Frank Welker may be one of the most often heard voices on television, radio, and in motion pictures. He is the voice of many popular cartoon characters, such as George the monkey on the Emmy award winning show, “Curious George,” the voice of both Fred Jones and Scooby Doo, the voice of the infamous Megatron and seven other characters in the “Transformers.” The studio guard “Ralph” in Warner Brother’s wacky show, “Animaniacs” and the lasagna loving cat, Garfield.  

In addition to providing voices and vocal sounds for countless commercials, including the voice of several bugs in those RAID commercials he was the voice of Crackle in Kellogg’s’ “Rice Krispies”, Snap, Crackle, Pop  for nearly two decades. 

Frank has also been called upon to provide his unusual vocal talents in numerous motion pictures including the voice of the monkey in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”; Stripe, the evil gremlin, in the “Gremlins”; various disgusting sounds and demonic voices in “The Witches of Eastwick” and “The Golden Child” the murderous space alien Sil in Species and Martians in “Mars Attacks !,” and the voice for the Cave of Wonders and Abu in Disney’s original “Aladdin.

His on camera appearances began with Young Punk Buffalo Hunter in Stan Dragoti’s, “Dirty Little Billy,” two pictures along-side Kirk Russel in Disney’s “Computer Wore Tennis Shoes” and “Now You See Him Now you Don’t,” the role of Rutgers in the Elvis Presley picture, “Trouble with Girls” and a co-starring role with Don Knotts in Universal’s, “How to Frame a Figg.”  In 2009, Frank stopped doing voices long enough to play a cameo as Matt Damen’s father in the, “Informant.” 

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Frank was born Franklin Wendell Welker on March 12, 1946. He grew up in Denver, Colorado and naturally, he became the school class clown! He began his career as a stand-up comic in 1967, and toured the country opening  for many famous artists, including Sonny & Cher and Diana Ross, the Righteous Brothers, Sergio Mendez, and Brazil 66, just to name a few. 

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The Magic Behind the Voices: A Who's Who of Cartoon Voice Actors

Book Excerpt: As his voice-over career was taking off in the 1970s, Welker continued to work on-camera, appearing in such shows as Love, American Style and The Don Knotts Show. But his experience as a stand-up comedian once again earned him a coveted role when, while he was performing his act at the Comedy Store, Paul Keyes, the producer of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, spotted him and asked him to appear on the opening show of the season with featured billing.