Tress MacNeille

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The woman of a thousand voices.


Tress MacNeille (born June 20, 1951) is an American voice actress best known for providing various voices on the animated series The Simpsons, Futurama, Rugrats, All Grown Up!, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs and some Disney movies.

Her most notable characters on The Simpsons include Agnes Skinner, Brandine Spuckler, Dolph Starbeam, and Lindsey Naegle, while her performance as Mom is her most notable Futurama role. She even became the voice of Daisy Duck in 1999. MacNeille has also done dubbing work on English language anime translations. She was also the voice of Leon from Lilly the Witch. She's been the industries go-to voice for old lady characters for quite some time, and it's always easy to recognize her.

MacNeille sang and appeared in the music video for "Ricky" by "Weird Al" Yankovic, which was based on the I Love Lucy television show and parodied the song "Mickey" by Toni Basil. (MacNeille, obviously, was Lucy.) She also appeared on Yankovic's 1999 album, Running with Scissors, on "Jerry Springer", and did several one-shot voices on The Weird Al Show. MacNeille also appeared as an angry anchorwoman in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and served as the voice of Elvira's Great-Aunt Morganna Talbot.

Due to the sheer amount of voice work in her resume, Tress is no doubt a woman of a thousand voices and is considered the female equivalent of Frank Welker, Billy West, or maybe Jim Cummings.

Voices on The Simpsons

  • Agnes Skinner, Principal Skinner's elderly, controlling mother—though the first time she was introduced in season one's "Grapes of Wrath" [the episode where Bart is sent to France after flushing a cherry bomb down the boys' room toilet], Agnes Skinner was merely an amazingly embarrassing mom who called her son, "Spanky."
  • Lindsey Naegle, the generic businesswoman (though she is often used as a TV network executive character in such episodes as "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show," "Girly Edition," "Helter Shelter," and the 400th episode "You Kent Always Say What You Want"). Changes jobs constantly because she's a sexual predator. Is a Blonde Republican Sex Kitten in a lot of episodes, though she was seen as a Democrat in the season 19 episode "E. Pluribus Wiggum."
  • Dolph Starbeam, one of the three bullies (along with Jimbo Jones and Kearney Zzyzwicz); has red hair cut asymmetrically and wears a green shirt, black pants, and matching black sneakers. Not much is known about him, except that he may be the youngest out of the three bullies, he speaks Esperanto, Swahili, and Klingon, he's Jewish and attends Hebrew school, and, judging by his last name, his parents may be or have been hippies.
  • Brandine Spuckler, Cletus Spuckler's wife (though some episodes reveal that Brandine may also be Cletus's sister and/or cousin).
  • Cookie Kwan, a territorial Asian American realtor who threatens anyone who tries to sell houses on "the west side." First seen in season nine's "Realty Bites."
  • Ms. Albright, the Sunday School Teacher on the season six episode "Bart's Girlfriend." Ms. Albright was seen in season two's "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment" and "Homer's Triple Bypass," but she was voiced by Maggie Roswell in those instances (her voice in those two episodes sounded more like Lisa's second-grade teacher Ms. Hoover).
  • Mrs. Glick, the elderly shut-in lady who let Bart work for her on season two's "Three Men and a Comic Book"; on that episode, Cloris Leachman was the voice of Mrs. Glick. When Mrs. Glick appeared in the season eight X-Files crossover episode "The Springfield Files," Tress Mac Neille provided her voice.
  • Bernice Hibbert, the recovering alcoholic wife of Julius Hibbert (on the occasions that Dr. Hibbert's wife speaks; normally, she's The Voiceless)
  • Brunella Pommelhorst, the stern school gym teacher (first mentioned by name only in season six's "The PTA Disbands") who quit so she could get a sex change operation.
  • Poor Violet, the little orphan girl seen in season nine's "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" and season 12's "I'm Going To Praiseland."
  • Crazy Cat Lady, a psychotic old lady surrounded by pet cats she uses as weapons (was once an aspiring doctor/lawyer named Eleanor Abernathy whose future went downhill when she succumbed to alcoholism and became obsessed with cats)
  • Gino Terwilliger, Sideshow Bob's son seen in the season 17 episode, "The Italian Bob".
  • Lunchlady Doris in the season 18 episode, "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife, and Her Homer" and the season 19 episode, "The Debarted", replacing Doris Grau (who died during the show's seventh season; Grau's final episode was "Team Homer.")
  • Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon's wife (only for the season 13 episode The Sweetest Apu; Manjula is usually voiced by former SNL castmember Jan Hooks)
  • Belle, owner of Springfield's only burlesque house "The Maison Derriere" as seen in season eight's "Bart After Dark" (originally, the producers wanted a female celebrity to voice Belle, but when they couldn't find a good match, they called in Tress. The role was so big, Tress was billed with the regular voice actors).
  • Mrs. Muntz, Nelson Muntz's promiscuous, drug-addict mother (first mentioned as being a jailbird in season four's "Marge in Chains" and having a cough drop addiction in season eight's "A Milhouse Divided"; first heard in "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken," first seen in "'Tis the Fifteenth Season")
  • Colin, the environmentalist boy who served as Lisa's Shallow Love Interest in The Simpsons Movie
  • Various other characters

Voices on Futurama

  • Mom, the owner of Mom's Friendly Robot Company
  • Linda, the cohost of "Good Morning, Earth"
  • Hattie McDoogal, the crazy, old cat lady
  • Tinny Tim, a Tiny Tim-esque child robot first seen in Xmas Story
  • Munda, Turanga Leela's long-lost mother
  • Fanny, wife of Donbot
  • Deep Blue
  • Monique, a fembot who appears in All My Circuits
  • Ndnd, Lrrr's wife, from Omicron Persei VIII
  • Vyolet
  • Petunia
  • The Slurm Queen
  • Guenter, the hyper-intelligent monkey from the episode Mars University.
  • Various one-shot characters

Disney character roles

Other roles

Tropes

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