My top 51 voice actors/actresses
The order is somewhat arbitrary, but 1-6 are in order
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Actor, composer, songwriter, voiceover artist and author. He joined ASCAP in 1956, and his chief musical collaborators included Tony Romano, Ruby Raksin, Walter Gross, and Ed Brandt. His popular-song compositions include "Hollywood Soliloquy", "The Clown", "Drowning My Sorrow", and "Voice in the Wind".- Actor
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Maurice LaMarche is a Canadian-American comedian and voice actor from Toronto. He is most well-known for voicing Brain from Pinky and the Brain, Lrrr, Morbo and Calculon from Futurama, Estroy from Evil Con Carne, Mr. Big from Zootopia, King Agnarr from Frozen, Mr. Freeze from Batman: Arkham City, Yosemite Sam from Looney Tunes, Jack O'Lantern from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Toucan Sam from Froot Loops commercials and Orson Welles from The Critic.- Actress
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Tara Strong began her acting career at the age of 13 in Toronto, Canada. She landed several TV, film, and musical theater roles as well as her first lead in an animated series as the title role of "Hello Kitty." After a short run at Toronto's Second City theater company, she moved to Los Angeles with an extensive resume that included her own sit-com and well over 20 animated series. Upon arriving in Hollywood, she quickly made her mark in several TV and Film projects, such as "Party of Five," "National Lampoon's Senior Trip," "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," and more. She has an iconic voice-over career, including roles such as Bubbles in "The Powerpuff Girls," Timmy Turner in "The Fairly OddParents," Dil Pickles in "Rugrats," Raven in "Teen Titans," "Batgirl," "Family Guy," "Drawn Together," "Ben 10," Melody in "The Little Mermaid 2," "Spirited Away," etc. She is Miss Collins on Nickelodeon's "Big Time Rush" and the current voice of "Harley Quinn." She is Emmy nominated, a Shorty Award winner, Twilight Sparkle in "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and currently playing "Unikitty" in the new hit series. She appeared in the Hallmark Christmas movie, "A Very Merry Toy Store." She has 350,000 Twitter followers (@tarastrong) and has used her social media to raise several hundred thousand dollars for kids with cancer and animal rescue groups, as well as using her commanding voices for her anti-bullying platform. She lives in Los Angeles. From between 2000 and 2019 she was married to former actor and real estate agent Craig Strong. However, the couple went their separate ways in July 2019 and, eventually, they formally divorced in January 2022. They have two sons together.- Actor
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Mel Blanc, known as "The Man of Thousand Voices" is regarded as the most prolific actor to ever work in Hollywood with over a thousand screen credits. He developed and performed nearly 400 distinct character voices with precision and a uniquely expressive vocal range. The legendary specialist from radio programs, television series, cartoon shorts and movie was rarely seen by his audience but his voice characterizations were famous around the world.
Blanc under exclusive contract until 1960 to Warner Brothers voiced virtually every major character in the Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoon pantheon. Characters including Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Wile E. Coyote,The Roadrunner, Yosemite Sam, Sam the Sheepdog, Taz the Tazmanian Devil, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé la Pew, Charlie the Dog, Blacque Jacque Shellacque, Pussyfoot, Private Snafu among others were voiced by Blanc.
After 1960, Blanc continued to work for Warner Brothers but began to work for other companies once his exclusive contract ended. He worked for Hanna-Barbera voicing characters including Barney Rubble, Dino the Dinosaur, Cosmo Spacely, Secret Squirrel, Captain Caveman, Speed Buggy, Wally Gator among others. He provided vocal effects for Tom & Jerry in the mid 1960's working with fellow Warner Bros. alum, Chuck Jones at what would become MGM Animation. In the mid 1960's, Blanc originated and voiced Toucan Sam for the Kellogg's Fruit Loops commercials. He would later go to originate and voice Twiki for Buck Rogers and Heathcliff in the late 1970's and early 1980's.- Actor
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Frank Welker was born in Colorado. He followed his dream to California, and started a voice acting career which has spanned over five decades and hundreds of credits. Frank has worked with fellow voice actors Casey Kasem, Nicole Jaffe, Don Messick, Heather North, and Stefanianna Christopherson on Hanna-Barbera's iconic Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969), voicing Fred Jones, among other Scooby credits over the years. He has also worked with Kurt Russell, Peter Cullen, and Michael Bay.- Actress
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Georgia native Catherine Taber made her feature film debut starring in the coming of age drama "The Girls' Room". Taber's performance in the film garnered critical praise from industry publications. Daily Variety hailed her performance as "winning, empathetic and intimate." Catherine can also be seen alongside Reese Witherspoon in the romantic comedy, Just like Heaven, as well as 2009's Curious George 2, 2008's Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the film that kicked off the series, and in numerous comedic and dramatic television appearances.
Catherine made her voice-acting debut playing Mission Vao in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. She has since appeared in some of the most popular science fiction and fantasy titles on the market including The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and X Men. Cat also plays the young Princess Leia in the award winning Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and its sequel, The Force Unleashed II. In 2012, Taber has returned to the Star Wars Universe to play Vette in the Star Wars: The Old Republic. Catherine was nominated for a NAViGaTR Award (National Academy of Video Game Testers and Reviewers) for her portrayal of Penelo in "Final Fantasy 12"
Hailed as a Geek Goddess amongst the sci fi, fantasy, and gaming communities, Catherine feels right at home in her current role of Padme Amidala in the critically acclaimed Cartoon Network television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
When this self-proclaimed sci-fi geek isn't living out her childhood dreams on set, she is giving back to her community. Catherine started the organization Games For Soldiers which accepts donations of video games and comic books that she sends to troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.- Actor
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Popular American character actor of amusing appearance and voice whose long career led from dozens of highly enjoyable onscreen performances to world-wide familiarity as the voice of numerous Walt Disney animated films. Born in the American Deep South to grocer Sterling P. Holloway Sr. and Rebecca Boothby Holloway, he had a younger brother, Boothby. Holloway spent his early years as an actor playing comic juveniles on the stage. His bushy reddish-blond hair and trademark near-falsetto voice made him a natural for sound pictures, and he acted in scores of talkies, although he had made his picture debut in silents. His physical image and voice relegated him almost exclusively to comic roles, but in 1945, director Lewis Milestone cast him more or less against type in the classic war film A Walk in the Sun (1945), where Holloway's portrayal of a reluctant soldier was quite notable. He played frequently on television, becoming familiar to baby-boomers in a recurring role as Uncle Oscar on Adventures of Superman (1952), and later in television series of his own. His later work as the voice of numerous characters in Disney cartoons brought him new audiences and many fans, especially for his voicing of beloved Winnie the Pooh. He died in 1992.- Actress
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Cree Summer Francks is a Canadian-American voice actress and singer from Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of Canadian actor and singer Don Francks. She is most well-known for voicing Kida from Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Tiff Crust and Queen Vexus (when Eartha Kitt is unavailable) from My Life as a Teenage Robot, Cleo from Clifford the Big Red Dog, Numbuh 5 from Codename: Kids Next Door, Foxxy Love from Drawn Together, Susie Carmichael from Rugrats, Cynder from The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, Elmyra Duff from Tiny Toon Adventures, Penny from Inspector Gadget and Dr. Penelope Young in Batman: Arkham Asylum.- Actress
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Legendary voice actress June Foray was born June Lucille Forer on September 18, 1917 in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Maurice Forer and Ida Edith Robinson, who wed in Hampden, Massachusetts. Her father, who was Jewish, emigrated from Novgorod, Imperial Russia, while her Massachusetts-born mother was of Lithuanian Jewish and French-Canadian descent. Her mother converted to Judaism to marry, and took the name Sarah.
At age 12, young June was already doing "old lady" voices. She had the good fortune of having a speech teacher who also had a radio program in the Springfield area. This teacher became her mentor, and added June to the cast of her show. Eventually her family moved to Los Angeles, where she continued in radio. By age fifteen, she was writing her own show for children, "Lady Makebelieve", in which she also provided voices. June dabbled in both on-camera acting and voice work, but was particularly talented in voice characterizations, dialects and accents. Just like Daws Butler, one of her later co-stars, she was a "voice magician" and worked steadily in radio from the 1930s into the 1950s.
June branched out from radio and began providing voices for cartoon characters. In the 1940s, she provided the voices for a live-action series of shorts, "Speaking of Animals", in which she dubbed in voices for real on-screen animals, a task she was to repeat many years later in an episode of The Magical World of Disney (1954). In the late 1940s June, Stan Freberg, Daws Butler, Pinto Colvig and many others recorded hundreds of children's and adult albums for Capitol Records. Her female characterizations on these records ran the entire gamut from little girls to middle-aged women, old ladies, dowagers and witches. No one seemed to be able to do these same voices with the warmth, energy and sparkle that June did.
In the 1950s June's star in animation not only began to rise but soared when Walt Disney sought her out and hired her to do the voice of Lucifer the cat in Cinderella (1950). The Disney organization continued to use June many times over, well into the 21st century. Warner Brothers also hired her to replace Bea Benaderet and do all of its "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" cartoons. June has done many incidental characters for Warners, but her most famous voice has been that of Granny (in the "Tweety and Sylvester" series). Unfortunately, since Mel Blanc's contract called for exclusive voice credit on these cartoons, June never received credit for all the voices she did. During this time she also appeared on [error].
In 1957, Jay Ward met with June to discuss her voicing the characters of "Rocky the Flying Squirrel" and "Natasha Fatale" in a cartoon series. On November 19, 1959, the show debuted as The Bullwinkle Show (1959), later changing its name to The Bullwinkle Show (1959). June provided many other voices for this show, especially its "side shows" such as "Fractured Fairy Tales" and "Aesop and Son". She did fewer voices for the "Peabody's Improbable History" segment, but she did appear in at least three of those episodes. After the show had been successful for a few years, Ward added one of its most popular segments, "Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties". June was a regular in this side show as Dudley's girlfriend Nell Fenwick.
Since Ward used June exclusively for nearly all his female voices, he showcased her talents as no other producer had before. June missed out on doing voices for three of the show's "Fractured Fairy Tales" because she could not reschedule some bookings to do recording work with Stan Freberg, so Julie Bennett filled in for her on those occasions. Dorothy Scott--co-producer Bill Scott's wife--also filled in for June a few times for "Peabody's Improbable History". Her collaboration with Ward made her incredibly famous, and "Rocky the Flying Squirrel" became her signature voice. To this day June regularly wears a necklace with the figure of Rocky sculpted by her niece Lauren Marems.
Ward later produced two other cartoon series, Hoppity Hooper (1964) and George of the Jungle (1967). June's appearances on "Hoppity Hooper" were limited to the segments of "Fractured Fairy Tales", "Dudley Do-Right" and "Peabody" that aired during its run. On "Fractured Fairy Tales" June did a whole montage of voices similar to those from her Capitol Records days. Her witch voices were so incredibly funny and magnificently done that Disney and Warner Brothers tapped her to provide that same voice for the character of Witch Hazel. She was once again the lone female voice artist, this time on "George of the Jungle". Included on that show were the "Super Chicken" and "Tom Slick" side shows.
In the 1960s, June lost out to Bea Benaderet when she auditioned for the voice of "Betty Rubble" on The Flintstones (1960). June appeared numerous times during the decade in holiday specials such as Frosty the Snowman (1969) and The Little Drummer Boy (1968)). In the 1960s and 1970s, June dubbed in voices for full-length live-action feature films many times. Jay Ward and Bill Scott also had her dub in dialogue for silent movies in their non-animated series Fractured Flickers (1963).
In the early 1970s, June tried her hand at puppetry. She became the voice of an elephant, an aardvark and a giraffe on Curiosity Shop (1971). Around this time she also recorded various voices for the road shows of "Disney on Parade", which toured the US and Europe for several years.
She acted on-camera occasionally over the years, primarily on talk shows, game shows and documentaries; in the early years of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), she performed a 13-week stint as a little Mexican girl. However, June had said that she prefers to record behind the scenes because she jokingly said "She can earn more money in less time."
June Foray died on July 26, 2017, in Los Angeles, California, U.S. She was ninety nine years old.- Actress
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Grey Griffin was born in Fort Ord, California. She is a singer and well-known voice actress. She was raised by her grandmother through her difficult childhood because her mother was a drug addict. Her grandmother was a singer and performed often with Tito Puente. Grey was highly interested in goth bands, mostly The Cure. Her mother, however, born-again Pentecostal, strictly forbade Grey to listen to goth music. In her late teens, she sang gospel songs. Thanks to that, she became interested in stand-up comedy and started to perform it. She also had a talent for voice impressions, which led to voice acting.
Griffin started in a few animation series and, since then, has been featured in numerous video games.
She is best-known for providing the voice of "Vicky" in the Nickelodeon TV series, "Fairly OddParents" (2001-2013), as well as "Mandy" in the Cartoon Network TV show, "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" (2001 - 2007). She voiced "Mandy" again in two more films about Billy and Mandy, "Billy and Mandy Big Boogie Adventure" (2007) and "The Grim Adventures of KND" (2007), opposite Richard Steven Horvitz (Billy) and Greg Eagles (Grim).
In 2002, Grey DeLisle married musician Murry Hammond, the bassist for the band, Old 97's. Their first child, Jefferson Texas Hammond, was born in 2007, in Los Angeles, California.- Actor
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Daniel Louis Castellaneta is an American actor, voice actor, comedian and television writer. Castellaneta is best known for voicing Homer Simpson on the animated series The Simpsons (1989) (as well as other characters on the show such as Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Mel, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, and Hans Moleman). Castellaneta also had voice roles in several other programs, including Futurama (1999), Sibs (1991) and Darkwing Duck (1991), The Adventures of Dynamo Duck (1990), The Batman (2004), Back to the Future (1991), Aladdin (1994), Taz-Mania (1991) and Hey Arnold! (1996). He also occasionally guest starred on shows like Friends (1994) and How I Met Your Mother (2005).
In 1999, he appeared in the Christmas special Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999) and won an Annie Award for his portrayal of the Postman. Castellaneta released a comedy album "I Am Not Homer", and wrote and starred in a one-person show titled "Where Did Vincent van Gogh?".- Actor
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Born Paul Wilchinsky on December 21, 1922, the son of Sol and Clara Wilchinsky, Paul Winchell grew up to be the most beloved ventriloquist of American children. Ironically, as famous as Paul was, his dummy, Jerry Mahoney, was probably more famous. Not since Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy in the previous two decades had a ventriloquist and his dummy known equal celebrity.
Entering the spotlight on the Edward Bowes "Original Amateur Hour" (1948), he began working soon after in a review show in which Major Bowes would showcase the winners of his radio program. He started his television career on the CBS program The Bigelow Show (1948) in 1948; The Paul Winchell Show (1950), originally called "The Spiedel Show," in 1950; and, finally, the best-known of his shows Winchell-Mahoney Time (1965). With a clubhouse premise, his dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff--another of Paul's characters--as the clubhouse leaders, and the music of the bandleader Milton Delugg. A new innovation of Winchell's was to replace the dummy's hands with those of puppeteers who were hidden behind the dummies in a crate. Winch also played many serous dramatic roles on television without his dummy sidekicks.
What may be even more famous is that he created the voice of Tigger for the Walt Disney Company's "Winnie The Pooh" motion-picture series, based on the famous books by A.A. Milne. He played the role behind the scenes until 1999, when he was replaced by Jim Cummings, who also voiced Pooh from the time that Sterling Holloway died. He was also the voice of many other world-famous cartoon characters.
A little-known fact about Winchell is that he was one of the original inventors of an artificial heart--years before the first successful transplant with such of a device--an automobile that runs on battery power, a method for breeding tilapia, and many other inventions that are still around today.- Actor
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Born James Jonah Cummings on November 3, 1952, he grew up in Youngstown, Ohio.
Sooner or later, he moved to New Orleans. There, he designed Mardi Gras floats, was a singer, door-to-door salesman, and a Louisiana riverboat deckhand.
Then Cummings moved to Anaheim, California, where he started his career playing Lionel from the program Dumbo's Circus (1985).- Actor
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With nearly 30 years of voice acting experience, Diskin has voiced a multitude of characters in video games, anime, and western animation. Some of his more recognizable roles include Eugene in "Hey Arnold!," Numbuh 1 and Numbuh 2 in "Codename: Kids Next Door," Sai in "Naruto Shippuden," Eddie Brock/Venom in "The Spectacular Spider-Man," Gurio Umino in "Sailor Moon Classic" and "Sailor Moon Crystal," Death Gun in "Sword Art Online II," Joseph Joestar in "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure," and Baby Gonzo in Disney's "Muppet Babies."- Actor
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Dee Bradley Baker is an American voice actor from Indiana. He first became known for voicing Olmec in Legends of the Hidden Temple before voicing Daffy Duck in Space Jam. He is well-known for voicing Klaus in American Dad, the Clone Troopers in several Star Wars media, Ra's al Ghul in Batman: Arkham City, Momo and Appa in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Perry the Platypus in Phineas & Ferb, Sunny Jim in Lobo, Kevin the Sea Cucumber in SpongeBob SquarePants, Numbuh Four in Codename: Kids Next Door and Gravemind in Halo 2.- Actress
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Tress MacNeille is one of the most talented women in the voice-over industry to date. With her versatile talent has done the voices of Dot Warner from Animaniacs, Babs Bunny from Tiny Toon Adventures to being a featured singer in the Weird "Al" Yankovic song "Ricky", She has also appeared in a small part in the full-length motion picture "Elvira Mistress of the Dark".- Actress
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Andrea Libman is a Canadian actress from Toronto. She has often worked as a voice actress in animated works. Her best known roles were the regular characters Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie in the long-running fantasy series "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" (2010-2019) and most of its spin-offs.
Her major characters were noted for their contradictory traits. Fluttershy was typically depicted as soft-spoken, gentle and caring towards nearly all animals, and extremely loyal towards her relatively few friends. But when acting sternly and assertively, she could intimidate fellow ponies, cockatrices, and giant dragons. Several episodes also explored Fluttershy's anger-management issues, as she had several instances of explosive rage. Pinkie Pie was typically depicted as an excitable and fun-loving baker, party organizer, and entertainer. She considered it her life's goal to bring joy to nearly everyone she met. But several episodes explored Pinkie's insecurities, her fears that her friends did not respect her or that they would eventually abandon her, and her self-doubt when confronted with skilled rivals.
Libman has had several other notable roles in animation. She voiced Ikuko Otonashi in the English dub of "Maison Ikkoku" (1986-1988). The character was depicted as the young niece of the series' female lead, Kyoko Otonashi. Libman voiced the rebellious girl Penny in the animated film "Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies" (1986). Her character sought help to overthrow the tyrannical regime of King Gurumes. Libman also voiced the child version of the regular character Chi-Chi in the Ocean dub of "Dragon Ball" (1986-1989). The character was initially depicted as a tough and temperamental girl, who grew up to become the wife of protagonist Goku. The adult Chi-Chi's main goal was to remind her superhuman husband and son to not neglect the challenges and obligations of normal life while pursuing adventures.
Libman voiced the sentient gynoid (female android) Roll in the OVA series "Mega Man: Upon a Star" (1993-1994). Roll is typically depicted as the sister of the protagonist Mega Man, though her age and personality vary wildly in adaptations of the Mega Man video game series. Libman voiced the Parisian boarding school girl Madeline in the second and third seasons of "The New Adventures of Madeline" (1993-2001). The series was based on a series of children's books by Ludwig Bemelmans. Libman also voiced the female dinosaur LaBrea in "Dino Babies" (1994-1996). Her character was the only female character among the series' 6 co-protagonists.
Libman voiced the younger version of the regular character AndrAIa in "ReBoot" (1994-2001), while Sharon Alexander voiced the adult version of the character. The character was depicted as a sentient Game Sprite from an Atlantis-themed game. AndrAIa's design was mermaid-like and she used a trident in combat. She was initially depicted as the new partner and best friend of Enzo Matrix, while she later became Enzo's long-term romantic partner.
Libman voiced Anita in the OVA series "Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge" (1997-1998), an adaptation of the video game series "Darkstalkers". In this media franchise, Anita was typically depicted as an emotionally detached orphan girl with unexplained psychic powers. She was the young ward and surrogate daughter of the vampire hunter Donovan Baine, who had rescued her life in their first encounter and then decided to become her self-appointed protector.
Libman voiced the co-protagonist Emmy in "Dragon Tales" (1999-2005). Her character was depicted as a 6-year-old human girl who used magic to travel to the fantasy world of Dragon Land, and befriended several young dragons. Her best friend was the female dragon Cassie. Emmy was depicted as athletic and intelligent, but impulsive. Libman voiced the human girl Lemony in "Yakkity Yak" (2002-2003). Her character was the love interest of the anthropomorphic pineapple Keo, and the best friend of the sentient robot Penelope (voiced by Tabitha St. Germain).
Libman was the first voice actress to voice the original character X-23 in a 2003 episode of "X-Men: Evolution". Her character was depicted in the series as a female clone of Wolverine, created by the espionage organization HYDRA. X-23 was depicted as a living weapon, who was "trying to become a real little girl". A new version of the character was soon introduced in Marvel's comic books, and eventually became a popular character in her own right. The comic book version of X-23/Laura Kinney was also initially depicted as a female clone of Wolverine, but she was later revealed to be his biological daughter.
Libman voiced Zipzee, a female Breezie (insect-like pony), in several direct-to video films of the Generation 3 incarnation of "My Little Pony". Libman started depicting the character in 2006. Zipzee was depicted as mainly interested in tending to her flowers, though she was allergic to pollen. Libman voiced the recurring character of Toodles Galore in a few episodes of "Tom and Jerry Tales" (2006-2008). Her character was depicted as an attractive white female cat, and the main love interest for co-protagonist Tom Cat.
Libman voiced the young technician Mileina Vashti in the second and last season of "Mobile Suit Gundam 00" (2007-2009). Mileina was depicted as an expert in electronics, robotics, physics, and mechanical engineering, but was frustrated at having to deal with repetitive tasks. She was romantically interested in the enigmatic Tieria Erde, despite the fact that his disembodied consciousness survived only within a computer.
Libman voiced the candy-maker Harmony Bear in "Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-lot" (2007-2010). Her character was part of the series' supporting cast. Harmony was also depicted in this series as the lead vocalist of the music group "Care Bear Honeys". Libman voiced the unicorn Sweetie Belle in the animated short films "My Little Pony: Meet the Ponies" (2008), which were created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the "My Little Pony" franchise. Sweetie Belle was depicted as the only unicorn in Ponyville.
Libman voiced the co-protagonist Cathy Smith in "Monster Buster Club" (2008-2009). Cathy was a humanoid alien who had settled on Earth and had taken a human form. She appeared to be a normal 12-year-old girl, but she was actually 250 years and belonged to a species with long lifespans. She was still an adolescent by the standards of her species. Her superhuman powers included the ability to stretch her limbs and to communicate through telepathy.
Libman voiced the hairstylist and inventor Lemon Meringue in "Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures" (2010-2015). Lemon was depicted as creative and quick-thinking, but single-minded in the pursuit of her goals and overly competitive . In the 4th season of the series, Libman also voiced the new character of Sweet Grapes. The character was rather optimistic in trying to improve the mood and behavior of her twin sister Sour Grapes, who was perpetually in a foul mood and rarely demonstrated affection for others (including Sweet).
Libman voiced the anthropomorphic bee Maya in "Maya the Bee" (2012-2017). The series was an adaptation of the children's book "The Adventures of Maya the Bee" (1912) by Waldemar Bonsels, which has received several adaptations in the century following its original publication. In the original novel, Maya was exiled from her hive due to her interest in exploration. She remained loyal to her hive, and warned them in advance of a hornet attack on the bees.
Libman voiced the regular character of Cylindria in "Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures" (2013-2015). Cylindria was the bespectacled best friend of the heroic Pac-Man, and the brains behind some of his operations. A subplot of the series was that people assumed that Pac and Cylindria were romantically involved, despite Cylindria's seeming lack of interest in romance. The female ghost Pinky viewed Cylindria as her main rival in winning Pac's affection.
Libman voiced Bramble the Kelpie in a 2018 episode of "DuckTales". Kelpies are shape-shifting water spirits in Scottish folklore, often in horse form. They supposedly carried many riders into the depths of the waters in order to drown them. In the episode, Bramble and her ally Briar tried repeatedly to win the trust of the Duck family and their companions in order to lure them to their death. Since the Ducks were aware of the nature of kelpies, the plan never worked. The design of Bramble was based on the form of Twilight Sparkle, the protagonist of "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic".
By 2022, Libman was 38-years-old. She has had an active career since the 1990s, and seems to have no interest in retiring yet. She has gained a fan following due to her many memorable characters in animated series, and her connection to several long-running franchises. She seems likely to gain further key roles in animated works.- Actress
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Born in Los Angeles, and raised in New York City, Jessica DiCicco grew up on the Upper West side of Manhattan. She has been around show business virtually her whole life. Even her birth was announced in both Variety and Us Magazine, since her father, Bobby Di Cicco, was a popular actor in the late 1970s and early '80s with many films to his credit including The Big Red One (1980) and 1941 (1979).
Despite her early exposure to show business, Jessica's acting career actually began unintentionally. During what she thought was a typical day in her second grade class, actress Marlo Thomas selected her from thousands of New York school children to appear on the ABC special Free to Be... a Family (1988). She worked on the show for one year and was heavily featured in the final broadcast. Soon after, Jessica landed her first role in the film The Godfather Part III (1990) followed by the cult classic Household Saints (1993), and booked multiple national commercial spots including Cheerios, Burger King, and a groundbreaking Nike campaign directed by Spike Lee. She also lent her voice to many television and radio projects and appeared in numerous productions for theater, feature film and television, including the lead in a Nickelodeon pilot, Bus No. 9 (1998), which earned her a nomination for a Young Artists Award.
Jessica's ambition and drive also manifested itself in her academics and passion for photography. She was an excellent student, always making her education top priority. Also an outstanding photographer, Jessica was the youngest photographer to ever shoot the cover of New York Magazine, in addition to shooting the entire eight-page cover story. This issue became one of the largest selling issues in New York Magazine's history.- Actor
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Billy Bletcher, standing 5' 2", was known as the little guy with the big voice, who, ironically, started his film career during the silent era.
Billy's show business career began in 1913 at the age of 19 in vaudeville, and within a year, he went to work for Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn where he both acted and directed. Two years later, he met his wife, Arline Harriett Roberts with whom he would stay married until the day he died in 1979.
In 1917, he took his wife westward to Hollywood where he started with smaller production companies, such as the Christie Film Company, writing and acting in shorts, and then moved on to larger and larger companies, such as the Fox Film Corporation where he did a few cowboy movies, one with Tom Mix, playing the comedic element. Then onto larger companies, such as Warner Brothers, RKO, Columbia, and Paramount where he had mostly bit parts, but got experience working with the likes of The Three Stooges and The Marx Brothers. But it was in Mack Sennett's comedy troupe where he started getting recognition doing two-reelers, and his biggest break came when Hal Roach studios pared him with Billy Gilbert and his career took off. Because pictures now had sound, directors and studios everywhere were clamoring for his deep, rich voice.
Mack Sennett and Hal Roach put Bletcher in shorts with W.C. Fields and Laurel and Hardy and he even played Spanky's father in the Little Rascals series, but it was Disney who made Bletcher a star.
Pinto Colvig, the original voice of Goofy and Pluto, told Bletcher that Disney needed a big, blustering voice to "huff and puff and blow your house in," so he tried out, got the job, and within a very short time, Disney had him doing a session a week in the sound booth, sometimes doing two and three voices. His voice got so famous that when he auditioned to do the voice of one of the seven dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Walt Disney took him aside and told him, "Billy, your voice is heard so much in all of these singles that I make, I don't think I'd want to use you as one of the Seven Dwarfs." Bletcher admits that because his voice was so low and resonant, the characters he got to play were usually the "heavies" (bad guys). And as a heavy his voice became too recognizable for him to get a role in a feature length Disney production, with one exception: he did get a minor role in Dumbo as the voice of one of the clowns.
As a voice actor, he could go anywhere and soon found himself working for Leon Schlesinger at Warner Brothers, but never got credit for his work since Mel Blanc had it in his contract that he'd be the sole credit for voice characterizations. And at that time there were only a dozen or so actors doing voicework that the jobs were plentiful. He worked for Disney, Warner, and at MGM he did the voice of the Captain in the Captain and the Kids cartoons.
In the fifties, he did several characters on the Lone Ranger radio program, but before that he did what's known in the business as ADR (automated dialogue replacement) work, with his old pal Pinto Colvig. In The Wizard of Oz (1939), their voices were substituted for a few of the munchkins.
All in all, Bletcher worked on just over 450 films spanning nearly 60 years, his last film being a made-for-TV version of Li'l Abner (1971) in which he played Pappy Yokum. He passed away 13 years later at the age of 84.- Actress
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For over three decades, Nancy Cartwright has given voice to a spikey-headed-10-year-old boy even though she's a grown woman; she's often been arrested for truancy and vandalism, yet she maintains a spotless criminal record; and finally, she's repeated the fourth-grade dozens of times in spite of earning her college degree. How has she managed to live this double life? Read on, man.
As the voice of Bart Simpson, Nancy quite literally breathed life into one the most groundbreaking characters in entertainment history. But she is also responsible for an array of other characters on The Simpsons, making her a versatile performer who's proved invaluable to the longest-running scripted show of all time.
Not that her career begins and ends in Springfield-far from it. Nancy has lent her voice to a myriad of other animated touchstones, from Kim Possible to Rugrats, as well as live-action films, video games, radio and commercials.
Kettering, Ohio is the place where a young Nancy discovered her knack for voices and sound effects. In high school, she was a member of the theater department; played in the orchestra and marching band; and entered public speaking competitions. After winning the National District Tournament's "Humorous Interpretation" category-twice-the judges steered her towards cartoon voices.
By 1976, before attending Ohio University on a full scholarship, Nancy was already doing professional voice work for WING radio in her hometown. It really paid off in full when a rep from Warner Bros. Records visited the station and shared a list of animation industry contacts. She zeroed in on the superstar among them: Daws Butler, an industry legend who supplied the voices of Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Elroy Jetson, and dozens of other beloved characters Nancy grew up watching.
Nancy left Ohio in 1978 and transferred to UCLA so she could be closer to her mentor and the animation industry. Each Sunday, she would catch the bus to Daws' home in Beverly Hills for lessons. They lasted all afternoon-a real dream-in-the-making.
Soon Butler brought her into the fold at Hanna-Barbera, where she met front-running voice actors and directors. Within a couple months, Nancy was cast as "Gloria" of the Richie Rich cartoon series. She the girlfriend of the show's titular character-a genuine Hollywood voice-acting job. No more bus rides for our Miss Nancy-now she was ridin' in style in a '68 Opel Kadette that looked like a smashed potato and appropriately named "Spud". It floored at 40 mph, but Nancy didn't care-she had her own wheels!
After that, she was on her way to becoming one of the most legendary voice actors of our generation... but she didn't know it, just yet.
Nancy signed with a talent agency, completed her theater degree, and promptly landed her first feature film role, in Joe Dante's Twilight Zone: The Movie. More voice acting parts followed: the cartoon series Pound Puppies, Popeye and Son and My Little Pony, plus voice-over background work in Silverado (1985), Sixteen Candles (1984) and The Color Purple (1985), to name a few. Even minor parts, like the shoe that got dipped in acid in the hybrid live-action/animated classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) represented opportunities to expand her range.
Meanwhile, an animator named Matt Groening was working on a series of shorts, slated to run as interstitials for The Tracey Ullman Show. His concept involved a dysfunctional family with three kids. Initially, Nancy planned to audition for the role of the classic middle child, Lisa, but felt unmoved by Groening's character description. She was drawn to the troublemaker son, Bart, and asked to audition for that role instead. The rest is history as she was cast on the spot.
It was a fine addition to her résumé. Then, two years after Groening's original shorts debuted on The Tracey Ullman Show, a breakthrough: Fox greenlit the sketches as a standalone half-hour animated sitcom. The Simpsons premiered on December 17, 1989. Early episodes centered around Bart, and he proved to be the show's breakout star. His slacker antics and catchphrases begged to be quoted-and licensed. Less than six months after the show's debut, The New York Times reported on "Bartmania," quoting exasperated retailers who couldn't get enough merchandise to meet demand. Bart-and, by proxy, Nancy-had officially been catapulted into the zeitgeist.
Cartwright is also the unique voice behind several other Simpsons' characters, including Ralph Wiggum, Nelson Muntz, Todd Flanders, Kearney, Database and Maggie. In keeping with her history of playing popular characters on such animated series as Snorks; Animaniacs; and Pinky and The Brain, Nancy also became a hit with the millennials as the voice of Chuckie in Rugrats and Rufus-the naked mole rat-in Kim Possible.
In the middle of all this animation, Nancy had immersed herself in a scene study class for theatrical/film productions. Her curiosity and drive to create memorable characters led her on an adventure to Italy to find legendary Italian director, Federico Fellini. His "La Strada" intrigued our young actress so much that upon her return, she developed her journey as a one-woman show, garnering a DramaLogue Award in 1996. Fast-forward to 2017 when In Search of Fellini, the film, went on to achieve official selections with 9 film festivals. The New York Times raved that ISOF is "a charming drama about the love of movies and youthful passion." The film won Best Director, Best Actress and Best Film in the Ferrara Film Festival 2017.
Some of her work on television series and movies includes Fame, Empty Nest, Cheers, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Twilight Zone-The Movie and Godzilla, as well as a lead in the TV movie Marian Rose White.
In 1992, Nancy won a Prime Time Emmy® for outstanding Voice-Over performance for The Simpsons. Three years later, she coveted The Annie Award for Voice Acting in the Field of Animation also for The Simpsons. In 2004, Nancy was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for Kim Possible and again in 2020 for The Simpsons.
In 2001, Nancy co-created and produced The Kelly's-one of the first critically-acclaimed digital animated series in conjunction with Turner Broadcasting and NASCAR. At a top speed of 158.2 mph, Nancy is no spectator in the world of fast cars. Emboldened to continue writing and producing, Nancy penned her first episode of The Simpsons titled Girl's In the Band. It aired in the Spring of 2019 and was one of the highest-rated episodes of the season- Ay Caramba!
In 2004, Nancy's audiobook, My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy, was nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. The release of the audiobook led to her one-woman show that premiered at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2004 to SRO crowds for the entire run of the production. The new-and-improved edition of her audiobook, I'm Still a 10-Year-Old Boy will be available late 2021. In 2020 Nancy co-created a new production company in addition to Spotted Cow Entertainment. She called the new venture CRE84U, a production company dedicated to producing international content for television with long-time partner, Monica Gil-Rodriguez, and partners Carolina and Jaime Aymerich.
Always with the sincere compassion to give back, Nancy has been the honorary mayor of her community for the past 16 years. She is the recipient of the Fernando Award presented to those whose community support is above and beyond. She has supported many non-profit organizations that focus on helping children, such as Famous Fone Friends, The Way to Happiness Foundation and The Citizens Commission on Human Rights. She also received the prestigious Icon Award from The Make-A-Wish Foundation. An accomplished self-taught fine artist, Cartwright has created dozens of reverse-style paintings on Lucite. Although this reverse-painting technique dates back thousands of years, it was the The Simpsons that motivated her to duplicate this animation technique that was popularized in 1937 with Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Her work has been featured on over 300 billboards, bus wraps and bus shelter posters with the purpose of introducing parents and caretakers to the Know More About Drugs Alliance.
Since its inception in 2004, Nancy has been the proud co-founder of Happy House, a non-profit organization dedicated to "Building Better Families". Through extensive outreach and the help of countless volunteers, Happy House is implementing a character-building program, How to Make Good Choices, to hundreds of children across California. Nancy is equally committed to helping those in her hometown where she has established a perpetual scholarship for forensic students to attend Ohio University. In June 2012, Ohio University bestowed upon Nancy an Honorary Degree Citation - Doctor of Communication in recognition of achievement in her field as an actress, as a philanthropist and through her scholarship endowment established at Ohio University.
In 2020, Nancy became the first ever voice-actor to be featured on MasterClass-- a platform where members learn from the best across multiple disciplines. Joining the likes of "Masters" James Cameron, Ron Howard and Annie Leibovitz, Nancy's class introduces aspiring voice-actors to the voice-over medium.
Clearly, Nancy Cartwright's journey is inimitable. She's at once a cultural icon and a face in the crowd, a megastar who walks the streets without being mobbed...an anonymous celebrity. Not too shabby for a spunky kid from Kettering, Ohio.
So, don't have a cow, man!- Actor
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Jess Harnell is an American actor and singer from New Jersey. He provided the voices of Wakko Warner from Animaniacs, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon from Spyro: A Hero's Tail, Scary Terry from Rick & Morty, Ki-Adi Mundi and Darth Maul from Star Wars video games, Captain Hero from Drawn Together, Ironhide from Transformers, Dr. Finkelstein from The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge and Kingdom Hearts, the Plumber from Ratchet & Clank and the announcer of America's Funniest Home Videos.- Actor
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Alex Hirsch is an animator, television writer, and voice actor from Piedmont, California. His primary claim to fame is serving as the show creator for the hit animated series "Gravity Falls" (2012-2016), a mystery comedy series where twin protagonists investigate the local mysteries of a strange town in Oregon. Hirsch also served as the voice actor for Grunkle Stan/Stan Pines, his sidekick Soos Ramirez, and the demon Bill Cipher.
In 1985, Hirsch and his twin sister Ariel were born in Piedmont, California. Piedmont is a small city, which had about 10,500 residents in 1980. It is completely surrounded by the neighboring city of Oakland. Piedmond has a reputation for racial segregation, and was formerly identified as a "sundown town" (an all-white municipality where "colored people" had to leave town by sundown).
Hirsch reportedly has Jewish descent on his father's side of the family, but he was raised to be agnostic. The family regularly celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah, without sharing in theistic beliefs. From 1994 to 1998, Hirsch and his sister Ariel spend their summer vacations living with their great-aunt Lois in a cabin in the woods. Hirsch has credited these summer vacations as an inspiration for "Gravity Falls".
Hirsch received his secondary education at Piedmont High School, a co-educational school established in 1922. The school was highlighted in news stories during the 1990s, when it was discovered that its social clubs and charity organizations were actually drinking clubs for students. In 2002, Hirsch won the school's annual Bird Calling Contest. Shortly after, he had a guest star appearance in "Late Show with David Letterman".
Hirsch received his college education at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts, 1961-), a private art university located in Santa Clarita, California. The university has a decades-long history of training aspiring animators. During his college years, Hirsch developed several animated short films. One of his films was chosen by Nicktoons Network for broadcast as part of their short-lived variety series "Shorts in a Bunch" (2007). In 2006, while still a college student, Hirsch was hired by the animation studio Laika to work in an upcoming animated feature. The film ended in development hell. Hirsch graduated from CalArts in 2007.
Shortly after his graduation, Hirsch was hired as a writer and storyboard artist for an animated series which was still in its development stages. It was "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack" (2008-2010), which lasted for 3 seasons and 46 episodes. The series focused on an innocent young boy who finds a mentor in the person of the ill-tempered Captain K'nuckles, an Irish pirate who has semi-retired due to old age. The series was noted for its steampunk-like depictions of the 19th century, and for its moral ambiguity.
Hirsch was later credited with the development of the animated series "Fish Hooks" (2010-2014), which lasted for 3 seasons and 110 episodes. The series featured anthropomorphic fish in an high school setting. Part of the plot focused on the unrequited love of the character Oscar for his best friend Bea Goldfishberg, while she was oblivious to his affections for most of the series' duration. For this series, Hirsch voiced the recurring character Clamantha. She was the school's head cheerleader who had an unrequited love for Oscar. The series had an unusual visual style, a mix of 2D digital animation and photo collages. It won a BAFTA award, and was nominated for several other awards.
In 2012, Hirsch launched his own animated series, "Gravity Falls" (2012-2016). Hirsch reportedly based several of the characters on members of his family and past acquaintances. It featured twin siblings Dipper and Mabel Pines investigating paranormal incidents in a small town of Oregon. The series started with monster-of-the-week episodes, but had a series-wide story arc concerning a number of peculiar journals and their initially unnamed author. The series received critical acclaim and high ratings, winning two Emmy Awards, three Annie Awards, and a BAFTA Children's Award. The series lasted for 2 seasons and 40 episodes, with Hirsch not interested in further continuing its plots.
In 2018, Hirsch published a graphic novel based on "Gravity Falls". It became a New York Times Best Seller. Also in 2018, Hirsh served as a story contributor to the animated film "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse". In 2020, Hirsch started voicing several characters in the animated series "The Owl House" (2020-). The series was created by animator Dana Terrace, who is Hirsch's longtime girlfriend.
In 2021, Hirsch started serving as an executive producer for the science fiction comedy series "Inside Job" (2021-). The series focuses on a shadow government organization which strives to keep secret a number of conspiracies. The series is largely inspired by real-life conspiracy theories. It features (among other things) reptilian shapeshifters, human-animal hybrids, and survivors from the hollow Earth. The series has received critical praise for both its satirical elements, and for its semi-realistic portrayal of real-life problems, such as "office politics, sexism, classism, jingoism".
As of 2022, Hirsch is 36-years-old, and has no interest in retiring. He remains popular among animation fans, and he has been noted for his vocal criticism of censorship in the medium.- Actor
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Tom Kenny grew up in East Syracuse, New York. When Tom was young he was into comic books, drawing funny pictures and collecting records. Tom turned to stand-up comedy in Boston and San Francisco. This led to appearances on every cable show spawned by the stand-up epidemic of the '80s and '90s as well as stints on The Dennis Miller Show (1992), The Pat Sajak Show (1989), Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1993) and [error]. Tom was a regular on Fox TV's The Edge (1992) and spent a year as the host of NBC's Friday Night (1983). His mainstream television appearances include Brotherly Love (1995) and David Alan Grier's sitcom debacle, The Preston Episodes (1995). Tom supplies the voice for "Heffer" the cow on Nickelodeon's Rocko's Modern Life (1993) and Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants (1999), as well as regular performances on The Cartoon Network's Dexter's Laboratory (1996), Justice League (2001), The Powerpuff Girls (1998), and Johnny Bravo (1997). Tom joined the cast of Mr. Show with Bob and David (1995) where he met his future wife Jill Talley. Together they've teamed up on Comedy Central's The Mark Thomas Comedy Product (1996), the stage show "The Show With Two Heads", HBO's Not Necessarily the Election (1996), the The Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight" video and Travis "Sing" video.- Actor
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Don Messick is a legendary voice actor who spent his entire adult-hood in entertainment. He started out wanting to be a ventriloquist. Thankfully for cartoon lovers that career didn't pan out. How do you think his potential career would've stacked up against Edgar Bergen and later, Paul Winchell? No matter, Messick made his way to the hallowed halls of MGM in the early '50s on the recommendation of another voice actor, Daws Butler. At the time, MGM/Tex Avery were doing the theatrical "Droopy" cartoons. Bill Thompson, known for his hilarious voices on the radio show 'Fibber McGee and Molly', borrowed his Wallace Wimple voice and applied it to Droopy. Whenever Thompson couldn't make it to a session, MGM would ask Daws Butler to fill-in. Daws had been working for MGM since the mid '40s. Later, Daws apparently grew tired of the role and suggested Don Messick be Bill Thompson's fill-in. Butler, it's been said, literally squeezed his cheeks together to try and get that sound for Droopy while Messick simply thickened his tongue and loosened his jaws. Messick made the rounds and did every voice-over role large and small in this era. In 1957 Hanna-Barbera started their own company after departing from MGM...Daws Butler and Don Messick were the two voice actors the animation titans employed during the early days. Don was always heard as the "second banana" character or a walk-on. At various times he was the villain. His voice was heard as the 'narrator' on all of the early Hanna-Barbera cartoons. On "Ruff and Reddy", the duo's first made-for-TV cartoon series, Don was heard as "Ruff" the cat and as the Droopy-sounding "Professor Gizmo". Messick was also the narrator who interracted with the duo and got caught up in the action much like a soap opera announcer on radio. Daws was "Reddy", the dog, among other nameless characters in the show. In this 1957-1966 time span, Don Messick was cast as Daws Butler's voice partner and as the cartoon narrator. "Boo-Boo" was the little friend of "Yogi Bear" who lived in Jellystone Park. Yogi stole "pic-a-nic" baskets while Boo-Boo always tried, unsuccessfully, to steer Yogi to a more safer life always reminding him "the Ranger isn't going to like it, Yogi". The Ranger in question was "Ranger Smith", the park ranger who always chased and stopped Yogi's latest schemes. Messick gave voice to the Ranger. Daws was Yogi. In other programs, Messick was heard as "Pixie Mouse" to Daws Butler's "Dixie Mouse" and "Mr. Jinx". On "Snagglepuss", Messick was always heard as the villain, mostly the befuddled "Major Minor". Daws was Snagglepuss. In Huckleberry Hound, Daws was the star character while Messick usually did the narration as well as played a villain. Messick would later provide the voices of "Astro" and "RUDI" on the Jetsons. As a versatile voice actor, Messick performed a dozen wacky space aliens on the space cartoons of the mid '60s. The gibberish of "Gloop" and "Gleep" on the Herculoids cartoon was Messick. "Blip", "Igoo", "Zorak", "Tundra", and "Zoc" are just a few of the characters that Messick groaned or grunted for in the outer space cartoons...his most famous non-verbal voice is the snickering dog, "Muttley"...later called "Mumbley". "Richochet Rabbit", "Vapor Man", "Falcon 7", "Dr. Benton Quest", and "Multi-Man" are other voices from Messick in that era. In 1969 he provided the voice for his most famous role, "Scooby-Doo". Throughout the '70s and beyond, Messick gave voice to this cowardly great dane. In 1980 he became the voice of nephew, "Scrappy-Doo", while in later versions Daws Butler was on hand as "Scooby-Dum". On the 1977 Laff-a-Lympics cartoon, Messick not only announced the show but he performed some of the characters too. "Papa Smurf" became Messick's biggest original character in the '80s but he remained busy providing voices for his older characters in new Hanna-Barbera productions. Daws Butler and Mel Blanc were also living off their famed characters by reprising the voices in numerous made-for-TV cartoon movies and Saturday morning TV in the late '70s on into the next decade. Messick remained a much-used voice actor and in 1988 ABC announced "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo". Messick was back in the role and voiced the character until it's demise in 1990. His friend and voice partner, Daws Butler, passed away in 1988. In 1989 Mel Blanc passed away leaving Don Messick, June Foray, Stan Freberg, and Paul Winchell as the remaining link to the classic era. In 1989 The Smurfs went out of production. On the new Tiny Toon Adventures, Messick was heard as "Hamton Pig", a role he remained with until his mysterious retirement in 1996 at the age of 69 which was later revealed to be a result of a stroke. Don Messick died in 1997, closing a chapter in animation history in the process.- Actor
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Joe Alaskey, among the most talented voice actors in the business, impeccably recreated many of the original characters which the late cartoon pioneer Mel Blanc invented. A natural mimic and gifted actor, his amazing "ear" for voices enabled him to imitate almost anything, including some of the most obscure show business personalities. Alaskey was one of the most employed voice actors in the business during his career.- Actor
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William Richard Werstine is an American actor and radio personality with autism and ADHD. He grew up in both New Jersey and Boston. He became a regular cast member of the Howard Stern show. He became known for The Ren & Stimpy Show, Futurama, Doug, Space Jam and several commercials featuring the red M&M.- Actress
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Russi Taylor was an American voice actress from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was the official voice of Minnie Mouse from 1986 until her death from colon cancer in 2019. She also voiced a lot of minor characters from The Simpsons including Martin Prince, Sherri and Terri. Grey DeLisle-Griffin succeeded her roles from The Simpsons. She was married to Mickey Mouse voice actor Wayne Allwine from 1991 until his death in 2009.- Actor
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Bill Farmer is an American voice actor from Kansas who is most well known for being the official voice actor of Walt Disney's Goofy since 1987. He also voiced Pluto and Horace Horsecaller in other Disney cartoons, Stinkie in the Casper films, Sam from Sam & Max: Hit the Road, Otis in Son of the Mask and Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn and Yosemite Sam in Space Jam.- Actor
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Pinto Colvig was the quintessential clown whose own identity was always hidden but whose innate warmhearted character always came through his many talents. His humor tickled the funny bone and touched the heart. Incredibly gifted in music, art and mime, he spoke to different generations in different roles: as a child clown playing a squeaky clarinet, as a full-fledged circus clown under the big top, as a newspaper cartoonist, as a film animator, as a mimic and sound effects wizard, and as the voice of dozens of well-known characters on film, records, radio and television.
Vance DeBar Colvig was born in Jacksonville, Oregon, on September 11, 1892. His school friends nicknamed him after a spotted horse named "Pinto" because of his freckled face - and just like his freckles, the name stuck for his entire life.
Pinto's childhood home was filled with music and laughter, and he was a clown from birth. As the youngest of seven children, he would do anything to get attention. He learned to make people laugh by making faces and playing pranks. He also spent hours mimicking the sounds around him: a rusty gate, farm animals, sneezes, wind, cars, trains, etc. He and his brother Don put on song-and-dance minstrel shows at local functions. Along the way he picked up his instrument of choice, the clarinet, and soon played well enough to join the town band.
It was the clarinet that got Pinto into show business when he was 12. Visiting Portland's "Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition" with his father William, he was magnetized by "The Crazy House" on the Midway where a huckster attracted the crowd with a bass drum and shouts of "Hubba Hubba!" Pinto told the man he could play "squeaky" clarinet and ran back to the hotel to get his instrument. He was hired on the spot and given some oversized old clothes and a derby and, for the first time, white makeup and a clown face. The man told Pinto, "Now you look like a real bozo" ("bozo" was a name given to hobo or tramp clowns in those days). Pinto's act was to play a screechy clarinet while distorting his face and crossing his eyes at the high notes. He later recalled, "I never was able to get circuses and carnivals out of my blood after that."
He went to school during the winter and worked in the circus and vaudeville in the spring. While studying art at Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University) and playing with the college band, he became known for his clever cartoons in student publications, his funny "chalk talk" performances improvising a monologue while quickly sketching cartoons, and his unconventional lifestyle. He never took his class courses seriously and his college career ended abruptly in the spring of 1913 when he accepted an offer to do his chalk talks for the prestigious Pantages vaudeville circuit and wound up in Seattle, Washington. There he joined a circus band and traveled throughout the country struggling to make ends meet.
In 1914 he landed a job as a newspaper cartoonist at the "Nevada Rockroller" in Reno, and later the "Carson City News" in Carson City. By the spring of 1915 his cartooning was going well but the lure of the circus was too strong. When the Al G. Barnes Circus came through Carson City, Pinto dropped everything and joined the troupe, once again clowning and playing his clarinet in the circus band.
In those days circuses closed down each winter and Pinto returned to newspaper cartooning wherever he could find a job. While working on a Portland newspaper between seasons in 1916, he met and married Margaret Bourke Slavin, putting an end to his vagabond life as a circus performer. With a family to support, Pinto and Margaret moved to San Francisco, where he returned to the newspaper business writing and drawing cartoons full-time at "The Bulletin" and later the "San Francisco Chronicle". His cartoon series, "Life on the Radio Wave," which poked fun at the way the newly introduced radio was influencing people's lives, was syndicated nationally by United Features Syndicate. He greatly enjoyed cartooning and considered it another form of clowning. "A cartoonist," he said, "is just a clown with a pencil."
While Pinto toiled daily to meet newspaper commitments, he began to spend evenings experimenting with the animation of cartoons and eventually set up his own studio, Pinto Cartoon Comedies Co., where he created one of the first animated silent films in color called "Pinto's Prizma Comedy Revue (1919)". In 1922, after realizing that San Francisco was not the place to break into the movie business, he moved his family to Hollywood. There he would be able to continue his animation work and find a wealth of other things that he could do. He was overjoyed one day to get an offer to join Mack Sennett, the reigning king of movie comedies, who had developed one of the most successful studios of the day, the Keystone Film Co., home of the famous Keystone Kops, Charles Chaplin and many others. Sennett needed an experienced animator for his own films, but Pinto soon found himself also writing and acting in comedies and dramas. In 1928 he teamed up with his friend Walter Lantz to create an early talking cartoon, "Bolivar, the Talking Ostrich (1928)", but unlike Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928), it failed to become a hit. Pinto and Lantz, who would later be the voice of Woody Woodpecker, gave up and went to larger studios.
Disney, who was making "Mickey Mouse" and "Silly Symphony" cartoons, signed Pinto to a contract in 1930. Pinto worked on stories, co-wrote songs such as the lyrics to "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" and was the original voice of animated characters such as Goofy and Pluto, Grumpy and Sleepy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and the Practical Pig in "Three Little Pigs." Disney cartoonists copied many of Pinto's facial expressions while drawing animal characters for the cartoons. He left Disney in 1937 following a fallout with Walt and Disney proceeded to reuse his old voice tracks. Meanwhile, Pinto freelanced voices and sound effects for Warner Bros. cartoons, sang for some of the Munchkins during Dorothy's arrival scenes in MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939), and also joined Max Fleischer Studios in Miami, where he did the voice of Gabby in Gulliver's Travels (1939) and the blustering of Bluto in "Popeye the Sailor" cartoons. He returned to Disney in 1941 and continued to freelance for them and on radio programs for others. He was the original Maxwell automobile on Jack Benny's show, the hiccuping horse for Dennis Day, and a variety of voices for "Amos 'n Andy." His live radio experience and contacts introduced him to the recording industry. He did several albums before encountering one of his best-known characters, Bozo the Clown.
It was 1946 when Capitol Records in Hollywood hired Alan Livingston as a writer/producer. His initial assignment was to create a children's record library, for which he came up with the soon-to-be-legendary Bozo character. He wrote and produced a popular series of storytelling record-album and illustrative read-along book sets, beginning with the October 1946 release of "Bozo at the Circus." His record-reader concept, which enabled children to read and follow a story in pictures while listening to it, was the first of its kind. The Bozo image was a composite design of Livingston's, derived from a variety of clown pictures and then given to an artist to turn into comic-book-like illustrations. Livingston then hired Pinto to portray the character. "Pinto came in," Livingston recalls, "and turned out to be a very jolly, likable fellow with the kind of warm, folksy voice I wanted. He didn't talk down to children." Not only did Livingston get a perfect Bozo voice in Pinto, he also got most of the animals and odd creatures under the sea and in outer space, all for the price of one. On some of the records, Pinto provided as many as eight other voices. The series turned out to be a smash hit for Capitol, selling over eight million albums in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The character also became a mascot for the record company and was later nicknamed "Bozo the Capitol Clown." Pinto, as Bozo, also starred in the very first Bozo television series, Bozo's Circus (1951) on KTTV-Channel 11 (CBS) in Los Angeles, made numerous guest appearances on radio and personal appearance tours all over the country. He especially enjoyed his visits to children's hospitals and orphanages, according to Pinto, "doin' my silly stuff to make them laugh."
Pinto's Bozo days came to an end by 1956, when Livingston left Capitol and Larry Harmon acquired the rights to Bozo (excluding the record-readers) in 1957. In 1958 Jayark Films Corp. began distributing Bozo limited-animation cartoons to television stations, along with the rights for each to hire its own live Bozo host. Harmon produced and provided the voice of the character in the cartoons. On January 5, 1959, Bozo returned to television with a live half-hour weeknight show on KTLA-Channel 5 in Los Angeles starring Pinto's son, Vance Colvig Jr. as the live Bozo host. Vance's portrayal and the KTLA show lasted for six years, at which time Harmon bought out his partners and continued to market the character through his Larry Harmon Pictures Corporation.
If Pinto had any dark years, they were during World War II. Four of his five sons were of eligible age and his wife felt the dread that millions of mothers felt, which may have complicated an illness that made her a semi-invalid for several years. Pinto took care of her until her death in 1950.
Throughout his life Pinto was upbeat and cheerful, convinced that laughter was the world's best medicine. "Sure, there have been kicks in the pants and occasionally an empty gut," he once said, "but those are the jolts what pushes a guy upward and onward!" His letters, though touching on his philosophy, were never serious but always funny and filled with odd typing effects, extraneous capitalization, underlining, misspellings and strange made-up words. He also lavished his letters and envelopes with outrageous cartoons and balloons filled with gags. He kept regular correspondence with clown legends Felix Adler, Emmett Kelly, Lou Jacobs and Otto Griebling, and visited "clown alley" whenever a circus came to the Los Angeles area.
In 1963 Pinto received a letter from Oregon Senator Maurine Neuberger thanking him for supporting her bill requiring warning labels on cigarette packages. It was a controversial idea at a time when nonsmoking areas were just a dream and America was blue with secondhand smoke. With lungs ravaged by a lifetime of heavy smoking, Pinto did his part to help others become aware of the problem. On October 3, 1967, Vance Debar "Pinto" Colvig died of lung cancer at the age of 75 in Woodland Hills, California.
Vance Jr. donated his and his father's memorabilia to the Southern Oregon Historical Society in Pinto's hometown of Jacksonville in 1978. Vance Jr. passed away in 1991.
In 1993, the Walt Disney Company honored Pinto Colvig as a "Disney Legend." On May 28, 2004, he was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.- Actress
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Verna Felton had extensive experience on the stage and in radio before she broke into film and television. Her trademarks was her distinctive husky voice and her no-nonsense attitude. She was quite in demand for voiceover work, as evidenced by her roles in Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Lady and the Tramp (1955). She appeared in many films, but is best remembered as Hilda Crocker in the TV series December Bride (1954), a character she carried over into its spinoff, Pete and Gladys (1960). Verna died in 1966 at 76 years of age of a stroke.- Actor
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Born in 1914, raised in Norfolk, Nebraska, Thurl Ravenscroft served as a navigator in the US Army Air Transport Command in World War II before settling in Hollywood. An accomplished singer, he performed with The Sportsmen Quartet, The Mellowmen Quartet, The Johnny Mann Singers, The Norman Luboff Choir, and many major stars, including Jim Nabors and Elvis Presley. He was best known, however, for his mellifluous voice-overs, and he voiced Tony the Tiger in countless advertisements for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes in both English and Spanish. In 1996 he and his wife June retired to southern California, although he still did occasional work as Tony. He died in 2005 of prostate cancer.- Actor
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Harry Shearer was born in 1943 in Los Angeles, California. His film debut was with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953), followed by The Robe (1953). Probably best known for his Saturday Night Live (1975) gigs, his NPR satire program "Le Show" and The Simpsons (1989), where he plays 21 characters. His best film may be This Is Spinal Tap (1984), where he played bass player Derek Smalls. There was also an episode on The Simpsons (1989) where he reprised this role. His film work includes Godzilla (1998), in which "Simpsons" cast members Hank Azaria and Nancy Cartwright also appeared. Shearer has also directed a film, Teddy Bears' Picnic (2001), in which he also stars.- Actor
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Hank Azaria is an American comedian and actor from Queens, New York. He is known for voicing several characters in The Simpsons including Apu, Chief Wiggum, Moe, Bumblebee Man, Lou and Superintendent Chalmers. The latter became well-known due to the "Steamed Hams" scene. He also acted in Godzilla, The Smurfs and Mystery Men.- Music Department
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Trey was born in Conifer, Colorado, on October 19, 1969 to Randy Parker, a geologist, and Sharon Parker, an insurance broker. He has an older sister, Shelley Parker. He met Matt Stone (co-creator of South Park (1997)) while attending the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he had a double major of music and Japanese. While at UCB he wrote, directed and starred in Cannibal! The Musical (1993) (aka "Cannibal: The Musical!") based on a true episode in Colorado's history. After graduation from UCB (rumors that he didn't due to skipping classes to work on the movie are false), he and Stone were asked by then-FoxLab executive Brian Graden to create an animated Christmas card for his friends and family. The now infamous short, titled The Spirit of Christmas (1995), led to South Park (1997).- Music Department
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Matthew Stone is a Jewish-American actor, writer, director, musician and animator who frequently collaborates with Trey Parker. They created and voiced in the South Park franchise. Matt voiced Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, Butters Stotch and other characters. He and Parker also worked on The Book of Mormon, Baseketball, Cannibal the Musical, Team America: World Police and Orgazmo.- Actress
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Mary Kay Bergman did not have a face known to many - her voice was recognized more than anything else in the world. Although she was a big voiceover star in the 1990s, her true claim to fame was Trey Parker and Matt Stone's critically acclaimed adult animated television series, South Park (1997), in which she voiced almost all of the female characters. Sharon Marsh, Shelly Marsh, Sheila Brofloski, Wendy Testaberger, and Carol McCormick were only a few of the thousands of voices she performed. She helped Parker and Stone pave the waves of fame for "South Park" in the late 1990s, until her surprising gunshot suicide on Veteran's Day of 1999.- Actor
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Well-known, king-sized actor and voice artist Kevin Michael Richardson was born in Bronx, New York. He is, perhaps, mostly recognizable for his deep voice, which he uses in many of his works.
Richardson is a classically trained actor. He first gained recognition as one of only eight U.S. high school students selected for the National Foundation for the Arts' "Arts '82" program, later he earned a scholarship to Syracuse University.
Kevin is well-known by various voice works, mostly villainous. He lent his voice to based-upon video game film Mortal Kombat (1995) as Goro, he was also in Matrix Revolutions (2003) as Deus Ex Machina, and made a brief appearance in Clerks II (2006) as a police officer. To mention that he did a brief additional voices for mega hit Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009).
He did voice in many animated films and TV series, such as "The Mask - The Animated Series" (1995), "The New Batman Adventures" (1997), "Pokemon" (1998), "Powerpuff Girls" (1998), "Voltron: The Third Dimension" (1998), "Family Guy", Lilo & Stitch (2002), as well as "Lilo & Stitch" TV series, "Codename Kids Next Door" (2002), Batman VS Dracula (2005) (V), where he voiced Joker, "Mummy The Animated Series" (2003), TMNT (2007) as General Aguila, "Transformers Animated" (2007) as Omega Supreme and Batman: Gotham Knight (2008), as Lucius Fox.
He also did voices in such video games as Halo 2 (Tartarus), Kingdom Hearts (Sebastian) and others. He lives in Los Angeles and likes to work in Manhattan.- Actress
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April Stewart is an American voice actress from Truckee, California who is known for voicing dozens of female characters from South Park. She also voiced in Evil Con Carne, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, El Tigre, Infamous: Festival of Blood and The Legend of Korra. She had a daughter.- Actress
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Mona Marshall was born on 31 August 1947 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Blue Exorcist (2011), Digimon Adventure tri. Part 1: Reunion (2015) and .hack//Mutation (2002). She was previously married to Sal Iannotti.- Actress
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Susanne Blakeslee is an American actress known for voicing Maleficent, Lady Tremaine and Cruella de Vil in several Disney cartoons, rides and games including Kingdom Hearts and Wanda and Mrs. Turner from The Fairly OddParents. She also voiced in God of War, Shrek the Third, The Legend of Tarzan, Danny Phantom and Amphibia.- Actress
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Tabitha St. Germain (also known by the alias of Paulina Gillis) is a Canadian actress. She has made the transition from stage work to voice work, and has since become one of the core voice actresses working in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. As Paulina Gillis, she won a Dora Award in 1995 for her performance in Assassins, the Stephen Sondheim musical.- Actor
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Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Will Ryan began a career in music. He later became 'Willio' of the comedic singing group Willio & Phillio. The duo relocated to California where they got the opportunity to write and record wacky songs for Disneyland Records. Mr. Ryan also began providing voices for many of Disney's characters and after just a few years he'd become one of their top voice actors. Mr. Ryan's versatility and extraordinary talent continued to make him an invaluable voice actor as well as a gifted musician, composer, and writer.- Actor
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Hal Smith was born on 24 August 1916 in Petoskey, Michigan, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Great Race (1965), The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) and The Andy Griffith Show (1960). He was married to Vivian M. Angstadt. He died on 28 January 1994 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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A third-generation performer and the son of a singing band leader, Chuck McCann was already a show business veteran by age eleven. Born in Brooklyn, he began his career as a child actor on radio, and by the age of nineteen had appeared on The Steve Allen Show (1952). He performed on several NYC-based radio programs, and went on to create his own stand up act performed at many NYC/NJ/LI nightclubs and on many popular TV variety shows. For a time, he took a hiatus from nightclub and TV performing to study with The Pasadena Playhouse, where he gave a memorable performance in their production of '12th Night' as Sir Toby Belch. McCann would return to NYC to continue to perform in nightclubs and on TV variety shows. Until he was introduced to puppetry, first by Skip Boyland and then by Paul Ashleyon NBC TV's: Rootie Kazootie (1952). For the next 17 years, Ashley and McCann appeared on numerous TV shows: Rootie Kazootie (1952), "Uncle Paul's Lunchtime", The Gumby Show (1956) with Pinkie Lee, "The Puppet Hotel!", "Laurel & Hardy & Chuck!", "Let's Have Fun!", "The Chuck McCann Shows", "The Great Bombo's Magic Cartoon Circus Lunchtime Show" and "Chuck McCann's Laurel & Hardy Show!". After the cancellation of the latter on Friday June 9, 1967, Ashley and McCann went their separate ways.
McCann went onto become a successful comic/character actor and mimic, doing voice over for many television cartoon shows and playing character parts on numerous dramatic and comedic TV series and movies. Paul Ashley used his puppets in industrial films and industrial stage shows. McCann also starred on other TV series: Turn-on (1969), Happy Days (1974), Far Out Space Nuts (1975),All That Glitters (1977), _"New Kind Of Family, A" (1979)_ and "Chuck McCann's Fun Stuff!". Ashley was slated to reunite with McCann for "LBS Children's Theater" and another TV puppet show "Tiny TV". But Ashley was forced to drop out both projects, when it was discovered that he was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and McCann took over as the show's host and performer. "LBS Children's Theater" made its debut in September of 1983 and was on the air for one season. Paul Ashley never lived long enough to see "LBS Children's Theater" become a success. Later, he played the voice of Jollo in the 1992 classic hit Sierra video game King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow.
Chuck McCann died on April 8, 2018 in Los Angeles, California, of heart failure.- Actress
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Russi Taylor was an American voice actress from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was the official voice of Minnie Mouse from 1986 until her death from colon cancer in 2019. She also voiced a lot of minor characters from The Simpsons including Martin Prince, Sherri and Terri. Grey DeLisle-Griffin succeeded her roles from The Simpsons. She was married to Mickey Mouse voice actor Wayne Allwine from 1991 until his death in 2009.- Actor
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Bill Thompson was born on 8 July 1913 in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Lady and the Tramp (1955), Peter Pan (1953) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). He was married to Mary Margaret McBride. He died on 15 July 1971 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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Charles is an Emmy Award winning Dialogue Director, Annie Award Acting Nominee, Dramalogue Winning Actor, Helen Hayes Award Acting Nominee and Casting Director. Successfully going from genre to genre, he has lent his Dialogue Direction talents to the remake of "The Nutty Professor" starring legend Jerry Lewis, the 2010 Emmy Nominated Prime Time series "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack" (Cartoon Network), the Direct to Videos dark and dramatic "Dante's Inferno" (Casting and Voice Directing), the horror success "Dead Zone" (Casting and Voice Directing), the family film "The Blue Elephant" with Carl Reiner and Martin Short and several more titles for the Weinstein Co.. He directed the performances in the long form action adventure Fire Breather for Cartoon Network which broke all records for it's time slot as well as Cast and Voice Directed Van Partiple's comedy "Johnny Bravo goes to Bollywood" starring Jeff Bennett and Brenda Vacarro. In the Adult Comedy genre Adler Voice Directed and or cast new prime time adult comedy pilots for Fox, MTV and Adult Swim Television. In the Pre-School genre Adler has Voice Directed 3 seasons of hit show Bubble Guppies for NICK Jr.. Charlie Directed Della Reese in an Alicia Keyes production of "Mamma Mae and the Blue Moon" (2012) and has also Directed and voiced(2012) 14 characters in the Children's book classic "Sweet Pickles"(Amazon Books). Adler Voice Directed all the Klasky/ Csupo franchised series and feature films, "Rugrats" (Emmy Award)", The Wild Thorn berry's" (Tim Curry), "Rocket Power", "Pre School Daze", "All Grown Up" and all of their pilots. Adler has also directed "Stripperella" (Pamela Anderson SPIKE TV), "The Replacements", "The Emperor's New School"(directing legend Eartha Kitt), "The Buzz on Maggie" all for Disney Television. Charlie also cast and Voice Directed "Eloise at the Plaza" w/Lynn Redgrave (Starz), "Holly Hobbie" with Jane Lynch (American Greeting Cards) and Spawn (Film Roman). As a Voice Actor, Adler can be heard as series regulars in well over 100 animated series often playing opposite himself. He was nominated for an Annie Award for his multiple roles as Cow, Chicken and the Red Guy in the Emmy Nominated series "Cow and Chicken", was Baboon in "I.M. Weasel" (opposite Michael Dorn) and can be heard playing 5 roles (including Cobra Commander) in the "GI Joe Resolute" Internet series as well as reprising Cobra Commander in Hasbro's "GI Joe Origins" (2010) on the HUB. Somwhere in the world daily Adler can be heard as the manic Mr. Whiskers in Disney's"Brandy & Mr. Whiskers" (opposite Kaley Cuoco), The Evil Eric Raymond and Techrat in "Jem", 3 roles in "Pet Aliens", 3 roles in "Shuriken School ", 3 roles in "Space Goofs", 2 roles in "Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks" for PBS and Dr. Doom and his mother Coco Von Doom in "Marvel Super Hero Squad". He has has also Voice Directed two Marvel Super Hero Squad video games for THQ. He is the voice of Starscream in the Michael Bay mega blockbuster Transformers Movie Trilogy and has reprised his role of Starscream for the 2012 Universal Theme Park "Transformers Ride". Some other notable characters of Adler's are Buster Bunny in Steven Spielberg's "Tiny Toon Adventures," Ickis in "AAAHH!!! Real Monsters" and Ed and Bev Bighead in "Rocko's Modern Life." He has also been an original "Smurf", was an original "G.I. Joe", an original "Transformer", a "Glow Friend" ,was 3 roles in original "My Little Pony " series(Spike the Baby Dragon, Moochick, Trundle King)and was in Ralph Bakshi's cult classic "Cool World" playing opposite Kim Bassinger and Brad Pitt as Nails Pitt's neurotic sidekick. Named one of the "Top 13 All Time Voice-Over Artists" by Animation Magazine and "Voice of The Decade" by Animation World News(2000), Adler is at the undisputed top of the animation world. Adler is also the Director, co-writer and star of the independent live action movie "No Prom for Cindy," appearing in over 45 prestigious film festivals worldwide and winning numerous awards in Acting/and Directing categories. The movie was adopted by San Francisco State University's Film Department as part of their curriculum. As a stage actor, Charlie starred on Broadway in "Torch Song Trilogy"(1984) as a successor to Harvey Feinstein and toured in the First National Company which earned him a "Helen Hayes Award Best Actor" nomination (1985). Off-Broadway, Adler co-starred in the hit "Family Business" at the Astor Place Theater for a year as well as appearing in Alan Albert's acclaimed Improv. Company, "The Proposition". Adler co-starred and played opposite comedy legend Imogene Coca in "Once Upon a Mattress," with Professor Irwin Corey in Neil Simon's "God's Favorite" and toured as Edward Albee's complex anti hero in "Zoo Story." In addition, he has played Israel Horowitz's Hero in "Dr. Hero" ( another disturbed soul), as well as the Emcee in "Cabaret." On television Charlie appeared on "The Redd Foxx Show (with Pam Adlon)(Lorimar ABC)" assumed the roles of three generations of sons for PBS in "Then and Now,"and guest starred On "Hot in Cleveland" opposite Susan Lucci and Wendie Malick in the two part "I Love Lucci" as Lucci's Director. In his youth, (when he had brown hair and eyelids), Adler was a familiar face in dozens television commercials for Coca-Cola, McDonalds, IBM, G.E. Big Red Gum and Safeguard Soap. As a writer, Adler has co-written "Steven Spielberg's Tiny Toon Adventures" episodes and his critically acclaimed One Man Show (playing eleven characters), "There Used to Be Fireflies," which won him a Dramalogue Award for "Best Actor "(1996), (a performance he reprised in 2006 Directed by Asaad Kelada) and a Dramalogue Award for Set Design (1996) as well. He also paints and sells his work to calm down and remember just who in the hell he is.- Actor
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A Los Angeles native, Phil is a graduate of Harvard-Westlake School, Yale University and The Groundlings Theater and is perhaps best known as one of the original cast members of Mad TV (1995) and as Marvin in Pulp Fiction (1994).
In addition to numerous appearances on stages across the country, in films and on TV, he also starred in and produced the comedy web series Inside the Legend (2012). He has also been profiled for his extensive voice-over work, which includes regular roles on animated series as well as parts in video games like Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (2014) for which he won the NAVGTR Award for Best Supporting Actor.- Writer
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Seth Woodbury MacFarlane was born in the small New England town of Kent, Connecticut, where he lived with his mother, Ann Perry (Sager), an admissions office worker, his father, Ronald Milton MacFarlane, a prep school teacher, and his sister, Rachael MacFarlane, now a voice actress and singer. He is of English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry, and descends from Mayflower passengers.
Seth attended and studied animation at the Rhode Island School of Design and, after he graduated, he was hired by Hanna-Barbera Productions (Now called Cartoon Network Studios) working as an animator and writer on the TV series Johnny Bravo (1997) and Cow and Chicken (1997). He also worked for Walt Disney Animation as a writer on the TV series Jungle Cubs (1996). He created The Life of Larry (1995) which was originally supposed to be used as an in-between on Mad TV (1995). Unfortunately the deal fell through but, a few months later, executives at FOX called him into their offices and gave him $50,000 to create a pilot for what would eventually become Family Guy (1999).
Since Family Guy's debut, MacFarlane has gone on to create two other television shows-American Dad! (2005) and The Cleveland Show (2009). MacFarlane began to establish himself as an actor, voice actor, animator, writer, producer, director, comedian, and singer throughout his career. MacFarlane has also written, directed and starred in Ted (2012) and its sequel Ted 2 (2015), and A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014). He voiced the mouse, Mike, in the animated musical Sing (2016).- Actor
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Alan Tudyk was born in El Paso, Texas, but grew up in Plano, where he attended Plano Sr. High. In 1990, he went on to study drama at Lon Morris Jr. College. While there, he was awarded the Academic Excellence Award for Drama. He was also named Most Likely to Succeed and Sophomore Beau. During this time, Alan was also an active member of the Delta Psi Omega fraternity.
After leaving LMJC, Alan went on to study at the prestigious Juilliard conservatory but left in 1996 before earning a degree.
After a number of smaller stage productions and a small role in the movie Patch Adams (1998), Alan landed his first Broadway role in 1999 with "Epic Proportions." He quickly became a sought-after comedic actor, with roles in such films as 28 Days (2000) and A Knight's Tale (2001).
In 2002, Alan got the role of Wash, the wise-cracking pilot of Serenity on the short-lived series Firefly (2002). Although it lasted only eleven episodes, this may be Alan's most well-known and best-loved role. No other networks would buy the failed series, but Universal Pictures began courting creator Joss Whedon to produce a big-screen version of the series. While awaiting the final news of Firefly's fate, Alan played the beloved Steve the Pirate in the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004) and the voice of the robot Sonny in I, Robot (2004).
In 2005, Alan finally reprised the role of Wash in Serenity (2005), the feature-film version of the series Firefly. The same year, he went back to Broadway from June to November, taking over the role of Lancelot for Hank Azaria in the successful musical "Spamalot."
He lives in New York City but also has a place in Los Angeles, California- Actor
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John DiMaggio is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, and producer from Plainfield, New Jersey. He is best known for voicing Bender on Futurama, Jake the Dog on Adventure Time, King Zøg on Disenchantment, The Joker from Batman: Under the Red Hood and Jerry Jumbeaux Jr from Zootopia. He can also be seen in Better Call Saul, Mythic Quest, The Newsroom, Modern Family, The League, Historical Roasts on Netflix and The Little Fockers. John had his own comedy show on MTV named after his comedy duo called Red Johnny and the Round Guy, and did stand up at home and abroad in the 1990s, with the likes of Dave Chapelle, Jeff Ross, Dave Attell, Greer Barnes and Dane Cook. He has been married to actress Kate Miller since 2014. He resides in both New York and Los Angeles.