When a voice actor goes for a more distinct voice.

J

Jonny the eye

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Some voice actors do voice work sparingly while others do it frequently. And while there are small differences, you can almost always identify some voice actors easily.

Phil Lamarr for instance voiced both Carver and his father on Disney's The Weekenders. A good deal of voices I hear are really similar to those characters (John Stewart/Green Lantern, Black Vulcan, Static, etc).

Now his voicework on Samurai Jack, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Wolverine & The X-Men (he voiced Jack, The Earth King and Gambit), sounds nothing like the voices above. If not for websites with cast info, I wouldn't even guess that he did say Gambit.

Any other voice actors/actresses come to mind?
 
Rob Paulsen and Tara Strong are two whose range of vocals are beyond the impossible and just plain impressive. The former I recognized the most as Yakko, so I was bewildered when his high, squeaky, helium-induced voice suddenly turned deep, triumphant, and manly for Jack Fenton in Danny Phantom. That hit me like a brick.

Tara mostly goes for the high-pitched female characters or young boys, so I was blown when I found out she did the gravely, deep-voiced Raven in Teen Titans. At first, I figured that was Grey Delisle who is an expert in girls with deadpan personalities. Grey's also versatile, but I feel her range isn't quite as distinct as the two I mentioned. I'm usually able to figure her out fairly easily even in changed vocal range.
 
Jason Marsden is one VA whose voice never changes. He voices more cartoon characters than any other VA that I can think of, and yet they all sound exactly the same.


Kind of weird.
 
Winnie the Pooh is about as far from a traditional Jim Cummings voice as you can get. I also learned the other day that Dee Bradley Baker, who is so often typecast as high-pitched, whiny characters, played the deep-voiced Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple.

This one may be a little more obscure, but I nearly fell out of my chair when I learned Brian Beacock of Digimon fame played King Piccolo's servant Piano in Dragonball. I didn't even know he did voice work for FUNimation before.
 
Tom Kenny, known for playing goofy dimwitted voices like Heffer on "Rocko's Modern Life", Dog on "CatDog", and SpongeBob SquarePants himself, genuinely surprised me when I learned he also provided the voice of Eduardo on "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends". It sounds absolutely nothing like any of his other voices.
 
I alway seem to notice when Jeff Bennet voices a character (Johnny Bravo, the dad on Dexter's Lab, ect.) but it came to a surprise when I found out that he voiced Raj on Camp Lazlo.
 
Roger Carel and Guy Pierrauld, 2 French VA who dubbed numerous early H-B toons in French like Huckleberry Hound provided lots of various tones and voices in European cartoons as well.

Edgar Fruitier, a French-Canadian VA did a big voice for Chief Halvar in Wickie the viking and a more serious tone for the French voice of Mrs Burns in the Quebec dub of the Simpsons.
 
This a thousand times. Even amongst Blum's other creepy/villainous roles it stands out as a complete departure in both voice and performance. Actually, a few other actors surprised me on that show-Dee Bradley Baker's warm and mellow performance as Curt Connors, for instance, Xander Berkeley's surprising aptitude for hamminess as Mysterio, Alan Rachins' Norman Osborn and how different it sounds from his DCAU Clock King, and Kevin Michael Richardson dialed it way down for one of his best performances as Tombstone. I was also shocked to learn that Vanessa Marshall had previously voiced Irwin, of all people, on Billy and Mandy.
 
No matter how many times I watch My Life as a Teenage Robot I still would not have realized Smytus was voiced by Steve Blum. i think the thing is that Smytus could have so easily been given the "common" Steve Blum voice. I know it's him yet I just can't hear him for some reason.
 
While I can nearly always tell which character Seth MacFarlane is playing, I was surprised to find out he does Roger on American Dad. When it first premiered, I was curious after several episodes who was doing his voice because it was such a great Paul Lynde impression, and I was completely surprised to see it was him. It didn't sound anything like him.
 
Lorenzo Music's voice as Super-Pac on Saturday Supercade knocked me for six. Nothing like his trademark laid-black Garfield/Peter Venkman voice (which was how he sounded in real life I think).
 
It's easy to recognize Cree Summer's voice. She's responsible for voicing as Susie from Rugrats and Elmyra from Tiny Toon Adventures.
 
He also plays the clone troopers on Clone Wars. The accent is obviously fake, but the voice is still pretty different from a lot of his other characters. Also impressive were the monster voices he did on Teen Titans. Very convincingly animalistic.
 
The role I can't "hear" Blum in at all right now is Grunt from Mass Effect 2. I read that it was him online, watched Grunt's trailer and was like, "Really? Wow, nice expanding on your 'deep growly guy' voice, Steve."
 
i was really surprised to realize mark hamill played fire lord ozi. once i realized that i could hear the slight familiar ring to his voice but he is a great guy for creating characters.


Maurice LaMarche is one of the top guys as well alot of his extras have similarities but when he decides to make a character he does it very very well.

phil lamaar just surprises me with his VA depth in terms of amount of characters. they pick up a similiar tone but he has the ability and talent ot create as well.

toss in jim cummings and jeff bennett as great funny guys who have the spark to just plain deliver a line and bring a drawing to life and yeah i would watch that cartoon any day.

i know not exactly the question but still the point stands and i love these guys and their amazing abilities.
 
Even though it was his first role, I'll always be impressed by Peter Oldring voicing Ezekiel, Cody and Tyler in teh Total Drama series, as they all sound nothing alike.

Weird thing is, most of the cast do double roles in it, and they sound either almost the same or the exact same (Stephannie Anne Mills voicing Lindsay and Katie is a victim on this).
 
Using Jim Cummings as an example, can you name any characters voiced by him in which his voice is unrecognizable? Meaning that without internet info, you wouldn't be able to tell Jim Cummings voiced said character.

Now going with my previous example, Phil Lamar's voicing of Gambit is so different that Gambit doesn't sound like Phil Lamar's previous characters (aka Static or Green Lantern).
 
I was only used to recognizing Steve Blum for the voice that he uses for characters like Tom or Spike, which is also somewhat similar to his Wolverine. It really threw me for a loop when I'd learn that he was Green Goblin, Blackie Gaxton or Roadblock in GI Joe Resolute.

Clancy Brown "got" me for years. I would have never realized on my own that Lex Luthor was Mr Krabs. Maybe, I just have a poor ear for recognizing voices. Other voices that have "got" me are Jim Cummings (Don Karnage/Tigger/Shocker/Pooh), Grey DeLisle (Frankie/Azula), Tara Strong (Batgirl/Bubbles/Raven/Truffles), Tom Kane (Professor Utonium/Magneto), Bob Hastings (Jim Gordon/Superboy/D.D. from Clue Club), and Don Messick (Boo Boo/Scooby/ Dr Quest). Oh Yeah, I probably don't have to even mention Frank Welker or Daws Butler.
 
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