The first voiced cartoons started back in 1950, and ever since then, the field of voice acting has been filled with talented actors. A good voice actor can add more to their character than just personality and life, a good voice actor can play more than one character and still make each entirely distinct.
Oftentimes, this is exactly what voice actors must do – add distinction to a limited voice pool. Voice acting is a very fast-paced industry in which one person could star in dozens of projects a year, making it much different from live-action work, which could see an actor on just one project for years at a time. But who are the most common, most prolific, and most storied voice actors?
Tara Strong – 1,331 Roles
Tara Strong is a leading female voice actor who has been working in the animation industry for over two decades. After her early start in the 1997 series The New Batman Adventures as Barbara Gordon, she found a home for herself working in animation. She started working largely with Cartoon Network soon after.
Strong is most well known for her vocal flexibility, voicing many cute and bubbly characters, as well as huskier-voiced, darker characters. Her most iconic roles are Bubbles from The PowerPuff Girls and Raven from the original Teen Titans series. With more than 1,000 voice roles behind her, she continues to shine in roles across television, film, and video games.
Rob Paulsen – 1,332 Roles
As the voice of Yakko in the Animaniacs, Rob Paulson began a lifelong role that continues to provide him with a steady paycheck. That said, Rob doesn’t sit on his laurels, continuing to provide voices to well over 1,000 characters.
Paulson’s career has endured for over 40 years, allowing him to build up a truly impressive record of characters and roles. From Pinky and the Brain‘s Pink to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle‘s Donatello and Raphael (in different series), Paulson is one of the most prolific voice actors today.
Seth Green – 1,354 Roles
While many fans might recognize Seth Green more readily for his role as Oz in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Scott Evil in the Austin Powers series, he has spent much of his adult career building a solid repertoire of voice-acted roles. His biggest role to date is that of Howard the Duck in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and What If…?.
Outside of this major role, Seth green fostered a love of geekdom via Robot Chicken, which he co-created and stars in with friends Matthew Senreich and Mike Fasolo. Many of his recurring voice roles come from this sketch and bit-based show, but Green has also been a longtime voice actor on American Dad with other famous Seth: Mcfarlane.
Fred Tatasciore – 1,602 Roles
Fred Tatasciore is unique for being a voice actor who voices video game characters more frequently than animated films and TV shows. Tatasciore’s tendency for bombastic and masculine voices has earned him many roles throughout the video game industry, but perhaps most notable is that he voices Soldier 72 in Overwatch.
Beyond this, Tatasciore is a favorite of somebody at Warner Brothers, having voiced many of the Looney Tunes characters over the years. In the most recent Looney Tunes Cartoons series, he voiced Yosemite Sam, Taz the Tasmanian Devil, Sam the Sheepdog, and other iconic characters.
Grey DeLisle/Griffin – 1,925 Roles
Grey Delisle, who is sometimes credited as Grey Griffin, is a very distinctive voice actress who many fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fairly OddParents would call recognize. However, her range of voices and roles extends from the late ’90s to today, and she has many roles which show off her incredible skills.
Since 2001, Delisle has been the primary voice of Daphne Blake in most of the animated Scooby Doo films and television shows. Additionally, she is one of few voice actors to voice both DC and Marvel characters, being a frequent voice behind Catwoman and Captain Marvel in many movies and video games.
Frank Welker – 2,048 Roles
Frank Welker has formed a lifelong career and, at the age of 76, has created one of the largest repertoires of voices and roles around.
Frank has been one of the most recognizable voices of the Scooby-Doo franchise since the very beginning as Fred Jones, only ceding the role to another twice: in the 1988 series A Pup Named Scooby-Doo in which the character was a child, and in the 2020 film Scoob! in which the studio opted for celebrity voice actors. That said, he has voiced the titular Great Dane since 2002, including in the 2020 film. Outside of this role, he is also very notable for his frequent appearances as Megatron in various Transformers animated series.
Tom Kenny – 2,078 Roles
Tom Kenny’s voices are as iconic as the characters attached to them. As the voice of the titular character in SpongeBob SquarePants, Tom Kenny provided an immense amount of personality and comedy to an already well-written and well-created show. Kenny has voiced the sponge in every appearance across film, television, and video games.
But beyond his iconic portrayal of SpongeBob, Tom Kenny has also voiced a number of other well-recognized characters, ranging from the Ice King in Adventure Time to the heroic dragon from the Spyro series. His recognizable nasally voices are just as well done as his more serious.
Jeff Bennett – 2,096 Roles
Jeff Bennett is among the more chameleon-like voice actors, adapting many different inspirations into his vocal repertoire. From his longtime portrayal as the lead of Johnny Bravo to the Man with the Yellow Hat in the animated Curious George films and shows, Bennett’s voice is as flexible as the medium itself.
With over 2,000 roles behind him, Bennett has had a very busy career. His first role was in the James Bond Jr. animated series back in 1991, and he exploded onto the scene thereafter. Unlike other voice actors, he hasn’t had as many long-term stints with particular studios, bouncing around from the likes of Disney, Cartoon Network, and others.
Trey Parker – 2,131 Roles
Trey Parker holds a unique place in the voice acting realm thanks to his personal control over his own roles. As the co-creator of South Park, Trey was originally responsible for providing most of the series’ voices. It may be surprising to consider now, but the low-budget series didn’t have much behind it, at the start.
But since 1997, Trey has built his unthinkable number of voice roles, and he has imitated, created, and satirized voices of all kinds through it. But this is not the only source of his voiced roles – Parker has also produced and/or acted in a number of animated films, including his most notable role as villain Balthazar Bratt in Despicable Me 3.
Dee Bradley Baker – 2,296 Roles
Perhaps the most diverse and prolific voice actor ever at this point, Dee Bradley Baker has amassed more than 2,200 roles over the course of his 30-year career. His very first experience was narrating for the show Legends of the Hidden Temple, as well as voicing the rock-god Olmec.
Since then, Baker has provided voices to star-studded productions and small animated shows alike. His animation career started with Cow and Chicken, voicing the titular character’s dad, but he quickly reached the height of voice actor stardom when he voiced Daffy Duck and Taz in the first Space Jam film. Today, he is most often heard as the voice of animal characters, such as Eagly the eagle in Peacemaker or the hamster Hammond in Overwatch.
