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!
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