The brief discussion of Mark Hamill over in this thread got me thinking about some of the people I was amazed to find out did voice acting, especially in cartoons I watched as a kid. Of course, now it seems like being a voice actor is actually respectable (look at all the big animated movies over the last decade; Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Mike Myers, Antonio Banderas, Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Albert Brooks, Ellen Degeneres, Robin Williams…) but I bet no one could tell you who the voice actor was for any character of a lot of the earlier Disney movies, for example. At least not without an IMDB search first.
Anyway, here’s at least part of my list. The criteria is that for a TV show the actor can’t be doing a cameo or one-off part, but is a recurring character. No real limitations for movies.
Mark Hamill–already mentioned in the linked thread.
Ben Stein–the Fairy Godfather in several Animaniacs episodes, as well as the movie. It took me years to figure out who that was, and I had to read the credits. I blame it on the only other thing I ever saw Stein doing as a kid was eyedrop commericals.
Tom Bodett–the Narrator in several Animaniacs episodes. Like Stein, it took me forever to figure out who that was, and I blame this one on the only other thing that he ever did at the time was Motel 6 commericals. Though you’d think I’d have less of an excuse since he actually says “I’m Tom Bodett” in those commericals.
Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner–at least these four for Gargoyles. I recognized all their voices thanks to ST:TNG, but I never could figure out why they all did it.
Kate Mulgrew–I’ll admit to an IMDB search here while I was looking up the previous four. Gargoyles once again. I’ll be honest in that I’d never heard of her until ST:Voyager, and I gotta say that her acting career doesn’t look all that spectacular.
Brent Spiner (again)–I’ll never figure out why he did a Conan O’Brien impression in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.
I’m sure there’s a whole lot more, but that’s all I can really come up with right now. So, Dopers, what do you have on your list?
Olivia d’Abo and Michael T Weiss are Jane and Tarzan respectively on the Disney Channel’s The Legend of Tarzan cartoon.
Patrick Warburton, David Puddy from Seinfeld, does the voice of Buzz Lightyear in Disney’s TV show Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. He also voices Kronk in the Disney movie The Emperor’s New Groove. And he’s the P.E. teacher in Kim Possible.
John O’Hurley, J. Peterman from Seinfeld, does a lot of voice work for Disney as well. He’s done episodes of The Legend of Tarzan, *Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, * and Kim Possible.
Wayne Knight, Rene Aberjonois, Dabney Coleman and Ed Asner have all done voice work for Disney channel probrams. We watch an awful lot of Disney in our house. There are lots of other voices I recognize that I don’t know the actors names.
Re-read the original posts and wanted to note: all the actors I mentioned are, if not regular characters in every episode, re-occurring guest characters.
I was surprised when I learned recently that Phil LaMarr does the voices of both Green Lantern and Static Shock. My surprise was not because he’s famous (he’s not), but that both voices are done by the same guy.
Caught Pulp Fiction for the first in years last week. I was very surprised to realize that Phil played Marvin (he of the missing head). Just one of those, oh, duh moments.
I’ve mentioned this in other threads more than once but it bears repeating: Ted Knight (Mary Tyler Moore, Caddyshack) was the narrator on the old Superfriends episodes. “Later…at…the Hall of Justice!”
‘Gargoyles’ deserves special mention for its voicework. At one time or another, most of the TNG cast appeared on the show.
Here are a few other suprising voice actors from the show - these are all recurring roles, not just cameos. The show was very continuity-driven and not really episodic.
Michael Dorn - Coldstone
Brent Spiner - Puck
Nichelle Nichols - Elisa’s mother
Laura San Giacomo - Fox Xanatos
John Rys-Davies - McBeth
Clancy Brown - Wolf
Mat Frewer - Jackel
Michael Horse - Peter Maza
David Warner - the Archmage
There were many more - the show is somewhat unusual in that there were no ‘repeat voices’ - that is, no actors playing more than one role to save money. Each and every role had a different actor. And the the cast list is sizeable; they must have spent a fortune on voice talent.
There’s a comprehensive listing HERE if anyone is interested.
Not only that, but Olivia d’Abo recently did a guest voice as Morgan le Fay on Justice League Unlimited. The next episode, Fred Savage and Jason Hervey voiced Hawk & Dove, thus completing the *Wonder Years * kid trifecta.
When I first saw B:TAS, I could not believe that was Hamill as the Joker. In fact, I just cannot picture him doing the voice. It’s a shame he won’t be doing it for the upcoming Batman toon.
When I said that, I was mainly thinking about the Simpsons. I didn’t think we really needed 40 posts of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael Jackson, Rod Howard, and so on. I was thinking people like Kelsey Grammer and Phil Hartman would count.
I just found that out a couple months ago or so and was surprised too, although after I thought about it, yeah, it’s so obvious since he does his own voice, but I still never noticed until it was pointed out.
Also, just a few weeks ago, I looked up the voice cast for [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182576/]Family guy** and was surprised by that pretty much everybody was voiced by a celebrity. Until then, I only knew that Seth Seth MacFarlane was Peter, and a few other characters, and Seth Green was Chris, and that was about it.
Nitpick: Stein played a boring man named Francis “Pip” Pumphandle in two episodes. Other guest stars included Jonathan Winters, Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber, and Ron Perlman, who now plays Slade on “Teen Titans.”
The real shock from that show: Bernadette Peters as Rita. I still can’t figure out how they got her. The Pinky and the Brain spinoff also had Roddy McDowell as their archenemy, Snowball the hamster.
The recent “Chalk Zone” movie had Malcolm MacDowall in it. Seriously. Caligula as a hyperintelligent centipede. It’s even drawn to look like him.
