As you may know, I sometimes direct voices for cartoon shows. Whenever feasible, I try to heed a piece of wisdom that was imparted to me by one Mr. Joseph Barbera. He said, "It's important to audition everyone you can before you hire Frank Welker." Frank is the "workingest" voice actor in the history of mankind. I don't mean he's worked more than Mel Blanc, Daws Butler or Paul Frees. I mean he's worked more than all three of them put together.
Frank does cartoon voices. He does commercials. You've heard him in dozens of movies, including many of the top box office grossers of all time, making creature sounds and barking for dogs and often replacing the vocal tracks of the on-screen actors. Sometimes when you think you're hearing Jack Nicholson or someone like that in one of their movies, you're hearing a line redubbed by Frank. He can sound like anyone or anything.
This is a very tiny taste of what he does. This is two and a half minutes of him making monkey sounds for a Curious George videogame. The weird and amazing thing about him is that he could go seamlessly from doing this to making terrifying dragon shrieks or sounding just like Bill Cosby or Gregory Peck. Once for a show, I asked him to create the sound of living oatmeal that was bubbling in the pot and getting angry at the person cooking it. Without pause to ponder, Frank went immediately to the microphone and made the sound of living oatmeal that was bubbling in the pot and getting angry at the person cooking it. Honest. If I played you the tape with no explanation, you'd hear it and say, "Hey, that sounds like living oatmeal bubbling in the pot and getting angry at the person cooking it." He's that good.
Thanks go out to Augie De Blieck Jr. for telling me about this. Here's Frank getting paid, probably very well, for making monkey sounds. This man, by the way, went to college.