Man of a Thousand Voices

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"If we had some sort of machine which could imitate any voice, we'd only need one voice actor." "We do; it's called 'Billy West'." —Futurama DVD Commentary

Voice Actors known for a wide range of voices, and therefore voicing Loads and Loads of Characters. Basically if you can't say "Hey, It's That Voice!", odds are, it was one of these people. Fact is, the industry is incredibly small, and there just aren't enough actors to cover all the exponentially increasing amount of characters and projects created each year. Being versatile is required.

Bonus points if the actor is able to avert Larynx Dissonance and Not Even Bothering with the Accent, but it's not vital.

Name comes from a nickname given to Mel Blanc, who was responsible for nearly every classic Looney Tunes character.

Can overlap with Talking to Himself, if the actor does multiple roles on the same show.

Interestingly enough, the vast majority of voice actors and vocal work don't create "voices" but is largely using their own natural voice with slight tonal changes, pitched up or down. Thus it is still possible for a Pigeonholed Voice Actor to ironically also have "a thousand voices," just people aren't aware of their versatility.

Not to be confused with Voice of the Legion.

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English

• In the industry, Frank Welker is known as the real king of this—just check his IMDB filmography. It's easier to list what he hasn't done than to try and list everything he's worked on. (Incidentally, a joint venture search on IMDB between Mel Blanc and Frank Welker shows they've shared credits 22 times.)
  • He even came close to voicing Scrappy Doo.
  • The Futurama cast and crew used Frank to do most animal voices on the show, and often commented on their awe of his ability to portray, in a single take, an entire flock of geese.
    • Apparently, Welker is so good at doing animal sounds that some studios hire him just to do that. Chances are, if you're watching a cartoon and there's an animal in it that makes a sound it's Welker.
    • Welker once appeared on Manny The Uncanny and did a capuchin monkey distress call. And he got a reaction from actual capuchin monkeys. That's how good the guy is.
    • For these reasons he's one of the highest grossing film actors of all time by a margin of just under a billion US dollars (albeit not adjusted for inflation). Impressive.
  • In an interview with a voice actor on a Transformers DVD (he was the voice of Megatron and Soundwave, among others), he says that Welker could perform a call on a pay phone—the coin dropping in the slot, the ringing, the operator, and both sides of the conversation—with ease.
    • Here's a scene from an early episode of the original series. Except for Thundercracker (voiced by John Stephenson), every single character is voiced by Welker, including one scene where he's essentially throttling himself. Outside of that scene, Starscream (Chris Latta) is the only Season One Decepticon not voiced by Welker.
• Abridged Series have shown this cool trait can be more common than we thought. It's not universal, but still all over the place.
  • Little Kuriboh of Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series
  • Lanipator of Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged and Dragon Ball Abridged
  • MasakoX and Vegeta3986 of Naruto the Abridged Series
  • GanXingba of Avatar the Abridged Series
  • In Sailor Moon Abridged, KrisRix fits this trope best, doing Zocite, Beryl, Molly, Ami, Mina, Andrew, and Raye.
  • Fullmetalraz of The Lighthawk Force and Fullmetalforce.
  • TokuTenshi of Wedding Peach Abridged.
  • Hbi2k of his numerous abridgements
  • Unwardil of Last Exile Abridged
  • ShadyVox and xthedarkone of Yu-Gi-Oh GX the Abridged Series fame
  • Purpleeyeswtf of Code Ment and None Piece.
  • The Azure Crow of Gurren-Lagann The Satire as well as a surprisingly good Fandub of Digimon Xros Wars (though he's not alone about the latter, and he doesn't do as many voices as Little Kuriboh, but he still does pull off quite a number of voices with ease).
• Charlie Adler is apparently just as proficient at playing young boys (and even girls!) as he is at playing burly, arrogant, older men.
• Several FUNimation voice actors:
  • Many of the FUNimation's veteran voice actors who are currently working in LA (and the they still work with Funimation from time to time) have very wide vocal ranges. Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, Kyle Hebert, and Vic Mignogna are some of the top examples. Travis Willingham, however, is an interesting case. While his Guttural Growler and Badass Baritone often typecast him into Lawful Good Authority Equals Asskicking characters, he is slowly getting out of his typecasting ever since he moved to LA. In fact, it's generally agreed that Travis's vocal range improved when he moved to LA.
  • Christopher Sabat does many, many voices in Dragonball Z: Vegeta, Piccolo, Yamcha,Shenron, General Silver, Kami, King Piccolo, Zarbon, Jeice, Burter, Recoome, Guru, Korin, Mr. Popo, and far more extra characters.
    • He's also General Cross Marian of D.Gray-man, Rome of Axis Powers Hetalia, Roronoa Zoro of One Piece, and Kuwubara of Yu Yu Hakusho.
    • CHRISTOPHER SABAT WILL KNOCK YOU ALL DOWN!
    • THE ABILITY TO DO MANY VOICES HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN IN THE ARMSTRONG FAMILY FOR GENERATIONS!
  • Along with Chris Sabat, we also have Brina Palencia, J Michael Tatum, Chris Ayres, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Mike McFarland and Todd Haberkorn.
  • Many ADV Films/Sentai Filmworks based voice actors who worked with Funimation also have this. Luci Christian, Monica Rial, Blake Shepard, and Brittney Karbowski are your best examples. Heck even Chris Patton himself, who is typecast into the Troubled but Cute pretty teenage boys does have a wide vocal range.
• Trey Parker and Matt Stone are known to voice every male characters in South Park (with a few exceptions), as well as pretty much every overdubbed voice in their movies. Interestingly, the results vary between Man of a Thousand Voices and Hey, It's That Voice!, since although they are both capable of performing very different voices, they sometimes don't even bother trying. Keep in mind most of the characters are 9-10 year old children.
• Yuri Lowenthal. You may think he's typecast into the Kid Hero characters like Ben Tennyson, Simon, and Yuri Shibuya. However, he's quite capable of doing accents. Compare his Persian accent with the Prince; a British accent for Cornelius, Advocat, Future!Luke; and a French accent for Pip Bernadotte. It should noted that he's a polyglot in real life, which can easily explain this.
• Michael Bell. Lampshaded in the Soul Reaver 2 outtakes where Rene Auberjonois describes Michael as "The man of many voice." to which Michael responds "I'm the man of one voice you just think its a thousand."
• Jeff Bennett. An extreme case is The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, in which he plays nearly every character other than the Three Amigos.
• Mel Blanc. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester T. Cat, Tweety Bird, Pepe Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales... do I really need to continue?
  • Just one more: JETSOOOOOOON! YOU'RE FIRED!
  • And Yosemite Sam. That took cords of steel.
  • Don't forget Heathcliff.
  • He even voiced Jack Benny's car.
• Steven Blum. Too many examples to list. If you watch anime dubs, it's almost impossible to not hear his voice at least once in your life.
  • Some examples: Orochimaru and Zabuza from Naruto, Jamie from Megas XLR, Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, Yakky Doodle in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Blunk from WITCH
  • And then he gave us Leeron from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. This is nothing short of impressive, and he does an almost creepishly good job out of it.
  • He also voices Yamaki and, to the surprise of many, Guilmon from Digimon Tamers.
  • Sometimes, he does do cartoon voices as well. Just as an example, prior to voicing Leeron, he voiced Smytus from My Life as a Teenage Robot, destroyer of worlds!]]
  • And how could anyone forget Tom from Toonami.
  • What's amazing is, many people know him for the Roger Smith/Yamaki voice (add a little growl and you get Black War Greymon) and think it's all he can do. It's... so not.
  • The Green Goblin, anyone?
  • He's Wolverine in every non-movie version since X-men Legends.
  • And Oghren from Dragon Age.
    • Not to mention he also voiced First Enchanter Irving AND Gorim (from the Noble Dwarf Origin). That's three developed/named characters in the same game.
    • Maybe Oghren's looking for the Milkman?
  • Grunt in Mass Effect 2.
  • Starscream.
• Daws Butler:
  • Elroy Jetson
  • Yogi Bear
  • Quick Draw McGraw
  • Snagglepuss
  • Multiple incidental characters on Rocky and Bullwinkle
• Matt Chapman, one of the co-creators of Homestar Runner, manages to voice almost all the characters for the site. It's easier to list who he does not voice (Marzipan, voiced by his sister-in-law, Missy Palmer, the Poopsmith's singing voice by John Linnel of They Might Be Giants, and the characters as portrayed in the Cheat's flash cartoons by Matt's brother Mike).
  • It's especially impressive when one of his characters impersonates another and you can tell which is impersonating which.
• Cam Clarke is one of these. Just a few of his varied roles include:
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 - Leonardo, Rocksteady, Mung, OverDrive
  • Metal Gear Solid - Liquid Snake
  • Tales of Symphonia - Kratos Aurion
  • Snoopy The Musical - Snoopy
  • Timon and Pumbaa - Simba
  • World of Warcraft - Blood Elf Male, Malygos
  • He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002) - He-Man
  • Killer7 - Andrei Ulmeyda
• Jim Cummings
• Jim Dale, the reader for the U.S. audiobook editions of the Harry Potter books. He won an award for managing to come up with a few hundred unique character voices for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
• June Foray. She's been doing voice work steadily since 1943. Chuck Jones said of her: "June Foray is not the female Mel Blanc. Mel Blanc is the male June Foray."
  • Granny for most of the Looney Tunes shorts using that character. (though Granny was played in the pre-1955 shorts by Bea Benaderet)
  • Rocket J Squirrel/Natasha Fatale/Nell Fenwick/ any other female role (Rocky and Bullwinkle)
  • Cindy-Lou Who in the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas
  • Jokey Smurf (The Smurfs)
  • Granny Gummi (Adventures of the Gummi Bears)
  • Witch Hazel. Both the Disney one and the Looney Tunes one.
• Paul Frees
• Michael Winslow is a special case, in which he doesn't do only voices, but sound effects as well. His appearances in Police Academy are just a showcase: watch him perform Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love".
• On The Simpsons alone, Dan Castellaneta, Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria fit this trope.
  • Dan's range in particular made him a good choice to replace Robin Williams as the voice of the Genie in the sequel and TV spinoff of Aladdin.
    • A good choice in the sense that he could sound like like Robin Williams. Unfortunately, he hae none of Williams' humor or spontaneity resulting in a very dull genie character who only happened to sound like Robin Williams.
• Tom Kenny was once actually called this at a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards show, where he served as an announcer. He's worked as a main or supporting character on just about every animated series to ever come out of Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network.
  • One notable example is Transformers Animated, where he not only voices Starscream, but also half a dozen of his clones, each with their own personality quirk. (Slipstream, the female clone, is played by Tara Strong, who is also on this page.)
• Seth MacFarlane, who voices pretty much all the major male characters in Family Guy, and two of the main characters in American Dad. Just... see this Hulu commercial. He can also sing in all of his voices.
• While many people don't realize it due to his baritone voice relating to badasses, Crispin Freeman has a very wide vocal range. Compare Kyon, Orange, Hideki, Koichi, Alucard, and Shizuo.
• Tress MacNeille , Kath Soucie, Grey DeLisle and Tara Strong. Basically any American cartoon will have one of these four voices in it at some point. If a character is female and in an American cartoon, it's one of them. (Unless she's Asian, in which case it's Lauren Tom, or if black, Cree Summer.)
• While the characters Grey DeLisle's put in are very much pigeonholed, her range is anything but. Rarely do any of her voices sound alike (except when they scream). Sam sounds nothing like Mandy who sounds nothing like Frankie or Vicky (or the other Vicky).
  • An extreme case is Dan Vs., where Grey voices nearly every minor female character and nearly every child.
  • The comparison that breaks brains: Grey DeLisle has voiced both Azula and Tootie. How more varied can you get?
• Tara Strong has been heard as 10 year old boy Timmy Turner, gothic superheroine Raven Teen Titans as well as the minor character Kitten, Twilight Sparkle in My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Genki Girl Rikku in Final Fantasy X, split-personalitied Dark Magical Girl Elisa/Ursula in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Ben Tennyson on Ben 10, Presea on Tales of Symphonia, both Toot Braunstein and Princess Clara on Drawn Together, Truffles and additional voices in Chowder, and even Batgirl. She's possibly best known as Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls. Despite voice acting not typically being a very lucrative career, she's done so many voices that she's able to afford a large house in Los Angeles (as seen on Take Home Chef).
  • Also known to stand-in for other voice actresses when a singing role is required, as exemplified when she stood in for Mila Kunis' voice of Meg Griffin on Family Guy when Meg was required to sing extensively.
• Scott McNeil, who has gone from #1 mutant BadAss to mysteriously wise yet absent father to a sleazy strip club owner and a devout Muslim fundamentalist (both characters in the same series) to robotic butt monkey to robot deadpan snarker to one half of a quirky duo of minions, to a METAL BAWKSE crazed psychopath.
  • To elaborate on the Beast Wars example, he voiced Dinobot and Rattrap, who feuded constantly throughout the series, so he's arguing with himself for about five minutes in just about every season one and two episode. He also played the ridiculously noble Silverbolt and the Ensemble Darkhorse Waspinator.
• Julie McWhirter
• Don Messick
• Opera-singer Marni Nixon, who was known among Hollywood insiders for her talent at "ghosting" other actress' voices, often was left uncredited. In particular, she sang for:
  • Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.
  • Deborah Kerr in The King and I and An Affair to Remember.
  • Natalie Wood in West Side Story.
• Rob Paulsen has a voice credit list a mile long, but Raphael sounds nothing like Yakko Warner or Pinky, who sounds nothing like Jack Fenton, who sounds nothing like Saber Rider, who sounds nothing like Sal Maroni. The Maroni voice does sound like a deeper, scarier, and slightly Brooklyn version of Technus, though.
  • And Anomen sounds nothing like those characters listed above.
  • His normal voice sounds rather like Raphael.
  • He also plays as Cyborg Ninja/Grey Fox in the Metal Gear Solid remake The Twin Snakes.
    • Many of his characters are recognizable by their smart aleck attitude. Well, except for the gun crazy, time-traveling, macho redneck, Officer Buck Tuddrussel...
• Pat Fraley has one of the longest credit lists ever, and he is so proficient in voice acting that he beat out several talented nominees like Bob Bergen for the voice over lifetime achievement, which takes at least 25 years or more to be nominated for. Considering that he did the voices for Krang, General Traag, Baxter Stockman, Burne Thompson and many other characters all on the same show, and sometimes in the same scenes, his award was definitely earned with his vast talent.
  • He's also Marshall Moo Montana on Wild West Cowboys of Moo Mesa.
• Although not yet prolific as such, Michelle Ruff has admirable range and completely avoids pigeonholing herself. Among others, she does the deliciously snarky Etna, the Kuudere Avril, serious noble Rukia, the emotionless Yuki, the ditzy Tsukasa, and nervous heroine Alicia.
• Beyond cartoons, Peter Sellers' initial fame as a radio performer was built on this, whether he was doing celebrity impersonations or character roles. In The Goon Show—where everyone voiced multiple roles, major and minor—he voiced Major Bloodnok, Bluebottle, Hercules Grytpype-Thynne and Henry Crun out of the major characters alone. Sellers could also substitute for absent performers and their characters as needed. When Spike Milligan - who had roughly as many characters as Sellers - was absent, Sellers could do all of them himself. When he was absent, four performers had to be brought in to substitute for all his roles.
  • Truth in Television; Michael Bentine, his colleague on The Goon Show, complained that after speaking to Sellers for a while, you would find him speaking to you in your own voice, completely unconsciously, and would only stop if this was pointed out to him.
• John Stephenson
• Leonard Weinrib of Inch High Private Eye and DFE's Roland and Rattfink.
• Put Billy West in a room, give him a script and a mike and you can do a complete show with 20+ individual voices. In Futurama alone he was the Professor, Fry, Zoidberg, Zapp Brannigan, Nixon and half of any background/supporting characters you see. And all of this after he first came to public attention as the voice of both Ren and Stimpy after John Kricfalusi had to give up the role of Ren when he got fired.
  • Billy West seemed to have actively set out to become one, claiming to have been heavily influenced by Mel Blanc, Dawes Butler and Don Messick.
  • Also notable is that his already impressive range also includes voices that you could swear they were digitally edited, like a semi-reccuring Energy Being from Futurama. But nope, that flangy alien voice is all from Billy's mouth.
• Like Billy West above, John Dimaggio has developed a wide range of voices himself. From robots to psychotic penguins, mad scientists and bikers to aliens, even annoying Talking Animal sidekicks, this dude has been around the curve more than once.
  • He's also grizzled space marine Marcus Fenix and a talented beatboxer. Anytime there's beatboxing done on Futurama', it's all him.
  • He was the voice of Hak Foo in Jackie Chan Adventures, replacing Jim Cummings from the second season on. And you can hardly tell the difference.
• Maurice LaMarche as well. Most of Futurama's aliens are voiced by Maurice (Kif, Morbo, Lrrr, etc.) as are a few robots (Calculon, Hedonism-bot) and a kick-ass narrator ("You watched it! You can't un-watch it!")
  • He's also The Brain. Basically, the man does the greatest Orson Welles impersonation of all time.
  • Similar to the Michael Bell joke above, LaMarche has admitted on one Futurama commentary that Lrr, Morbo and the Horrible Gelatinous Blob are all the same voice.
    • MORBO MOCKS YOUR TROPE ANALYSIS!
  • In one episode of The Critic, he did 29 different characters. It's a 22 minute show.
• All three Futurama voice actors mentioned above have referred to fellow voice (and live action) actor Dave Herman as one of these as well. In addition to providing the voices of recurring characters like Scruffy, Roberto, and Mayor Poopenmeyer, he's often the "go-to" guy for incidental and secondary characters. Billy West in particular has praised him for being able to create unique and often hilarious voices for characters that only appear for a few seconds of screen time.
• Paul Winchell, both as a ventriloquist and as a cartoon voice actor.
• Watch the Bleach dub. You won't even tell that Yoruichi, Tatsuki, and Ururu all have the same voice.
  • And try to match those voices with Haruhi Suzumiya's voice!
  • Not to mention you can barely recognize her voice as Konata Izumi.
  • For those not in the know, Wendee Lee.
• Phil LaMarr voices just about every black character in western animation, in addition to a variety of other roles.
  • Including a Romanian bisexual immortal with a knife fetish
  • Including a Samurai named Jack
  • Including a giant freaking robot who's freaking giant even by giant freaking robot standards. I am... OMEGA SUPREME! (in season three anyway, but even that shows off his range - you'd have to see the credits to tell that Omega's voice had changed.)
  • Once again shows amazing range as Count Veger in Jak 3.
    • And voices Sig in the same game.
    • Elsewhere in the series he provides the voices of G.T. Blitz and Duke Skyheed.
  • His black guy roles are pretty diverse as well, including the Jamaican, the deep-voiced black guy, the young, squeaky voiced high-schooler and... uh... Dracula, a very old, black Dracula.
  • He voices quite a few animal characters in My Gym Partners a Monkey.
  • And now he's voiced a Cajun: one Remy Lebeau
• Jennifer Hale. She does so many voices that nearly every show she appears in features her talking to herself. Despite being pigeonholed in Videogame Voice Acting, she has a much wider range of roles in animation, from Action Girls to villainous children, to even Cinderella.
• There's a lady who voices over a hundred talking household items in Blue's Clues. She holds the world record for the most voices ever done in a single TV show.
• On YouTube, there's Jared a.k.a The Man of 100 Voices, in which he did exactly 100 voices in around 4 minutes and 2 seconds. Later, his record was best by Brock "McGoiter" Baker- who's also made dozens of other funny videos showing his impressive range- by over 10 seconds plus one extra voice. And then, of course- The Man of One Million Voices. Some of those voices were better than others, though that's to be expected.
• Corey Burton, most famous for Brainiac from Superman: The Animated Series (and Justice League, and Legion of Super-Heroes) but also frequently various Transformers.
  • Including the Creepy Monotone of Shockwave, though the Transformers Animated version of Megatron sounds more recognizable if you last heard him as Brainiac.
  • Stan Freberg also recruited him to replace Paul Frees (one of the all-time great voice actors) as the narrator for his United States of America record after Frees' death.
  • He's also Dale from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. That's right, Dale is the new Megatron.
  • He also does a mean Christopher Lee impression.
• Egoraptor (Arin Hanson) and Tomamoto (Joshua Tomar) are well-known voice actors on the Internet, particularly on Newgrounds. Egoraptor is most famous for his "Awesome" Shorts, and Tomamoto is known for his Fandubs, both of which showcase their ridiculous range.
  • In the Newgrounds series the Decline of Videogaming, Egoraptor voices all three of the Evil Developers and Shigeru Miyamoto... all of whom have different voice pitch and word pronunciation. They don't sound alike at all.
  • This is turned Up to Eleven when Arin voiced Kanji Tatsumi, who's heavily implied to be gay, in the Persona 4 Hiimdaisy Comic Dub. The group goes to save Kanji in the TV, and when they find him they see his Shadow Self, who says in a stereotypical gay man's voice, "I'm Kanji Tatsumi and I enjoy naked men. Oh yeah~". Seriously, you wouldn't even know it was him.
• The creators of The Venture Bros, Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick, in addition to doing all the writing, concept art, and most of the producing/directing, also do the voices of a ridiculous amount of characters in-show, from main characters to bit pieces. A bit less range than some of the names here, but if you do 90% of the voice acting on one show, you deserve to be here.
  • Publick deserves special mention - he voices fifteen characters on his own and does most of the Talking to Himself sequences.
• Bob Bergen. Has voiced Lupin III, Porky Pig and other Looney Tunes characters on a number of occasions, and is Lucas Arts' choice of voice actor for Luke Skywalker.
• Lorne Lanning, creator of the Oddworld series, is the voice of every Player Character and most NPC's.
• Dee Bradley Baker. Pretty much anything non-human in any American animation will be voiced by him (for example, the monsters in Ben 10, Perry of Phineas and Ferb, and Appa and Momo of Avatar: The Last Airbender). He has also voiced numerous minor human characters, such as about ten different characters in SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly Odd Parents.
  • He's also A monument to all of your sins.
  • And Olmec. Oh yeah!
  • He also voices the Co-op robots in Portal 2.
• Itsjustsomerandomguy, creator of I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC. Besides doing all the male voices on the series, his Blog TV conferences have featured him showing off some more of his range, like almost all of the Muppets.
• Mark Hamill. When your two most famous roles are Luke Skywalker and the frikkin Joker. you know you're an all-around versatile actor. Also, check out this clip of him appearing on The Muppet Show; he imitates both Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear near-perfectly. And to think the guy's been typecast as villains in most of his career.
• Robin Williams in his groundbreaking role as the Genie in Aladdin. Anybody got a complete list of all the impersonations and accents he does?
• Linkara. In a typical review he'll have about four or five voices for narrating the comic, himself, and then an appearance from one of his other four characters.
  • While we're on about Channel Awesome, Doug Walker himself. He can pull off a naive child, women, ALF, an opera singer, and a baritone British villain, all in one review! It's even more impressive when his face is off-screen or over another character!
    • Case in point.
  • Benzaie. Watch any of his "Let's Fap" videos; you don't know funny until you've heard Kermit the Frog recite Hentai dialogue.
• James Arnold Taylor is well known to have large flexibility in voice acting. He voice acting ranges from Keet Tidus from Final Fantasy X to Ratchet from Ratchet and Clank, Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars: Clone Wars, Green Arrow from Batman the Brave And The Bold, the titular character of Johnny Test, and Wooldoor Sockbat from Drawn Together. He's a man of thousands of voices, and makes you wonder why his Anime roles are very small and limited. Listen for yourself to believe it!
• Oddly enough, Ben Affleck. He has a habit of impersonating one of his co-stars in every movie he does, and some of them say it's freaky how good he is. Just as an example, on the set of The Sum of All Fears, he did his impression of Morgan Freeman for Freeman himself, whose response was, "You ever do that again, I'll kill you."
• On radio, Bob & Ray fit this trope perfectly between them, double-handedly maintaining the illusion of a large supporting 'cast' (male and female) plus endless one-shot guest-stars.
• Check the credits of any UK/Canadian children's series with a female or little boy character; chances are s/he's being voiced by Maria Darling.
• Chances are, if you play a video game, Nolan North is in it. He's even played black guys at times.
• Eddie Murphy. See Coming to America and The Nutty Professor for an idea.
• Despite his range going from sweet and innocent to rough and serious characters, Will Friedle has played a good number of roles himself. Some of his characters even play homage to his other roles.
• Chester Lauck and Norris Goff voiced almost every single male character in Lum and Abner. The only exceptions in the recurring cast were The Narrator and Dr. Withers.
• Somehow Tony Oliver can voice Lupin III, Lancer, Bat from the Fist of the North Star movie, and Keiichi from the Ah! My Goddess! movie in English and they don't sound one damn bit alike.
• Every character Kari Wahlgren has done has a completely distinct voice. Seriously, compare Fuu to Raine or Anemone. Even the characters that are relatively similar sound completely different, such as her Jeanne and her Ashe.
• Daran Norris has played both the wicked Vincent from the Cowboy Bebop movie and the idiotic Cosmo from Fairly Oddparents, as well as Spotswoode from Team America: World Police, Belze in God Hand, and Mad Scientist Rodyle in Tales of Symphonia.
• Nicholas Briggs has played the voice of many different alien species since the 2005 revival of Doctor Who, inluding the Daleks (particularly notabe with The Cult of Skaro), Cybermen, Judoon and the Nestene Consciousness.
  • Nick Briggs does the CREEPIEST, most nightmare fuellish Dalek voice ever; Dalek Caan in Stolen Earth/Journeys End.

[Caan *insane and giggly*] "I fleeeew into the wilds and fire! I danced and died a THOUSAND TIMES!"

• A rare Live Action example: Enver Gjokaj from Dollhouse. The show involves people getting new minds implanted into their brains, and with him, Voices Are Mental got taken Up to Eleven. Him implanted with Topher's personality was just hilarious.
• Mr. Doctor of Devil Doll has been called this.
• Nancy Cartwright: perhaps best known as Bart Simpson, also voices Nelson, Ralph Wiggum, and Todd Flanders, along with Chuckie Finster, Rufus, Margo Sherman, and a host of other characters.
• Brendan O'Brien, in the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy alone, voiced Crash Bandicoot, Doctor Neo Cortex (before Clancy Brown took over), Doctor Nitrus Brio, Doctor N. Gin, Tiny Tiger and Pinstripe Potoroo.
• Roger L. Jackson is least famous for his best known role as the voice of Ghostface in all 4 movies, in contrast with Mojo Jojo of The Powerpuff Girls. He's done over 100 video game roles, as many named characters as extras, including (at least 8) distinct characters throughout the Sam and Max series.
• Go to youtube and watch any video that features Gaara speaking in the english dub. Now do the same thing for Lloyd. Both are voiced by Liam O'Brien.
  • He also voices Vayne in Mana Khemia.
• Sadly, Jim Ward doesn't get nearly as much coverage as his skill deserves. He's the resident Voice Deity/ConspiracyTheorist on The Stephanie Miller Show, and gets plenty of requests for his imitations of Wolf Blitzer, Kim Jong Il, and Tom Brokaw. He's also the voice actor of Diamondhead, XLR8, Wildvine, Chet Ubetcha, Captian Quark, Maximillian Strauss, Baron Isaac Abrams, Brother Grünfeld Bach, and background voices in dozens of other works.
• Lani Minella is definitly one. She's been voicing video game characters since 1994, IMDB lists at least 400 acting credits to her name. She's been in Starcraft, Diablo, World of Warcraft, Nancy Drew, well, it would be easier to list the games she isn't in. That video really shows her talent.
• Tabitha St Germain. She's voiced 15 different characters (and possibly more, we're not sure) across two and a half generations of My Little Pony according to The Other Wiki. And then there's all the anime and Canadian animation roles she's had, check out her demo video on her website. Shana? Roberta? Naomi Misora? Nazz? Heloise? All her. Also on Martha Speaks she's everyone from the title character (a talking dog) to an 18-year old baby to an 80-year old lady. If that's not range I don't know what is!
  • Case in point for My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: In Season 2, whenever there was a new female character to voice, it's probably her that did it. Including Luna's glorious return and Derpy Hooves. She also acts as a standin for Tara Strong (who voices the main character Twilight Sparkle) for the group recordings, a part of her extensive work that by definition is never seen on the show proper.
• As is the case with most Canadian voice actors, Lee Tockar hardly ever does the same voice twice. He voiced George of the Jungle, Doktor Frogg, Genghis, Makuta and Flux among others.
• Keith Ferguson in Dawn of War II does the voice of the Heretics, the Commisar, Plague Marines, various Orks including the Grot, and the ranger Rohnan from the Eldar Campaign in Retribution. He also does the voice of Bloo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
• The comedian Adam Hills (of Spicks and Specks) is Australian, and is able to imitate various Australian local accents, as well as American, Welsh, Irish, Scootish, British, posh British, Cockney, Glasgow, Canadian, and many, many more, to the point that if he ever did voice acting, he would easily become this trope.
• Octopimp - AKA Master Yorgi - of YouTube fame can play a good chunk of the Homestuck cast, most famously Gamzee and Tavros.
• David Kaye is simply amazing—and those are just the roles he's played in Transformers cartoons.
• Harry Partridge usually voices every character to appear in his cartoons himself. EVERY one.

Japanese

• Megumi Hayashibara and Hikaru Midorikawa are so prolific that you could probably connect everybody else in anime to them within one or two steps.
  • So every Japanese star gets a Megumi Number?
• Koichi Yamadera, the voice of Spike Spiegel, Ryouga Hibiki... and Donald Duck. (No, really—that's him in the Japanese version of Kingdom Hearts.) He's also the go-to guy for Japanese dubs of Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams. See The Other Wiki for a fuller listing.
• Hiroki Takahashi may not be the most prolific seiyuu around but he's certainly very varied. Cases in point being Monster Clown Hisoka from Hunter X Hunter, Genki Guy Kikumaru Eiji from Prince of Tennis, Superbia "Shouts all his lines" Squalo from Katekyo Hitman Reborn, Butt Monkey Harima Kenji from School Rumble...and soft spoken Japan from Axis Powers Hetalia.
• Toshihiko Seki, who can range from cheerful fun guy to irritable badass to... quack.
• Akira Ishida is another guy that's everywhere but with a lot of range- but in particular, he once did a bit in Gintama in which the one character he voices had an elaborate daydream sequence. He literally talked to himself for something like 10 minutes, all in various male AND female voices. Whoa.
• Wataru Takagi (No, not that one). In what is quite possibly the greatest showcase of vocal talent in Street Fighter history, he pulls quintuple-duty as Gen, Birdi, Adon, Zangief, and Sodom in the Alpha.
• Yuichi Nagashima, aka Cho. This guy voiced Jaken, Hiroshi Uchiyamada, Elmer Fudd, Brook, Blitzwing, Gollum and Scooby Doo.
• Aya Hirano is one of the few seiyuus that doesn't get typecast. She went from eccentric with Jerkass tendencies (Haruhi from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) to a obsessed, otaku highschooler (Konata from Lucky Star) to a Les Yay teacher (Yoko from School Rumble's second season) to an almost-godly little girl (Lumière from Kiddy Grade) to a Stalker with a Crush (Misa from Death Note) to serious Action Girl (Chiko from The Daughter of Twenty Faces).
  • And Dende from Dragon Ball Kai (which Aya Hirano voices) is considered male. (Though Nameks are a one-gender race...)
• Kotono Mitsuishi is known for performing a wide variety of characters, ranging from Sailor Moon and Excel Excel to Misato Katsuragi, Mireille Bouquet, Juri Arisugawa and Ebichu.
• Tomokazu Seki has voiced characters ranging from The Stoic Sousuke Sagara in Full Metal Panic!, to one of Those Two Guys Jun Kitagawa in Kanon, to Manipulative Bastard Big Bad Reiji Kageyama in Gate Keepers, to Hot-Blooded mecha pilot Domon Kasshu in G Gundam, to Animal Mascot Mepple in Futari wa Pretty Cure, to Large Ham Gilgamesh in Fate/stay night.
  • Let's not forget he voiced Brandon "Beyond the Grave" Heat in Gungrave, as well as in the second game of the video game series, Gungrave: O.D. (Overdose)
    • You're still forgetting Rob Lucci from One Piece, that crazy anime clerk from Lucky Star, and even freaking Viewtiful Joe!
• You'd think Sanae Kobayashi is pigeonholed as either Tsunderes (Akira from Mai-HiME) or boys (the other Akira, from Hikaru no Go)... Go and say the same when you hear her as Naive Everygirl Kumi Mashiba from Hajime no Ippo, the Yandere Lucy/Cutie Nyu in Elfen Lied, or the titular Action Girl from Madlax.
• Chiwa Saitou has, as just an example, voiced a Genki Action Girl, a perpetually angry member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad, and a villainous Smug Snake, all in the same show.
• Daisuke Namikawa is one of the voice actors pegged down in several roles that could be very much grate your skulls, playing the irritating Katz Kobayashi, the rough and wild Michael Trinity, the super loud mouthed Miyamoto Musashi or. However, he also had his share of straight, goody-two-shoes heroes such as the main character of Persona 4, Cornelius or the remake voice of Claude Kenni. Then, you've got the melancholic, manipulative Beta Baddie Ulquiorra Sciffer or the ultra-manipulative Big Bad Toutaku from Ikki Tousen amongst his portfolio. Then you'll never look at him the same again.
  • He also does dubs of lots of famous actors like Brad Pitt, Anakin Skywalker, Elijah Wood...
  • And he's Lucario.
  • He also voices BOTH North and South Italy.
• Toshiyuki Morikawa does The Hero roles (Ryu, Takaya aka D-Boy), The Stoic roles (Kyosuke), Evil Bastard roles (Kazuya Mishima, Sephiroth)... very affable Hot Shoujo Dad that sounds so light (Forbessi) and loud-mouthed idiots (Nobunaga Kiyota).
• Miyuki Sawashiro is what some people call versatile, she can be voicing spunky boys with an cheery attitude like Milanor from Yggdra Union or Carl Clover from Blaz Blue, a demanding Ojou such as Perrine or Shinku or cute bubbly Nekomimi girls like Nike or Mint. Younger characters are not her only forte either. Stripperiffic troubled Velvet and Little Miss Badass Woman Scorned Hotarubi would like a word for you.
• Takehito Koyasu has probably literally voiced a thousand roles... from a fallen prince who fights for world peace, to a displaced samurai piloting an apocalyptic machine with a lust for fighting. Even a comic relief Ascended Fanboy who wants to shoot fire. So, yeah...
• Try pigeonholing Nobutoshi Canna. This man has voiced Badasses in many flavors, from laid back bad asses (Midou Ban, Lancer), scary bad asses (Guts, Axel Almer (not the silly type), Cao Pi) or goof off bad asses (Silly Axel, Tasuki). If that's not enough, he also has two Bruce Lee Clone roles on his resume (Maxi, Lee Pai Long), or someone who sounds like a clown (Nnoitra Gilga). And, oh, you want to know who's behind the voice who yells "LISTEN TO MY SOOOOONGGGG!!!"? Yeah. Him too.
  • He's also pulled off the sensitive young Nowaki in Junjou Romantica, a startling contrast with... well... pretty much every character listed above. Canna's capable of bringing the smoove when called upon.
• Kaori Shimizu manages to completely avoid being pigeonholed. Even though most fans know her for her matured, deep voice of smart women such as Akira, Signum and Lamia, she is also capable of voicing cutesy voices starting from the melancholic Lain, hysterical Lou, and weird Yuri Fangirl Hiyori.
  • To make things more obvious, she is also capable of switching her voices from the deep one to the cutesy one in a split second (in Lamia/Aschen's case). Pigeonhole that!
  • Not to mention convincingly voicing the three different personalities of Lain in Serial Experiments Lain. And this is her debut role.
  • Recently, she has put her name as one of the cast of Tales of Hearts... as someone who is a prime candidate of a soft-spoken Mysterious Waif. Whoa.
• Ryotaro Okiayu is certainly one hell of a man hard to peg down on his roles. One second he plays the roles of bumbling men who is often used for comedy relief, one second he plays villainous roles, one second he plays cool-headed guys, one second he plays The Stoic types, one second he... plays gay-voiced roles.
• Rie Kugimiya is more often a Pigeonholed Voice Actor, playing Tsudere characters such as Shana, Louise and Nagi but when allowed to step outside the Pigeonhole she shows surprising range such as Alphonse Elric and both Deadpan Snarker Kurosaki Karin and Emotionless Girl Nemu from Bleach
• Sayaka Ohara definitely, despite mostly playing Mother, she voiced Beatrice, Yuuko and, Erza
• Jun Fukuyama, has voiced Magnificent Bastard Lelouch, Extreme Masochist Sado Taro, Brilliant but Lazy Ryner and Large Ham Leopard.
  • Nurarihyon no Mago deserves special mention in showing off his range since he voices both of Rikuo's forms, showing off both the Cute Shotaro Boy style that he started out with and the more mature voice that became more prominent after landing his role in Code Geass.
• Ayako Kawasumi, from the stoic Saber to the gentle Princess Henrietta, then the Alpha Bitch Saki Tenjouin.
• Houko Kuwashima is very prolific and has an amazing range, making it hard to find two of her roles that sound the same. Who would have thought that Yurika, Kagura and Fllay are all voiced by the same person?
• Katsuyuki Konishi has proven that he can do quite a variety of characters. From cold and calculated robot-ninjas to the Leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime and all the way to the most Badass badass to ever exist in anime. Coincidentally, all three examples have some kind of leader-role...
• Tetsuya Kakihara has also proven to be able to do a good number of voices. His probably most famous roles are Simon the Digger and Natsu Dragneel, though he's also done a lot of other voices. In particular, check out how he did Jin Kisaragi and Hakumen
• Nobuyuki Hiyama should get some credit too. Sure, his voices doesn't differ much between two characters in the same situation, but his sure can go from completely calm to yelling in the most awesome way you'll ever hear within seconds, and drastically change his voice in the process.

Spanish

• Jorge "El Tata" Arvizu has dubbed, among others, Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone; Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Maxwell Smart (including the 2007 film), and Choo-Choo Benny the Ball.
• Gerardo Reyero was known for using his bass-baritone voice in ultra serious, by-the-book roles (Cyclops from X-Men, Mamoru "Darien" Chiba from Sailor Moon, Jun Uozumi from Slam Dunk). That, until he did a fantastic work as the loud, cheerful and energetic Large Ham Gai-sensei in Naruto, and then the Bunny Ears Lawyer Ukitake from Bleach...
  • He's also Captain Hero, The Chief, and Gantu.
• You might be able to recognize Patricia "Patty" Acevedo's sweet soprano voice very easily, but even then, you can't forget she's done young boys (Kissyfur, Yaiba Kurogane from Yaiba, Chaozu from Dragonball Z), Magical Girls (Usagi/Serena from Sailor Moon, Sally from Magical Sally), sweet yet strong girls (Alexis/Asuka from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Lisa Simpson, Lizzie Devine), cynical young ladies (Rosa from Cyborg 009), mother roles (Chi Chi from Dragonball Z), or spoiled little kids (Angelica Pickles from Rugrats), or Yanderes (Ryoumou from Ikki Tousen), or even badass Action Girls (Princess Adora aka She Ra Princess of Power).
• Arturo Mercado has voiced Shaggy, Yoda and Lando, Fred Flintstone, the Beast, Ham, Petrie, Darkwing Duck, Simba, Bob the Builder... AND MANY OTHERS. He's in his early 70s, and his range is comparable to the aforementioned Jorge Arvizu.

Portuguese

• Márcio Simões does over-the-top characters such as the Genie, Hades, and Daffy Duck as well as Badasses such as Samuel L. Jackson and Jack Bauer.
  • Among his other roles are Peter Potamus, Vlad Plasmius, Stitch, and Ray the firefly.
• Guilherme Briggs is usually a Large Ham - his favorite roles to play were Freakazoid and Dagget - but he also does serious roles such as Mewtwo from Pokémon, Optimus Prime and Dr. Manhattan.
  • Let's not forget that he's Eek the Cat, Otis the cow, Raj the elephant, Cosmo, Buzz Lightyear, Eduardo, Superman, Coop and many more.
• Alexandre Moreno is also usually over-the-top (Pinky, Puss in Boots, Chris Tucker) or comedic (Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller) but does the odd serious role (the first Red Ranger, Michael Corleone, Jude Law).
• Marco Antônio Costa is the voice actor for George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and also... Plucky Duck, Bonkers D. Bobcat, Hugh Neutron, Rex, Stimpy and Woody Woodpecker?

French

• Roger Carel is (or has been) Asterix, ALF C-3PO, Winnie the Pooh (and Rabbit and Piglet), Captain Caveman, Basil of Baker Street, and a whole bunch of Hanna-Barbera and/or Disney characters.
• Canadian French actor Richard Darbois is Batman, Captain Harlock, the Genie, Oogie-Boogie, the Kurgan, Barf, Hook, Madmartigan, Buffalo Bill, Buzz Lightyear and Shan-Yu. He also doubled Harrison Ford, Richard Gere and Jeff Goldblum, among others.

Danish

• Lars Thiesgaard has been Pumbaa, Dexter, IM Weasel, Johnny Bravo, Pegleg Pete, Piglet, Gargamel, The Red Guy, Professor Utonium, Bob the Builder, Scooby Doo, the Tasmanian Devil (as well as Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny), Don Karnage, Top Cat, The Joker, Yoda, Barney Rubble, and Pinky... among MANY others.

Hungarian

• Gyula Szombathy voices (or has once voiced) Donald Duck, Goofy, Goofy's narrator, Porky Pig, Pepe Le Pew, Grandma Puckett in Hoodwinked, Frasier Crane, Popeye, Kaa from The Jungle Book, Scuttle from The Little Mermaid, Fagin from Oliver and Company, Gizmoduck from DuckTales, Mambo from Teen Titans, Mung Daal from Chowder, and Billy the rat from Cat City (Macskafogó). He also voices Steve Martin in the Pink Panther movies.
• István Mikó voices Winnie the Pooh, Genie from Aladdin, Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Ray from The Princess and the Frog, Bernard from The Rescuers, Archimedes from The Sword in the Stone, Barney Rubble in one of the several dubs of The Flintstones and is the official Hungarian voice of Robin Williams.
• József Kerekes voices Peter Griffin from Family Guy, Donkey from the Shrek franchise, Dale from Chip and Dale, Wildcat from Tale Spin, Barney Rubble from a VHS-only Flintstones dub, Lumpy Space Princess in Adventure Time, Pesto from Animaniacs, Drix from Ozzy and Drix, Roquefort from The Aristocats, Chester from Kids Next Door, Jimbo Kern from South Park's early seasons, Kowalski from Madagascar and its Sequel and spin-offs, and is the official Hungarian voice of Jim Carrey.
• Gábor Seder provides the voices for Futurama's Bender, Quagmire from Family Guy, Heatblast, Ghostfreak and probably a bunch of other aliens in Ben 10, Dr. Blowhole from The Penguins of Madagascar, all life-stages of Emrick the Petalar and about half the Lizard army in Thundercats 2011. There's way more, but those are in his regular voice.
  • How about Logan from Big Time Rush, Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Slips Python from My Gym Partner's a Monkey, and Mike from Total Drama: Revenge of the Island?