Last week, I wrote about Chris Rock’s jab at voice actors during the Oscars. While I honestly think he wasn’t trying to be malicious with the jokes, what he was saying just wasn’t true and I don’t blame the voice actors who got annoyed. Many of the cartoons I love share voice actors because these people are so talented and have such diverse voices in their repertoire, so I wanted to showcase just a few of my favorites:
John Di Maggio — I love him as Jake on Adventure Time and Bender on Futurama, but John is also on Pound Puppies, Ben 10: Alien Force and Generator Rex this year alone! Besides Bender, he also plays a wide variety of characters on Futurama including Randy, Igner and Robot Santa.
Tress MacNeille — Tress is my voice idol. She was both Babs on Tiny Toon Adventures and Dot on Animaniacs, but she’s done a ton of voices on The Simpsons throughout the years and has been on well over a hundred cartoons. One of my favorite one-time roles of hers is a chilling, blood-thirsty old woman in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Oh, and she’s Mom on Futurama. Tress is a cartoon bad-ass.
Tara Strong — I talked about Tara Strong last week, but she’s probably best known these days for her role as Twilight Sparkle on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. However, she’s also Timmy Turner on Fairly Oddparents, the bully Terrence on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Bubbles on Powerpuff Girls. Oh, and she was also Barbara Gordon AKA Batgirl on Batman the Animated Series … and her Barbara Gordon was the main reason Batgirl is my favorite superhero. So yeah, I’m a fan.
Kevin Conroy — Speaking of Batman, Kevin Conroy has an amazing voice for Batman. He’s also my favorite Bruce Wayne. If you never checked out Batman the Animated Series, you might still have heard him as the Dark Knight in the incredibly well done video games Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. If you’re a fan of Venture Bros., he also spoofed the Caped Crusader (and a good dose of Superman) as Captain Sunshine.
Mark Hamill — The Joker. Enough said.
Maurice LaMarche — I loved him as Brain on Pinky and the Brain, a role that came from his spot-on impersonation of Orson Welles. If you haven’t heard his “frozen peas” bit, it is priceless. Another Futurama castmember, he voices Kiff and Lrrr among others. He does a menagerie of other impersonations, including a spot-on Shatner.
H. Jon Benjamin — I first found H. Jon Benjamin as McGuirk on Home Movies, but he’s gone on to do a ton of cartoons and live action shows. Right now, he’s splitting his time between headlining Archer and Bob’s Burgers (which premiered its 2nd season last night). I also love when he cameos on the Venture Bros. as the shape-shifting Master.
Billy West — Between Zoidberg, Phillip J. Fry, Professor Farnsworth and Zapp Branigan, Billy West has the key to my funny bone … and that’s all just on one show! And that’s not even all the characters he does on the show! He was also both Ren and Stimpy on Ren and Stimpy. The man has made a living talking to himself.
Frank Welker — Simply put, Frank Welker is the king of voice acting. He been the voice of Fred on almost every version of Scooby Doo and is the original English voice of Megatron, but that’s just the beginning. When he’s not playing speaking roles like Fred or Megatron, he’s doing the incredibly accurate animal and background noises. Not only was he Abu in Aladdin the movie and the cartoon show, but also the animal voice and the speaking voice of Nibbler on Futurama. I’m not even going to try listing his many projects — IMDB lists well over 650 projects since his start in 1969. The man is a master.
Please don’t think this is a complete list by any means — it was hard to limit myself to 8 actors because there are so many amazing voice actors out there that I adore. As I was wrapping this up, I kept finding myself wanting to add more, so it looks like I’ll have to do another post down the road. Did I miss your favorite? Let me know and tell me why you think they’re fantastic! Or if I missed your favorite role from the actors above, let me know that too!
Clacked by Katie Schenkel 
on Mar 12, 2012 @ 13:00 EST5EDT
You mention Maurice LaMarche and don’t mention Morbo, Katie?! WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!
;)
No, seriously, I interviewed him last season and I swear, it was one of my best interviews ever. When we talked about Morbo, he did the Morbo voice for me.
*POST AUTHOR*
But you know if I mentioned Morbo I’d also have to mention Horrible Gelatinous Blob and then explain how the three voices are distinctly different! Haha, I actually had all three voices on his list for a while, but I figured Lrrr represented all three of them.
But yes, he’s amazing. And the windmills line is quoted often in my home, often replacing “windmills” with whatever we’re talking about.
Great. I just cracked up at work just from reading the Morbo quote, I heard it perfectly in my head. Ohhh so many hours of my life have been spent quoting Futurama! ‘Big Brain am winning again! I am the greetest!’
I think I must have dozens of favorites from American and Japanese cartoons and video games, but since you listed Frank Welker, I must at least mention Mel Blanc and June Foray from the good old days.
I think I had to block my mind from the classic voices or else the list would have exploded. I’m telling you, I’ll be doing another list in the future.