The real star of TOS-ANIMATED series-James Doohan.

[Mutara Nebula 1967]

I guess TOS-Animated goes here.

Was just looking at a website about the animated series and the sheer number of voices provided by Jimmy Doohan is staggering...I find it ironic the big three get the starring credits for TOS-AN...they should have bumped Jimmy up there too.

And Nichelle to a lesser extent did a huge amount of female voices.

 

[Christopher]

It's true that Doohan did a ton of voices for TAS, but some sources out there credit him for more roles than he actually played. In the revised ST Concordance, Bjo Trimble pretty much slapped his name onto every guest role that was listed as "Unknown" in the original edition, even when you can tell by listening that it wasn't Doohan (and in some cases was probably a lesser-known '70s voice-acting stalwart such as Lennie Weinrib). And I'm sure there are websites out there that use that as their source and perpetuate the errors. So take what you read with a grain of salt.

 

[Therin of Andor]

the sheer number of voices provided by Jimmy Doohan is staggering...I find it ironic the big three get the starring credits for TOS-AN...they should have bumped Jimmy up there too.

Up till these live action into animated shows, it was very rare for any animation voice actors to get opening credits billing.

Until Nimoy put his foot down, Doohan would have been doing Sulu as well.

And Nichelle to a lesser extent did a huge amount of female voices.

Ditto. Majel Barrett would have been doing Uhura.

 

[FalTorPan]

And Lou Scheimer as Gremlin the Baby Dragon of Berengaria VII!

 

[Atavachron]

It's true that Doohan did a ton of voices for TAS, but some sources out there credit him for more roles than he actually played. In the revised ST Concordance, Bjo Trimble pretty much slapped his name onto every guest role that was listed as "Unknown" in the original edition, even when you can tell by listening that it wasn't Doohan...

I wish I had known that back when Jimmy was alive. I would have asked him which ones he did. I guess you snooze you lose, eh?

Atavachron

 

[Christopher]

Well, he probably wouldn't have remembered exactly which ones he did, not after so long. He probably recorded all the episodes in a fairly quick span of time, so it would've been a blur, for him or just about any busy voice actor.

But then, it's generally pretty easy to recognize Doohan's or Takei's voice when you hear it coming from a TAS character. No matter how versatile a voice artist, once you get to know their voice, you can usually recognize it most any time you hear it.

 

[egonbeeblebrox]

But then, it's generally pretty easy to recognize Doohan's or Takei's voice when you hear it coming from a TAS character. No matter how versatile a voice artist, once you get to know their voice, you can usually recognize it most any time you hear it.

Doohan was pretty good, but always kind of recognizable, like when you hear Frank Welker's voice, even if he's playing an animal, you can tell it's Welker. Takei just sounded kinda silly whenever he played someone other than Sulu.

 

[Christopher]

^^Oh, I don't know... Welker did some great cat sounds that didn't just sound like Welker. Once, one of my real cats was fooled by the sound of a Frank Welker cat screech.

But yeah, Doohan was one of those voice actors whose voices are always recognizably him, which isn't necessarily a criticism. It's still possible to have a lot of range while still having a recognizable sound. He was certainly more versatile than, say, Filmation co-founder Lou Scheimer, who did dozens of voices for Filmation shows, all of which sounded pretty much the same. He did a few TOS voices as well, including Cadmar, Lemus, and various Aquans in "The Ambergris Element," a Romulan officer in "The Practical Joker," and a guard in "Albatross."

 

[EnsignHarper]

But then, it's generally pretty easy to recognize Doohan's or Takei's voice when you hear it coming from a TAS character. No matter how versatile a voice artist, once you get to know their voice, you can usually recognize it most any time you hear it.

Doohan was pretty good, but always kind of recognizable, like when you hear Frank Welker's voice, even if he's playing an animal, you can tell it's Welker. Takei just sounded kinda silly whenever he played someone other than Sulu.

Even Mel Blanc, the 'Man of a Thousand Voices', is recognizable after a while...

Welker does the LT voices very well, but you can still tell its not Mel...

 

[Christopher]

Welker does the LT voices very well, but you can still tell its not Mel...

Uhh, Frank Welker didn't take over the Looney Tunes voices, assuming that's what you mean by LT. Since Blanc's death, they've been played by multiple actors. At first, Blanc's son Noel was slated to take them over, but for some reason WB went instead with impressionist Jeff Bergman, who didn't sound nearly as much like Blanc and was a poor actor as well. WB eventually learned from their mistake, and over the past couple of decades, various different people have played the Looney Tunes. Probably the best is Joe Alaskey, who usually does Bugs, Daffy, and Sylvester (including in Looney Tunes: Back in Action) and has done many other Looney Tunes characters in other cartoons and video games. Billy West also plays Bugs a lot in various projects (including Space Jam), and is usually Elmer Fudd (although Blanc only played that role once or twice; the original Elmer was Arthur Q. Bryant). Bob Bergen usually plays Porky Pig these days, Maurice LaMarche usually does Pepe LePew and Yosemite Sam, etc. (Space Jam had a strikingly different cast from Back in Action -- West as Bugs, Dee Bradley Baker as Daffy, Bill Farmer as Sylvester and Sam, etc.)

The only cases where Welker played WB characters originated by Blanc were in The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, where he played Hector the Bulldog, and the movie Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, wherein he reprised Hector and also played Hugo the Abominable Snowman and Mugsy the gangster henchman. Also, it's arguable that his Gogo Dodo character from Tiny Toon Adventures was the same Dodo from Porky in Wackyland.

 

[dougkeenan]

nerd olympics 10/10

 

[Therin of Andor]

Doohan was pretty good, but always kind of recognizable... Takei just sounded kinda silly whenever he played someone other than Sulu.

George Takei came into his own as a voice actor with the Simon & Schuster Audioworks' ST novel abridgments. Especially "Strangers from the Sky". His Southern-accented Melody Sawyer was excellent!

 

[Trevacious]

Very disappointed by the willowy voice Doohan used as the Guardian Of Forever in the animated episode Yesteryear. It was so wrong to me, I was taken right out of the moment.

Jimmy may've been no Bart Larue, but he certainly could've delivered something far closer to the original sound if directed to do so. He had the voice and experience. He was the voice of Sargon in TOS, and the sound is not so dissimilar from the Guardian and other disembodied voices of Trek.

I'll blame the voice director. I wonder if anyone in the recording studio that day had ever seen City On The Edge Of Forever? I wouldn't be surprised if Doohan himself had never seen it to that point.

 

[EnsignHarper]

Welker does the LT voices very well, but you can still tell its not Mel...

Uhh, Frank Welker didn't take over the Looney Tunes voices, assuming that's what you mean by LT. Since Blanc's death, they've been played by multiple actors. At first, Blanc's son Noel was slated to take them over, but for some reason WB went instead with impressionist Jeff Bergman, who didn't sound nearly as much like Blanc and was a poor actor as well. WB eventually learned from their mistake, and over the past couple of decades, various different people have played the Looney Tunes. Probably the best is Joe Alaskey, who usually does Bugs, Daffy, and Sylvester (including in Looney Tunes: Back in Action) and has done many other Looney Tunes characters in other cartoons and video games. Billy West also plays Bugs a lot in various projects (including Space Jam), and is usually Elmer Fudd (although Blanc only played that role once or twice; the original Elmer was Arthur Q. Bryant). Bob Bergen usually plays Porky Pig these days, Maurice LaMarche usually does Pepe LePew and Yosemite Sam, etc. (Space Jam had a strikingly different cast from Back in Action -- West as Bugs, Dee Bradley Baker as Daffy, Bill Farmer as Sylvester and Sam, etc.)

The only cases where Welker played WB characters originated by Blanc were in The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, where he played Hector the Bulldog, and the movie Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, wherein he reprised Hector and also played Hugo the Abominable Snowman and Mugsy the gangster henchman. Also, it's arguable that his Gogo Dodo character from Tiny Toon Adventures was the same Dodo from Porky in Wackyland.

Oh cripes I meant Alaskey - he IS pretty good

Mel did Elmer like twice - and was horrible..its why Elmer virtually disappeared...

 

[Christopher]

Hal Smith also did Elmer in a couple of late cartoons, and he was arguably better at it than Blanc, although he didn't sound much like Arthur Q. Bryant. (Smith is probably better known for playing Scrooge McDuck's archrival Flintheart Glomgold in Disney's Duck Tales in the late '80s.)

Apparently, at the time Looney Tunes: Back in Action was being made, WB commissioned a series of new Looney Tunes shorts for theatrical release. But the box-office failure of the movie led to those cartoons being shelved -- the ones that were made were unreleased and the ones in progress were halted. Anyway, IMDb lists them nonetheless, and alleges that Jeff Bennett was doing most of the voices. Which is odd, since you'd think they'd use the LT:BiA cast. And while Bennett is very versatile, I can't quite hear him as Bugs or Daffy.