Favorite Voice Actors

[MrsEclipse]

Let's talk about our favorite voice actors, the actors who spend the majority of their careers voicing cartoon characters or dubbing, and your favorite characters of theirs. This will be fun. My favorites? In the order they were born, and my favorite things about them:

Lucille Bliss. She was the voice of Smurfette in the 80s. My grandfather's nickname for me was Smurfette. I also had a Peter Cottontail record that she narrated stories on. I especially thought her as the evil, possibly supernatural teacher on Invader Zim, Miss Bitters, was a hilarious contrast from what I knew her from.

June Foray. First off, I think it's amazing that she's still playing the same Loony Tunes character after all this time. The Phantom Tollbooth is my favorite book ever, and she was in the movie as one of the Princesses, among others. I also loved her in Horton Hears a Who. Also, in addition to being the evil doll in the Twilight Zone, wasn't she also the voice of the actual doll it was based on? Or is that an urban legend?

Jim Cummings. He's the first person who's voice I recognized between cartoons, as well as the first one I knew who did voices exclusively. He's amazing. Not only does he voice Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, but I hear he calls sick kids in the hospital and talks to them as Pooh. He was Darkwing Duck for Disney, and I have an interview he did in the 90s in a comic book. In that interview he tells a story about how he used to read his daughter bedtime stories and he did voices for the characters. Anyway, she got fed up and said, "Dad, can't you stop doing the voices and just read the story?" And he gets all indignant and says, "Listen, little lady, you'd better hope I never stop doing these voices!" XD

Cree Summer. She got her voice with Nelvana in The Care Bears Movie. When she grew up, she was in Drawn Together, which is INCREDIBLY raunchy. It's funny because it's, like, the OPPOSITE of Care Bears. She's done so many shows I watch, or even just have heard of. One sad thing, though, in an interview she was talking about how since she's black, in live action she can usually only be the "black best friend." But in animation she can be anything she wants. She can even be the white girl. Which is sad, because it shows that Hollywood hasn't caught up with the real world in terms of population statistics. She's best friends with another favorite of mine, Tara Strong.

Tara Strong. She's gotten popular since she's in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. She loves to tease the fans on twitter and pretend like she's their queen. One time she was scheduled to go to a convention but had to cancel at the last minute. One of the attendees, a boy with unspecified mental disabilities, was crushed because he was looking forward to seeing her. She called him up on the phone and talked to him for 20 minutes doing all of his favorite characters. One time he accidentally hung up on him and she called him back and teased, "Did you just hang up on Twilight Sparkle?" or whichever character she was doing. It was really sweet.

EXTRA
Tony Jay. He doesn't really count because was a huge stage actor and did a number of live action things. I just think he was amazing in his animated works. He was the villain in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and performed the greatest villain song ever composed IMHO.

Didn't mean to sound so bland. I don't want to assume nobody knows who I'm talking about, because you might, but I also don't want to assume everyone knows who I'm talking about, because you might not. I don't know. Maybe this post was ill-advised. Anyway, who are your favorites? Let's see if we share favorites. It was torture limiting myself to five and a bonus, but I'm always looking for new voice actors to love listening to.

[AstroBlaster1998]

Wow that's a lot of people WOW!!

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

I'm sorta related to June Foray by marriage.

June Foray is my wife's cousin.

Also how could you leave out her most famous voice role ... Rocky the flying Squirrel!

[jeffbert]

hmy: June Foray was Talking Tina? :d evil: I loved that one! "I'm Talking Tina & I'm going to kill you!"

Paul Frees is my absolute favorite voice actor. His characters vary widely, from [url=https://www.google.com/search?q=Boris+Badenov+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US fficial&client=firefox-a&channel=sb]Boris Badenov[/url] to the Pillsbury Doughboy, & including the alien voice in Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, & various narrations including The St. Valentine's Day Massacre. It is true that he did act before becoming a voice actor, but his voice is my favorite. Note that he did work with June Foray in Rocky & Bullwinkle.

Peter Fernandez is probably my 2nd favorite. Not only did he dub many voices in Speed Racer, but also very similar ones in A Fistful of Dollars!

[Earthshine]

I really enjoy Mel Blanc's work, he had such range and skill!

For more modern choices hmm... There are a lot that I really love to listen to. I really like Wendy Powell from Funimation because I think her voice is so smooth and hypnotic. I could listen to it all day.

There are also LOTS of actors which did voice work for Batman and subsequent DC animations that I really like such as Kevin Conroy (Batman), Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker and the Joker) and Michael Rosenbaum (the Flash and Lex Luthor from Smallville).

I'm afraid I have not kept up with a whole lot of other voice actors, these guys just stick in my mind because the shows that they appeared in where crucial to me when growing up. I listened to them/saw them pretty much every day.

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

Patrick Stewart has done voice actor work as well. I love his voice, it's so distinctive (as most Shakespearian actor's voices are).
He did Lloyd Steam in the anime 'Steam Boy', and some characters on Futurama, the Simpsons, and Family Guy.

[jayrath]

If we include radio drama (which of course is voice acting), Harold Peary, Agnes Moorehead, Frank Lovejoy, Lurene Tuttle (truly remarkable), Orson Welles and Peter Sellers ("The Goon Show").

Cartoons only -- have to think about it. Blanc and Foray, of course. Maybe Pinto Colvig, Walter Tetley (FASCINATING life! ), Charlie Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton, Tom Kenny (for "Word Girl" far more than "Spongebob"). Strongly agree about Cree!

Helen Slater is really, really good. But then she's had musical training, and there's a lot of carryover into voice acting. Wish she'd do more.

Some of the above do not have great range (i.e. lots of trick voices) but they are still wonderfully nuanced and expressive.

Don Messick, Daws Butler, Frank Welker and Bea Benaderet should have their own statues.

Jim Backus! (And if you doubt me, listen to him play Mr. Magoo in "A Christmas Carol." Great acting. Period.)

And don't forget that Walt Disney voiced Mickey!