wikipedia: “Cary Grant—who never actually said the line ‘Judy, Judy, Judy’ in any movie or performance—attributed the phrase’s origin to a Storch performance in which he impersonated Grant. Storch was imitating Grant when he was told Judy Garland had just walked into the club.”
