As we all know, Larry Kenney is credited on most sites as being the voice of “Wizz-Ra”. Personally, I’m not 100% convinced because the voice just doesn’t sound like Kenney’s to me. Most of the characters that Kenney has voiced, he uses his two types of voices. The first one is a more “youthful” one which he used for the young Lion-O, the Ecology Inspector’s Pilot, and for Torr. The other voice that he commonly uses is the more raspy and loud one which he used for Ratar-O, Safari Joe, Enflamer, Scrape.
But Wizz-Ra’s voice doesn’t sound like any of the voices that Kenney has done. To me it sounds more like the voices that Bob McFadden did for characters like Maftet, Guardians of the Book of Omens. What are your thoughts?
It’s almost certainly Larry. Listen to how Wizz-Ra says, “My powers, returning,” in the final scene at the pyramid. He slips out of the accent there slightly, and sounds more like Lion-O.
I will watch that scene again closely. :thumbsup Sometimes it is so hard to figure out who voiced whom in these old cartoons as they never listed the voice credits. There’s a non-ThunderCat cartoon whose voice cast I’ve been trying to figure out for quite some time but have only managed to identify a few.
Voice actors from the 80s cartoons really had a talent for that. Many like Jim Cummings, Corey Burton, Peter Cullen are still working in the biz even today.
The TCats voice actors were brilliant as well. Bob McFadden probably did the most voices on the show, but then some sounded repetitive. I’d say Earle Hyman was the one who couldn’t change his voice as much as the others could. His characters were easy to pick out as they sounded almost the same like Panthro, Cruncher, ASOE. Even today I find it hard to believe that Kenney voiced Jackalman. It’s amazing how much he could change his voice! It’s like what Mark Hamill did for Joker.
I thought Wizz-Ra was Larry Kenney ever since I first saw the episode as an adult. In any event, Larry Kenney’s range is almost unparalleled in voice acting. He’s up there with Jim Cummings and Frank Welker.
And Darkstorm and Cravex (and Falkhama) in Visionaries. I still can’t believe in that show Jim Cummings was both Witterquick and the Bearer Of Knowledge - and Bogavas!
Especially when he says “returning”, that is Lion-O’s voice without any mistake.