Frank Welker. Photo by John Findlater. Courtesy of Frank Welker.

When Frank Welker was asked to mimic sheep for the movie Mafia!, he thought there would be no difficulty. After all, for the past three decades, he's made a living out of mimicking cats, dogs, monkeys, ducks, parrots, cows, pigs -- even gremlins and dinosaurs. So sheep noises? No problem.

Except the producers of Mafia! had a peculiar twist in mind: "They're like mad dogs -- but they're sheep."

Puzzled, Welker asked, "They're mad sheep dogs?"

"No, no. They're mad sheep that are like dogs. Why don't we try having a sheep growl, like mad dogs?"

Welker thought, "OK," and proceeded to record his "dialogue."

"We did some sheep that growled and barked," he recalls, "and we did some real nasty aggressive sheep. I think they used a little of both. I also voiced some little dinosaurs that eat these kids, and a mad baboon that tears people up. It was really bizarre stuff."

The snorts and wimpers of Altivo in The Road to El Dorado came from the throat of Frank Welker. TM & © 2000 DreamWorks LCC.

Growling as angry sheep in Mafia!, or snorting as Altivo the horse in DreamWorks’ The Road to El Dorado, or roaring in Disney’s Dinosaur, are just a few of Frank Welker's many roles. He has performed in every facet of show business: as a standup comedian and impressionist, an onscreen actor in movies and TV, a stage performer, a record producer and star, a radio announcer, a performer in commercials, a co-creator and co-producer of a TV series, and a vocal effects specialist in live-action movies, theme park attractions and video games. Most significantly, his voice has brought life to countless hundreds of animated cartoon characters.

It all began with a dog.

Voice Work?
Welker recalls, "I was working at Ledbetter's on Westwood Blvd., doing a dog-and-cat fight as part of my standup act. A commercial producer came in and said, 'I'm doing a voiceover commercial tomorrow for Friskies dog food. Would you like to be the tail of a dog?' I didn't know what a voiceover was, but I said, 'Sure.' Ted Knight was the announcer. The producer's girlfriend at the time worked for ABC, before CBS got Scooby Doo. (I think ABC had it first. It went to both networks.)

"She was casting Scooby Doo, and she said, 'Frank would be perfect for Scooby.' It never occurred to my agent that I could or should go out [for the part]. I was asked to go to Hanna-Barbera and audition. I thought I would get the dog, hands-down. Casey Kasem was reading for Freddie; he thought he would have Freddie. Don Messick ended up doing Scooby Doo. I mean, he could have done everything anyway, by himself. They didn't need us.

The voice of Freddie from the classic Scooby-Doo cartoons was provided by Welker. Courtesy of Cartoon Network. © Hanna-Barbera Cartoons.

"They kept asking me to read for Freddie. They said, 'Look, we've already decided on Don Messick as the dog. But, you still have a chance as Freddie.' I said, 'Freddie? He's the straight guy. Maybe I could do Shaggy because it is such a character voice.' Coincidentally, Casey wanted to do the voice of Freddie. Well, Casey and I ended up getting just the opposite parts we thought we would."

Welker describes working with Joe Barbera as "great."

"Here I was, brand new, and I was sitting around the table with Don Messick and John Stephenson and Henry Corden and all these really great voice actors, and Joe Barbera would say, 'Okay, you've got the part of the villain and it's a guy named Coal Miner and he's a real bad dude. John, you want to take a try at it?' And John would read about four or five lines. And Joe would say, 'Okay, that sounds good. Messick, you want to try?' Don would read it and Joe would go, 'Okay, anybody else?' And he wouldn't look at me because I'm 'twelve-years-old.'