You’d think if you were making a movie about lions, it’d be easy enough – well, for experts in the field at least – to spend a few weeks recording lions growling and roaring at things.
Turns out, it’s far easier to just engage a brilliant and famous voice artist to do all of that himself, into a metal bin for extra oomph.
So, here’s Frank Welker showing how it’s done.
😎 Psst. Welker is (or should be!) famous to ’80s kids for playing characters like Fred from Scooby-Doo and the Transformers villains Megatron/Galvatron and Soundwave.
A bit more on the topic…
Mike Stevens
Founder
Mike is a designer and journalist with nearly 20 years’ experience in automotive and consumer technology, editing and leading titles like The Motor Report, CarAdvice, Drive, and WhichCar. He is the co-founder of The Motor Report, and the founder of DadBase.
He’s also a photographer, gadgethead and erstwhile cyclist, and the proud ADHD dad to two ADHD kiddos.
Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, Mike relocated to Berlin in 2024 with his wife and kids for travel and culture adventures.
From Wikipedia…
Franklin Wendell Welker (born 12 March 1946) is a legendary American voice actor with a career that started in the 1960s.
By 2023, he has earned over 860 credits in films, TV shows, and video games, making him one of the most prolific voice actors in history. His work has contributed to a total worldwide box office gross of $17.4 billion, ranking him as the third-highest-grossing actor as of 2011.
Welker’s most iconic role is Fred Jones in the Scooby-Doo series, a character he has voiced since 1969. He also took on the role of Scooby-Doo himself starting in 2002. In 2020, Welker returned as Scooby-Doo in the animated movie Scoob!, being the only original voice actor in the cast.
His extensive voice acting portfolio includes Baby Kermit in the original Muppet Babies, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in Epic Mickey, and a range of characters in the Transformers franchise, such as Megatron, Galvatron, and Soundwave.
He has also voiced Santa’s Little Helper and Snowball II on The Simpsons, Shao Kahn and Reptile in the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie, Curious George in the Curious George series, Garfield in The Garfield Show, Nibbler on Futurama, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy in the Scooby-Doo universe, Astro and Orbitty in the 1980s version of The Jetsons, and numerous characters in The Smurfs. Welker is particularly renowned for his animal and monster sounds.
In recognition of his contributions, Welker received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award in 2016. He was also nominated for the Children’s and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice Performance in an Animated Program in 2022.
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