Voice acting is such a venture that artists can get acting opportunities in a wide variety of formats, including video games, movies, and TV shows. Apart from voicing human characters and anthropomorphic animals, most of the popular voice actors have also had their fair share of realistic portrayals of animal voices.
Examples include Andy Serkis mimicking wild ape noises as Caesar in the Planet of the Apes franchise or Harry E Lang’s loud squeals as Tom in Tom and Jerry shorts. Such voices can range from cartoonish shrieking to life-like aping of real animal mannerisms.
Justin Fletcher
Having served as a comedian and TV presenter for BBC’s pre-school TV channel CBeebies, Justin Fletcher has dealt with a host of animal characters in his light-hearted filmography. One such classic is the claymation series Shaun the Sheep, its spin-off Timmy Time, and the stop-motion animation movies it spawned.
In both cases, Fletcher provides the voices for sheep characters like Shaun and Timmy. Even though none of the characters speak in the show, Fletcher’s bleats keep the humor going. The British actor reprised these roles in Shaun The Sheep Movie.
Dee Bradley Baker
In the American voice-acting industry, Dee Bradley Baker is the go-to man when it comes to vocalizations of animals and beast creatures. Apart from providing several animal sounds for Dora The Explorer, he has also lent his voice for alien forms from the Ben 10 franchise like Stinkfly and Wildmutt.
His most popular animal role might be that of the secret agent Perry The Platypus, a recurring character on Phineas and Ferb. Baker’s iconic “teeth-chatter” sound is now iconic with the blue platypus. More recently, Baker’s animal sounds also found their way in the 2021 superhero movies The Suicide Squad (as Sebastian The Rat) and Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings (as Morris).
Ikue Ōtani
Technically, the pocket-sized “monsters” of Pokémon are very much like pet animals. And without a doubt, Ash’s loyal companion Pikachu goes down as one of the most iconic Generation I Pokémon in the franchise. In the Japanese original, Ikue Ōtani is the voice behind the iconic “pika pika” sounds. In Pokémon: Indigo League, Ōtani also lent her talent for voicing Misty’s Goldeen and Starmie.
The Japanese voice actress has also voiced iconic anime characters such as Konohamaru Sarutobi in Naruto and Tony Tony Chopper in One Piece.
Andy Serkis
Not only is Andy Serkis one of Hollywood’s best motion-capture actors but he is also an increasingly versatile voice artist. While he has voiced Gollum in Lord of the Rings and Supreme Leader Snoke in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Serkis is also a maestro at creating realistic animal sounds.
For Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong remake, Serkis played the titular ape in motion capture while also voicing his screams and battle cries. A more nuanced ape voice came in the form of Caesar, the protagonist of the new installments of the Planet of the Apes franchise. One of his most acclaimed roles. Serkis drew raves for capturing Caesar’s vulnerabilities and anger through his voice.
Fred Tatasciore
From Yosemite Sam to the Hulk, Fred Tatasciore has dealt with all sorts of pop culture characters in his voice acting career. But when it comes to some of his most recent roles, his lead performance in Hit-Monkey showed his vocal chops even without any human words.
Playing the titular protagonist in the Marvel TV show, Tatasciore screeches, growls, cries, and exclaims like the Japanese macaque monkey he plays. While Hit-Monkey might have a star-studded “human” cast, it is Tatasciore’s raw energy that forms the crux of the series.
Eric Bauza
Eric Bauza is a modern voice actor who carries the legacy of several other legends as he portrays the funniest Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny, Barnyard Dawg, Tweety, Marvin The Martian, and Speedy Gonzales.
As he is used to reinterpreting Golden Age cartoons, he also lends the “dinosaur voice” to Dino, the pet of The Flintstones. He played the purple, friendly creature in the animated series Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs as well as the crossover movie The Flintstones and WWE: Stone Age Smackdown. He is also to voice Tom and Jerry in the upcoming game MultiVersus.
Bill Mendelez
Legendary animator and voice actor Bill Mendelez has been associated with Walt Disney and Warner Bros in an animation career spanning six decades. But his magnum opus still remains to be the series of Peanuts animated specials including the likes of A Charlie Brown Christmas and What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown.
In these adaptations of Charles Schulz’s comedic comic strip, Mendelez also voiced the iconic Peanuts characters, the beagle dog Snoopy and his bird best friend Woodstock. Regardless of Mendelez’s age, he has always sounded playfully mischievous while chuckling as either of the characters, contrasting well with protagonist Charlie Brown’s crankiness.
Frank Welker
When it comes to his “talking” voice roles, Frank Welker is renowned as the voice of Fred Jones in the Scooby-Doo franchise and Megatron in Transformers’ various shows and movies.
However, Welker is also quite proficient at creature sounds with one of his earlier roles including the voice of a capuchin monkey in the first Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark and Totoro in the English dub for the Studio Ghibli classic My Neighbor Totoro. Other recent credits include Scooby-Doo in Scoob and Abu in the 2019 live-action remake of Aladdin.
Percy Edwards
Percy Edwards didn’t only impersonate birds but he also avidly studied them. Other than being a professional voice actor, Edwards was also an ornithologist (“bird experts” for the laypersons).
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Edwards has voiced ducks, parrots, and even the extinct bird Dodo in one case. Most of the movies and shows he has worked on are British comedy and adventure works that have faded into obscurity. However, his dog impersonations have still endured in pop culture, such as the cowardly English sheepdog Ambrosius in the musical fantasy Labyrinth and providing the bark effects for the aggressive canines Rowf and Snitter in the adult animated movie The Plague Dogs.
Paul Julian
The voice behind the titular protagonist of The Road Runner Show shorts was also an established background animator and sound effects artist.
Julian’s quintessential “beep beep” sound for the road runner was an attempt at mimicking a car horn to get people out of the way. This went well with the fast-paced bird as it raced down the road in every episode. The sound was so popular that it was still used in new-age Looney Tunes media after Julian’s death in 1995.
