Jess Harnell

Jess Harnell
Harnell in 2008
Born	Jesse Harnell (1963-12-23) December 23, 1963 Englewood, New Jersey, United States
Occupation	Voice, actor, singer
Years active	1987–present
Known for	Animaniacs Transformers Doc McStuffins Crash Bandicoot America's Funniest Home Videos Sofia the First

Jesse "Jess" Harnell (born December 23, 1963) is an American voice actor and singer, who is known for voicing Wakko Warner in Animaniacs, Ironhide in the Transformers film series, Chilly in Doc McStuffins, and Crash Bandicoot in the video game franchise of the same name.

Harnell has been the announcer for America's Funniest Home Videos since 1998.

Early life and career

Harnell was born on December 23, 1963 at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, in Englewood, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Teaneck, the son of Joe Harnell, a jazz composer, and Alice Harnell.^[1][2]

In 1989, Harnell provided the voices of Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox for the Splash Mountain attraction at Disneyland Park, reviving the roles last played in 1946 by Johnny Lee and James Baskett, respectively, in the film Song of the South. Harnell also recorded some new character dialogue for the subsequent Walt Disney World version of the attraction. He was later called in to reprise these roles for the 2011 video game Kinect: Disneyland Adventures.

In 1990, Harnell served as a casting director on DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp.

In 1993, he went on to voice Wakko Warner on Animaniacs and Secret Squirrel on 2 Stupid Dogs. From 1994 to 1996, he supplied the voices of Sewer Urchin, the Human Bullet and Chief Louder in the animated series The Tick.

Also, in 1996, he was Hunter on Road Rovers. One of Harnell's next appearances was as the principal stormtrooper in the 1997 Star Wars fan film Troops, a parody of the Cops TV series set in the Star Wars expanded universe. Harnell voiced Joe Tabootie on the Nickelodeon show ChalkZone, Crash Bandicoot in Crash Tag Team Racing, Crash of the Titans, and Crash: Mind over Mutant, Lo-Lo in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, Spyro the Dragon in Spyro: A Hero's Tail and Spyro: Shadow Legacy, Bruce and Crazy Drivers in the Finding Nemo video game, Jerry in Totally Spies, Linguni in Pucca and Doctor Finklestein in The Nightmare Before Christmas' video game spin-offs, as well as in the Kingdom Hearts series. In 2005 he voiced Buzz Blister in Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars and numerous other characters in subsequent Tom and Jerry features. He also voiced wild and energetic Cro Magnon Doubledome from the Longhair and Doubledome cartoon shorts for Cartoon Network's Big Pick (also starring Daniel Davis as Longhair).

In 2001, he was the singing voice of Buster on Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure. He also voiced Captain Hero on Comedy Central's animated comedy Drawn Together and he also does the voices of Wooton Bassett, and Bennett Charles on the radio drama Adventures in Odyssey, as well as playing the lead role of Finnian Jones for the Lamplighter Theatre Radio Drama. He also made appearances on Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad. His voice also made an appearance in NASCAR Rumble, and is credited for in-game commentary in the follow-up game Rumble Racing. Jess also replaced Brad Garrett as the voice of Fatso during season 3 of The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper. He also guest starred in Samurai Jack as he voiced Ringo and a waitress in the episode "Jack Under the Sea". He also produced the 2004 film Comic Book: The Movie along with Billy West, Mark Hamill, Eric Mittleman, Scott Zakarin and Roger Rose as well as playing the character Ricky. In 2006, he worked as a voice director on Pet Alien. In 2007, he replaced Neil Flynn as the voice of The Plumber in Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. He also voiced the Smuggler in that popular series.

In that same year, he voiced the characters of Ironhide and Barricade in the Michael Bay-directed Transformers, making him the only voice actor to play both an Autobot (Ironhide) and a Decepticon (Barricade) in that film. He returned to voice Ironhide once again in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen^[3][4][5] and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

He voiced a character in Up and replaced Brad Garrett as the voice of Professor Buffo in Special Agent Oso.

He also voiced Flip Wreck, Blast Zone and Bucko in the Skylanders reboot of the franchise and Cowardly Lion and Reegull in Lego Dimensions.

He also voiced a Male Tourist in Norm of the North.

Music career

As a musician, Harnell released his only solo album, The Sound of Your Voice, in 1995. He is the lead vocalist in the pop/metal mashup rock band, Rock Sugar, which evolved from his previous band, Loud & Clear. With Loud & Clear or Rock Sugar, Harnell released four albums: Disc-Connected (2003), self-titled demo album (2007), Festival of Fire (2008), and Reimaginator (2010).

Filmography

Soundtrack appearances

References

External links

• Jess Harnell at the Internet Movie Database
• Jess Harnell at Behind The Voice Actors