StatsBirth Name: Franklin Wendell Welker Age: 67, born 12 March 1946 Country of origin: United States Height: 5' 8" Ethnicity: White / Caucasian
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Voice acting career
Welker's first voice role came in 1969, as Fred Jones in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. As of 2012, Welker is the voice of both Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo. Welker is so closely connected with the character Fred, that any time the character appears in a cartoon (with the exception of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo), Welker provides the voice. His next major character voice was for Marvin White in the 1973 Hanna Barbera series Super Friends. He also provided the voice for M
Voice acting career
Welker's first voice role came in 1969, as Fred Jones in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. As of 2012, Welker is the voice of both Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo. Welker is so closely connected with the character Fred, that any time the character appears in a cartoon (with the exception of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo), Welker provides the voice. His next major character voice was for Marvin White in the 1973 Hanna Barbera series Super Friends. He also provided the voice for Marvin's dog, Wonder Dog (which was inspired by Scooby-Doo). Welker would continue to provide voices for many cartoon characters for the Hanna-Barbera Company for several years, which include Jabberjaw, Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, Pudge in Bailey's Comets and The Shmoo in The New Fred and Barney Show and its spin-off The Flintstones Comedy Show. Welker described the voice he used for The Shmoo as "a bubble voice" (one he would later use for Gogo Dodo in Tiny Toons Adventures).
In 1978, he played the title character in Fangface and later in its spin-off Fangface and Fangpuss, and also voiced Heckle & Jeckle and Quackula in The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle and Droopy in The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Welker became a very busy actor, providing the voice for many popular cartoon characters in multiple shows including the villainous Doctor Claw in Inspector Gadget, Mister Mxyzptlk and both Darkseid and Kalibak in Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, various G.I. Joe heroes and villains, Ray Stantz and Slimer in The Real Ghostbusters, the villainous Dr. Jeremiah Surd in The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, and Hefty Smurf in The Smurfs. He also voices various characters on The Simpsons such as Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II. He also provided the voice of Fall Apart Rabbit in the 1993 Disney series Bonkers and other various voices for the show, as well as the voices of Mr. Plotz, Runt, Ralph the Guard and various other characters in Animaniacs and McWolf the main antagonist to Droopy and his nephew Dripple in Tom and Jerry Kids and Droopy, Master Detective. He also provides the voice (both speaking and non-speaking) of Nibbler in Futurama. He has voiced several characters for Family Guy, including a parody of Fred Jones.
Welker performed as voice double for Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and provided voices for The Thing in 1986's The Golden Child, Sil in Species, and Malebolgia in 1997's Spawn. He has also created the vocal effects for different animals in films including the monkey Abu in Aladdin, its two sequels and the TV series Aladdin, Arnold the Pig in the TV film Return to Green Acres, he was also the voice of Totoro from the English version of the Studio Ghibli film My Neighbor Totoro, and a variety of animals from Tiny Toon Adventures
In 2005, Welker became the new voice of Garfield, succeeding the original actor Lorenzo Music, who died in 2001 (Welker and Music had previously worked together in The Real Ghostbusters and the original Garfield and Friends). Welker voiced Garfield in Garfield Gets Real, Garfield's Fun Fest, Garfield's Pet Force, and also in the new series The Garfield Show, which has been running from 2008 to present.
Welker has also provided voices for many video game characters including Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and The Shadow Blot in Epic Mickey.
Welker provided the voice of Batman in 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 the MAD magazine counterpart of Batman, Bat Boy.
Some of his most recent work is performing the voice of George in the popular children's series Curious George. He has also performed for the live action film Mr. Popper's Penguins. He also voiced Gargamel's cat Azrael for the 2011 live action film The Smurfs. However, Frank did not reprise his role as Hefty Smurf. He also voiced Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in the Disney video game Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
Transformers
In the 1980s, Welker voiced many recurring characters in the original Transformers animated series. He voiced several Decepticons, including the leader Megatron, Soundwave, Skywarp, Mixmaster, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage, and Ratbat, as well as Autobots Mirage, Trailbreaker, Chromedome and Sludge. With the release of The Transformers: The Movie animated film in 1986, he took on the role of the Autobot Wheelie and afterwards, took over the role of Galvatron (which coincidentally was voiced by his Star Trek III castmate Leonard Nimoy).
Welker also returned to two of his Transformers roles when he portrayed Megatron and Soundwave as part of a spoof in the third season episode of Robot Chicken, aired shortly after the release of the live action film. In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, he reprises the roles of Soundwave and Ravage, and also provides voices for Grindor, Devastator, and Reedman. He does not voice Megatron in any of the three live action films (Hugo Weaving was chosen for the role, instead). However, Welker did voice Megatron in the two video games based on the first two films as well as the theme park attractions at Universal Studios Singapore, Universal Studios Hollywood and under construction at Universal Studios Florida, Transformers: The Ride.
At BotCon 2010 on June 26, 2010, it was revealed that Welker had been cast once again as Megatron in the new series Transformers: Prime.
He voiced Shockwave, Barricade and Soundwave in the film Transformers: Dark of the Moon, adding to his already large list of roles within the Transformers franchise.
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