Frank Welker

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Frank Welker

Frank Welker
Birth name Frank Willard Welker
Born February 16, 1945 (age 62)
Denver, Colorado, USA

Franklin Willard Welker (born February 16, 1945) is an American voice actor. He is responsible for a broad spectrum of character voices, noises, and other vocal effects that have appeared over the last 40 years in American TV shows and movies. Welker is particularly noted for a wide range of non-verbal vocal effects, i.e., for aliens and (non-talking) animals.

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Frank Welker was born in Denver, Colorado. Before he began his career as a voice actor, Welker was a live-action character actor, and appeared in such films as Elvis' The Trouble with Girls. Welker's longest running role is also one of his earliest voice-over roles: as Fred Jones, the level-headed leader of the mystery-solving team from Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo, Where are You!. He began the role in 1969, and Welker has continued to perform it through most of the show's various spinoffs and versions. This also includes many parodies and cameos of the character in other cartoons.

Welker also participated in two Disney classic movies with Kurt Russell (Dexter Riley), The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and Now You See Him, Now You Don't, as one of Dexter Riley's classmates.

Megatron, voiced by Frank Welker
Megatron, voiced by Frank Welker

In the 1980s, Welker voiced Megatron, Soundwave and his cassettes, and Galvatron (Season 3) in the Transformers cartoon. In this he formed a team with the late Chris Latta, who voiced Starscream, Megatron's second-in-command. In 1988, Welker did the voice of Rulon leader Krulos in the TV-series Dino-riders. In this cartoon he again formed a team with Chris Latta, who (coincidentally?) voiced Rasp, Krulos' second-in-command. In G.I. Joe, Welker also teamed with Latta. (Other actors who featured in Transformers, Dino-riders and G.I. Joe are Jack Angel, Charlie Adler and Peter Cullen.) He also provided the voice of Dr. Ray Stantz and the garbled sounds of Slimer in The Real Ghostbusters and its several later versions. Another of Welker's notable voices is that of Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget. In a famous goof from Transformers, Soundwave's unmodulated voice was revealed to be nearly identical to that of Dr. Claw.

Welker has been referred to as a "voice acting god" (by John DiMaggio and Billy West in the DVD commentary for Futurama) in Hollywood for the sheer number of voices he has done—over 1,200—ranging from his work on Scooby-Doo to the present day with his many roles in cartoons (Lilo & Stitch: The Series), films (The Cat in the Hat), and computer games (the Baldur's Gate series). In The Transformers, he voiced several of the original Decepticons. With the release of the film, he took on the role of the Autobot Wheelie, and afterwards, took over the role of Galvatron from Leonard Nimoy. Having already provided the screams for Nimoy's character Mr. Spock in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, this marked the second time he had inherited a role from Nimoy. Welker did more live action movies during the 1990s. Among his work includes vocal effects for the character Goro in 1995's Mortal Kombat, the movie being based on Midway's popular fighting game, and Welker voiced the Devil Malebolgia in 1997's Spawn, the movie based on the very popular Todd McFarlane comic books. Welker also provided the voice (both speaking and non-speaking) of Nibbler in the cartoon TV series Futurama. Frank was also the voice of Snot Tiger,a cat who always sneezes and the Fox kits,an another band in the 2006 Walt Disney animated film The Fox and the Hound 2.

As of 2002, Welker is the voice of both Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo in What's New, Scooby-Doo?, the latest series-based spinoff to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!.

Preceded by
Mel Blanc		 Voice of Barney Rubble
July 1989 —
(programs only, Jeff Bergman does Barney for commercials)		 Succeeded by
present
Preceded by
Scott Innes		 Voice of Scooby-Doo
September 2002 —		 Succeeded by
present
Preceded by
none		 Voice of Fred Jones
1969- Present		 Succeeded by
present
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../f/r/a/Frank_Welker_7ffd.html"
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