By Matt Murray

Who is Frank Welker you may ask?

Well, if you call yourself a “geek,” then odds are you already know. So, you can skip ahead to the rest of the article… but here’s a little factoid before you go – Do you realize that if you combine the box-office receipts of all of the films Mr. Welker has acted in, he’s the highest grossing actor of all time?

If you actually don’t know who Frank Welker is and are intrigued by that tidbit, then here’s a big point that you need to consider: anytime you’re in a movie, or for that matter watching TV, and you hear an animal sound be it bark, purr, chirp, or screech and it wasn’t recorded live on set or location, odds are it came out of Mr. Welker’s money maker (ie: his mouth.) Frank Welker is one of America’s leading voice-over artists, and probably the least “famous” major movie and television star in the industry.

Though he famously understated that he “makes animal noises for a living,” Welker racked most of his 620+ IMDb credits as an actor sounding off in some of the biggest movies and television shows of all time. His bread and butter seems to be mainly in dogs (Man’s Best Friend, Santa’s Little Helper on The Simpsons) and monkeys (Curious George, Aladdin’s Abu) but he’s often allowed to let loose as aliens (Mars Attacks, Independence Day) and a good ol’ fashioned monsters (Spike and Mowhawk in the Gremlins movies, Tiamat on the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, 1998’s Godzilla). He’s also contributed to the sound tracks of the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Indiana Jones film franchises.

(Did you really think that they taught a monkey to hail Die Führer in Raiders of the Lost Ark ?)

But to strictly focus on his creature vocals ignores his impressive body of character work that has entertained and amazed people for over four decades. To pay homage to his continuing role in our lives as geeks here’s a grossly abbreviated list of Welker’s most famous and recognizable parts:

Fred Jones, Scooby-Doo

Frank Welker’s first voice-over role is the one that he’s perhaps most associated with in Saturday Morning circles. With the exception of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, on which he voiced a tween-aged Fred’s older uncle, Welker has voiced Fred Jones in every incarnation of the Scooby-Doo franchise dating back to the 1969 original. (*Note: since the 1997 passing of Don Messick, he’s also voiced Scooby.) Welker has such an attachment to and good humor about the part of Fred, that he has also voiced every spoof and “guest appearance” of the character whether it was on Johnny Bravo, Family Guy, or Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. If the “Fred” voice sounds at all familiar out of the context of Scooby-Doo, you may recognize it coming out of the mouth of another teenaged blonde crime fighter, Ice Man/Bobby Drake on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, or maybe another supernatural detective, Ray Stantz on The Real Ghostbusters – both also voiced by Welker.

Dr. Claw, Inspector Gadget

Low, snarling, and gravelly, the Dr. Claw voice is iconic evil at its best. Welker would later re-use it as Darkseid on Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show and as Soundwave on Transformers (…though it would be filtered by a vocoder, he did however, voice Soundwave in the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen sans electronic treatment.) In all, Inspector Gadget’s unseen arch-enemy is probably his most famous villain voice, not counting…

Megatron, Transformers

There’s probably so much written about this character and Welker’s contribution to it that we’ll leave you to do the search on all the articles and interviews. (insert link here?) Although, producers chose to go with Hugo Weaving doing a Megatron impression for the Transformers films, Welker has kept up his work as Optimus Prime’s nemesis in most of the franchise’s video-games and new animated off-shoots (like the current Transformers Prime.)

Frank Welker with Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime.

Hefty Smurf, The Smurfs

As The Smurfs premier action hero, and as Communist conspiracy theorists believe stand-in for Stalin, Hefty got a lot of screen time on the animated series. However, Hefty was far from the only character Welker voiced on the show.

Other roles included: Poet Smurf; human ally Peewit; and (surprise) Puppy the magical dog, as well as Wild Smurf, who communicated through (you guessed it) animal noises.

Slimer, The Real Ghostbusters

Another “stock” voice made famous through one character, Welker’s Slimer was the break-out star of The Real Ghostbusters – so much so that they re-titled the show Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters after two seasons. Saturday Morning aficionados may remember Welker using a similar characterization for not only Glomer (Punky Brewster’s magic groundhog thingy on It’s Punky Brewster) but in a cutesier form as Orbitty on The Jetsons. Hardcore voice-over fans may even recognize shades of Slimer in the breath stealing troll from the Drew Barrymore/Stephen King vehicle Cat’s Eye (Welker also voiced the cat!), and in the cooing of Futurama’s Nibbler also voiced by Welker.

Born on March 12th, 1946, the 65 year-old Franklin W. Welker is still highly active and much in-demand on the voice-over and animated character circuit today. Besides continuing his previously mentioned roles (Fred, Megatron, Nibbler), he’s the new voice of Garfield on The Garfield Show and occasionally he’ll spit out anyone of his countless old characters such as Jabberjaw, Baby Kermit (from Muppet Babies), or even Dino for new shorts and the occasional Robot Chicken parody.

Fred Jones unmasked to be… Frank Welker!

We here at MTV Geek wish Mr. Welker many happy returns!

Related Posts:

An Interview With 'Transformers Prime's' Frank Welker, The Voice Of Megatron

An Interview With 'Transformers Prime's' Optimus Prime, Peter Cullen

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