Frank Welker

Frank Welker is an American voice actor. He is best known for providing a wide range of character voices and other vocal effects, and has been credited in over 800 film, television, and video game acting credits. He voiced both Fred Jones and the title character himself from the Scooby-Doo franchise since 1969 and 2002 respectively. His other roles include Baby Kermit in the original Muppet Babies, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in Epic Mickey and its sequel; Megatron, Galvatron, Soundwave, and various characters in the Transformers franchise; Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II on The Simpsons; Shao Kahn and Reptile in the 1995 Mortal Kombatfilm; Curious George in the Curious Georgefranchise; Garfield on The Garfield Show; Nibbler on Futurama; the titular character in Jabberjaw; Speed Buggy in the Scooby-Doofranchise; Astro and Orbitty on the 1980s revival of The Jetsons; and various characters in The Smurfs as well as numerous animal vocal effects in many works.

Career
Welker began his career as a stand-up comedian and impressionist in 1967, before transitioning to on-screen acting and later voice acting. His first major voice role came in 1969 as Fred Jones in the Scooby-Doofranchise. Welker has voiced Fred in almost every series and incarnation of the Scooby-Doo animated franchise (with the exceptions of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Scoob!, and Velma, the latter of which he portrayed Fred’s father) and has also provided the voice of Scooby-Doosince 2002. With the death of Casey Kasem in 2014, Welker is the only original voice actor still in the Scooby-Doo franchise.

His next major character voice was for Wonder Dog (which was inspired by Scooby-Doo) and Marvin White on the 1973 series Super Friends(also produced by Hanna-Barbera). That same year, he played Pudge and Gabby on DePatie-Freleng Enterprises' animated series Bailey's Comets. Welker continued to provide voices for many characters for Hanna-Barbera for several years, which include Jabberjaw, Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, and the Shmoo in The New Fred and Barney Show and its spin-off, The Flintstones Comedy Show. Frank Welker described the voice he used for the Shmoo as "a bubble voice" (one he later used for Gogo Dodo in Tiny Toon Adventures).

In 1978, he played the title character on Fangface and later in its spin-off, Fangface and Fangpuss, and also voiced Heckle and Jeckleand Quacula on The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle, and Spike, Tyke, Droopy, Slick Wolf and Barney Bear on The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Welker became a very busy voice actor, providing the voice for many popular cartoon characters in multiple TV series, including Uni on Dungeons & Dragons; Brain, Doctor Claw, and M.A.D. Cat on Inspector Gadget; Mister Mxyzptlk, Darkseid, and Kalibak on Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show; Iceman & various characters on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends; Baby Kermit, Baby Beaker and various other characters on Muppet Babies; Wild Bill, Dreadnok Torch, and various G.I. Joe heroes and villains; Scooter on Challenge of the GoBots; Ray Stantz and Slimer in The Real Ghostbusters; the villainous Dr. Jeremiah Surd on The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest; Bubba the Caveduck and two of the Beagle Boys(Bigtime & Baggie) on DuckTales; multiple voices on The Smurfs, including Hefty Smurf, Poet Smurf, and Peewit; and various characters on Captain Planet and the Planeteers.

He also voiced various characters on The Simpsons, such as Santa's Little Helper, Snowball II, and various other animals from 1991 to his departure from the show in 2002. Welker provided both the speaking voice and animal sounds for Nibbler on Matt Groening's Futurama. He provided the voices for Mr. Plotz, Runt, Ralph the Guard, Buttons, and other characters on Animaniacs, Gogo Dodo, Furball, Beeper, and others on Tiny Toon Adventures, Hector the Bulldog on The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, and Tom Cat, Jerry Mouse, and McWolf, the main antagonist to Droopy and his nephew Dripple on Tom & Jerry Kids Show and Droopy, Master Detective.

He also voiced "Gus Goose", "Salty the Seal", "Figaro", "Pegasus" from Hercules, "Abu" the Monkey from Aladdin, "Aracuan Bird" & Cri-Kee from Mulan in the "House of Mouse" from 2001 to 2003. Welker has also created the vocal effects for many animals and creatures in films, including Abu the monkey, Rajah the tiger, and the Cave of Wonders in Aladdin (1992), its two sequels, the television series, and the remake (2019), Arnold the Pig in the television film Return to Green Acres (1990), the whales in Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, Shao Kahn and Reptile in the Mortal Kombat movie (1995), the Martians in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996), and the penguins in Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011). He performed Spock's screams in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and voiced The Thing in The Golden Child (1986), Jinx the robot in SpaceCamp (1986), Totoro in the 2005 English version of Studio Ghibli's film My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Alien Sil in Species(1995), Malebolgia in Spawn (1997), and Gargamel's cat Azrael in Sony Pictures Animation's live action/animated film versions of The Smurfs.

In 2006, he began voicing George in the popular children's series Curious George. He also voiced George in the animated film of the same name that same year. In 2007, Welker became the new voice of Garfield, following Bill Murray's departure from the role, and succeeding the original actor Lorenzo Music, who died in 2001 (Welker and Music had previously worked together on The Real Ghostbusters and the original Garfield and Friends). Welker voiced Garfield in Garfield Gets Real (2007), Garfield's Fun Fest (2008), Garfield's Pet Force (2009), and on the series The Garfield Show, which ran from 2008 to 2016. In 2011, he provided the voice of Batmanin a Scooby-Doo crossover segment of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode, "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!". In the same episode, he also voiced Batboy, the classic Mad Magazine Batman spoof, originally created by Wally Wood.

Welker has also provided voices for many video game characters, most notably Disney's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and The Shadow Blotin Epic Mickey and its sequel Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, as well as Zurvan, also called the Ancient One, on StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. He also provided the voice of the mad mage Xzar for the Baldur's Gate video game series, and reprised his role from Avengers Assemble as Odin for Lego Marvel's Avengers.

In 2016, Welker received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award at the 43rd Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.