Frank Welker

Sorry I've been away so long, everybody.

Before I get into this week's actor, I'd like to take this opportunity to let you all know that I'm planning to start doing reviews of material that features voice over work. In my reviews, I'll talk about the quality of the piece and the voice actors' performances. For now, though, check out this week's actor.

Frank Welker is a veteran voice actor, and at one time, the films he appeared in grossed higher than those of any other actor. This lasted from 1980 until 2011. After that, Samuel L. Jackson's films grossed the highest.

Welker is known for providing voices for many animated characters. Some examples were Megatron from the 1980s Transformers cartoon, in which he voiced the character opposite Peter Cullen's Optimus Prime. He has been the voice of the Scooby-Doo franchise's Fred Jones since 1969, and took over as the voice of the title character in 2002. In fact, a great number off Welker's credits come from Hanna-Barbera cartoons. In Super Friends, he voiced the two sidekicks Marvin White and his pet Wonder Dog. He also voiced the titular roles of Jabberjaw and Dynomutt, Dog Wonder. In the later Super Friends cartoons, Welker lent his voice to the characters of Kalibak, Darkseid and Mr. Mxyzptlk (pronounce that as you will).

Megatron from Transformers:

Since 2005, he has also been the voice of the cat Garfield in several different pieces of Garfield media.

Garfield:

Welker's other roles include that of Doctor Claw from the Inspector Gadget cartoons, Malebolgia in the 1997 Spawn movie.

Despite the wide range of speaking roles in his repertoire, Welker is also known for providing voices for a lot of characters who lack the ability to talk.

For example, he has provided vocal effects to the monkey Abu from Aladdin, the dog Toby from The Great Mouse Detective, Nibbler from Futurama, Santa's Little Helper from The Simpsons, and even the gopher from the second Caddyshack movie.

Frank Welker as Megatron from the 1980s Transformers cartoon:

Apart from his role of Megatron, Welker voiced several other Decepticons in the original Transformers series, including Soundwave, Skywarp, Mixmaster, Ratbat, Ravage, Frenzy, Rumble, Buzzsaw and Laserbeak. He also voiced a small number of Autobots: Sludge, Mirage, Chromedome and Trailbreaker.

While not being able to reprise his role in the live-action Transformers movies, Welker was able to play the Decepticon Soundwave in the second and third movies, using the same style of voice which he provided to such villains as Doctor Claw from Inspector Gadget. He was also given the roles of Shockwave and Barricade in the third movie, and has since voiced Megatron in the animated series, Transformers: Prime.

There can't be any doubt in our minds the Welker loves what he does. One thing I would love to see is him voicing Megatron in one of the live-action Transformers movies, which I realize is a long shot now, but if Peter Cullen was good enough to play Optimus in the movies, why can't Welker play his part? I was, however, happy when they let him play a couple of the movies' Decepticons.

Overall, I think most would agree that Welker has a great villain voice. It would be interesting to see him play more lead villains in newer productions. The shows Adventure Time and Regular Show would certainly benefit from a diabolical villain with Welker's voice.

If nothing else, I think this entry can serve as a reminder of the credit Welker is due for a lot of the animal sounds we enjoy hearing in our favorite animated productions. If you had told me when I was 9 that Abu from Aladdin was Megatron, I would have said you were out of your mind, but that just goes to show you how good Welker is at what he does.

Ed Gilbert

As promised, an on-time post. Check out this guy!

 

I apologize about the quality. It was the best image I could find.

 

Unfortunately, for this post, I had to pull from my list of "Late Greats." Ed Gilbert, may he rest in peace, was a veteran voice over artist, though probably better known to audiences as Fenton Hardy from The Hardy Boys.

In terms of voice over, Gilbert's resume consisted overwhelmingly of roles in Disney productions; mostly animated TV series, such as his role in the Aladdin animated series as the minor recurring character Phasir. Other examples include his replacement of Phil Harris as every Disney fan's favorite sloth bear, Baloo, in TaleSpin.

However, I bet based on his role as Baloo, you'd never have guessed that Gilbert was also the voice of the Mandarin in the original Iron Man cartoons. 

Ed Gilbert plays the Mandarin in this episode of the 1980s Iron Man cartoon. Don't feel as though you need to watch the whole thing. He should pop up in a matter of moments.


Phasir from the animated series Aladdin:

Baloo from TaleSpin:

 

As I said before, Gilbert is one of the "Late Greats" I pulled out of my hat/list/sleeve, what have you, and so I obviously can't say what I would like to hear Gilbert voice in the future. However, I can say that it would be interesting to hear someone try and voice Gilbert, or try to emulate Phil Harris, as Gilbert did when voicing Baloo. Popular voice actor James Arnold Taylor is known for doing some epic impersonations of well-known people, ranging from Nathan Lane to Johnny Depp. Perhaps Taylor could add Gilbert's voice to his list of impersonations.

Gilbert died of lung cancer on May 8, 1999 at the age of 67.

Keith David

Now this was a huge surprise. Check out who I just met today!

Keith David is a voice actor instantly recognizable by his deep, growling voice. Much like James Earl Jones, his voice brought life to a lot of different characters, ranging from heroic to villainous. His voice is well-known by people who watched Gargoyles. David was the voice of Goliath, the main character and leader of the titular gargoyles.

Here's me with him in Missoula. Seriously, what are the odds he would come to Missoula of all places? I could hardly say a word to him. Thankfully, my brother was there to help me out. Doesn't he just emanate "cool?"

Keith David as Goliath, narrating the intro to Gargoyles.


David also voiced Goliath for Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles. He also voiced the antihero character of Spawn in the characters animated series Todd McFarlane's Spawn. In the Mass Effect video games, David voiced Captain (Later Admiral) David Anderson, the mentor to the series' main character, Commander Shepard. He voiced the talking cat in the stop-motion movie Coraline. Very recently, he voiced Nick Fury in the video game Marvel Heroes. Some minor roles of his include the sun god Apollo in Hercules (both the movie and the cartoon series), Minos from the Aladdin TV series, and one of the council members from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

David has certainly had his share of villainous roles, too. In Teen Titans, he played the evil, egotistical robot Atlas. In The Princess and the Frog he voiced Dr. Facilier. He voiced the main villain, Chaos, from the Dissidia Final Fantasy games. He also voiced the not-so-nice Arbiter from the Halo series.

When you're not hearing him play these great characters, you're hearing Keith David narrate commercials urging people to answer the call of duty by joining the United States Navy.

Keith David has always been unbelievably good at what he does. He is instantly recognizable, and can flawlessly pull off any kind of role ranging from a no-nonsense high-ranking officer to a ruthless megalomaniac. He should definitely keep doing what he's doing in terms of voice over work. Any character with his voice is one worth remembering. It would be really interesting to see another animated series where he plays the main character. To my knowledge, there haven't been very many series or even one-shot pieces of entertainment that have had him as the MAIN main character since Gargoyles, and that was almost twenty years ago!

Barry Gordon

Time for the next VA on the list.

This week's VA is Barry Gordon.

I first got interested Gordon from watching SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, in which he plays one of the titular SWAT Kats, Jake Clawson, A.K.A. Razor, with fellow voice actor Charlie Adler playing his partner Chance Furlong, A.K.A. T-Bone.

Barry Gordon as Razor in SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, with Charlie Adler as T-Bone:

However, after doing some research, I also found him in one of my older favorites. He was the voice of Donatello from the original 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In that same cartoon, he also voiced Bebop, one of the Shredder's henchmen. Besides these, Gordon loaned his voice to quite a few other cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera besides SWAT Kats, such as Jabberjaw, The Snorks, The Jetsons, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs, Droopy and Tom & Jerry Kids.

I'm sure you're all familiar with the mascot of NesQuik chocolate milk. Gordon has voiced the NesQuik Bunny for various commercials for the product.

In addition to being an actor, Gordon was also the president of the Screen Actors Guild for a time. He was the longest-serving president of the guild, from 1988 to 1995.

Gordon has a good hero voice, as he's demonstrated in both SWAT Kats and Ninja Turtles. His delivery as Razor is cocky, witty and playful, but also endearing and determined. His performance as Donatello projected the kind of voice we'd expect from a ninja who is also capable of building complex machines. He expressed the kind of curiosity and aptitude we would expect from his character.

If Gordon is still getting voice over work, it would be interesting to hear an oldy-but-goody like him playing a heroic character similar to Razor and Donatello. It might also be interesting to hear him work on a project alongside one of Donatello's more recent voice actors like Yuri Lowenthal, or Sam Riegel. Another interesting idea would be to reunite Gordon with the rest of the original actors for the Turtles: Rob Paulsen, Cam Clarke and Townsend Coleman.

See you next week!

"Comment Box"

Hey, everybody!

I'm not posting another voice actor just yet. I'm writing up the next post. I'm putting up this post to hopefully get some help.

I have a long list of voice actors that I will cover with this blog. I won't tell you who they are, but I will say that I have enough to do one each week for a few years. However, there is a good chance that there are some voice actors out there who I might be forgetting about.

So, if anybody reading this has any suggestions about who I should cover in my blog posts, I'm all ears. Just post a comment to this post telling me who you think I should cover, if they're very well-known, and what they've done. I may have them already on my list, but you will see them posted eventually.

Until then, see you later!

Addendum:

This is the "Comment Box" I mentioned in my first post this afternoon. In the comments section of this post, please feel free to drop the names of anything involving voice over that you would like to see mentioned on this site. Contrary to the original post, I will be covering more than just performers on this site now.

I can't wait to see what you guys put in.

James Earl Jones

Time for the next voice actor on my list! I'm sure you'll love this one.

This time, it's one of the most well-known of voice actors: James Earl Jones.

Much like Cummings, Jones has voiced characters both heroic and villainous. He was the voice of Simba's father, Mufasa in The Lion King and the voice of Darth Vader from the original Star Wars Trilogy.

Darth Vader










Mufasa









James Earl Jones as Darth Vader from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi:


Besides those, Jones has been heard as a re-imagining of Santa Claus from the TV series Recess.

When I was in first grade, I heard him as the narrator and all the characters of a book on tape called Abiyoyo.

When Jones did Darth Vader's voice, he requested that he not be credited for it, citing the controversy about Mercedes McCambridge's voice work in The Exorcist. Jones felt that his voice work was only special effects for the character.

He finally received credit for his work on Star Wars in 1997, with the re-releases of the first two movies.

In the conclusion of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Vader's voice is very briefly heard, and the voice was uncredited. Even Jones himself doesn't know if his voice was used for Vader in that sequence.

Archived recordings of Jones' voice were used in the video game Kingdom Hearts II for the voice of Mufasa. Archived recordings of his voice are also used for the voice of Darth Vader at the Jedi Training Academy attractions in Disneyland.

Though not all of them have been as memorable as Mufasa or Vader, Jones' roles have all been incredible. His naturally deep voice makes him able to play both really good and really evil characters. I don't see him getting many opportunities to reprise Mufasa in the future, but personally, I think it's a shame that Jones hasn't done the voice of Darth Vader for any Star Wars video games, or even the game Soulcalibur IV, in which Vader appeared as a guest character. Not to disregard the amazing work of Matt Sloan, but I think fans of the series would be ecstatic to hear the real Vader in a video game, at least every once in a while.

Talk to you again next week!

Jim Cummings

Time for my first official post to this blog. Back when I was doing these on Facebook, I was calling it my Voice Actor of the Week, but we’ll see where this goes.

Jim Cummings is a legend. His voice has been featured in countless animated works, particularly in Disney’s animated productions.

You’d probably recognize him best as Winnie the Pooh and his friend Tigger. Cummings took over for their original voice actors back in the 1980s. But Pooh and Tigger are not the limit of his Disney characters. You’ve also seen him as guard captain Razoul from the Aladdin movies and its spin-offs, Pete from various Disney media (including Goof Troop and A Goofy Movie and its sequels) and Nessus the Centaur from Hercules.

In The Lion King, you didn’t hear him speak, but you heard him laugh a LOT. He played Ed, the third of the hyena trio, for whom he recorded over four hours of laughing. He also provided the singing voice for Scar when Scar's voice actor Jeremy Irons developed vocal problems during the movie's production. He did the same thing for chief Powhatan on Pocahontas.

Cummings reprised his roles as Pooh, Tigger, Pete and Ed in the hit video game series Kingdom Hearts.

Jim Cummings as Pooh Bear and Tigger from Kingdom Hearts II, with Haley Joel Osment as Sora:



Recently, Jim Cummings has done some work with Blizzard Entertainment, narrating several sequences for World of Warcraft’s newest expansion, Mists of Pandaria, and voicing some of the Pandarens, including Lorewalker Cho, and Shen-zin Su.

Jim Cummings has demonstrated a wide range of voices over the span of his career. His characters have ranged from important to unimportant, from innocent to villainous and from woefully likeable to delightfully unlikeable. It’s hard to tell exactly what kinds of characters he is suitable to playing, since he’s played them all. For me, hearing his voice as the Patriarch on Mass Effect 2 was so unexpected and yet the role also fit him perfectly. He seemed to play the character well enough, like he’d been part of the Mass Effect universe for years.

Cummings has proven his vocal versatility with his long career. Given all of his previously-stated roles, I wouldn't be surprised if I heard his voice as Pete, Pooh and Tigger until he retired. It's hard to tell what kind of voices I could see him doing in the future besides those ones, but whatever they are, it's safe to say he will do them well.

I'll post another actor on Friday. After this, I'll start posting them on a weekly basis. Catch you later!

Welcome

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Voices Carry.

In this blog, I will post facts about the voice over industry and voice actors. To those of you who know what a voice actor is, I hope you enjoy my work. For whoever doesn’t know, a voice actor is any person who provides their voice for creative works. These works can include commercials, radio shows, cartoons, movies, video games, etc. Some voice actors you might know include James Earl Jones, Nathan Lane, Haley Joel Osment, Tim Curry, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Liam Neeson and many other well-known people. Sadly, even though the voice industry has been growing lately, it is still one of the least-appreciated industries in the United States. My hope is that with this blog, more people will become more aware and supportive of this wonderful industry.

As previously stated, I will post facts on this blog about the voice over industry and voice actors. The actors I talk about will range from the best-known to the least-known, but don’t worry about not recognizing them immediately. Whenever I post an actor, I will attach a picture and a voice sample to go with it. I encourage readers to talk to people they know about what they find on this blog. I also encourage people to write responses to my posts, as I care what my readers think. If you feel like it, post a recording of you voicing your response, as I’m always excited to hear a talented voice.

I can be a little irregular with my posts, but I will try to post at least once a week.

Catch you later!