| Jess Harnell | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Name: | Jess Harnell |
| Born: | December 23, 1963 |
| Occupation: | Voice actor, musician |
| Years active: | 1989-present |
| Known for: | Announcing AFV |
Jess Harnell (born December 23, 1963) is an American voice actor and musician, best known for voicing Wakko Warner on Animaniacs, Prinicpal Herbert Haney on Arthur between 2014-2022 following the death of original voice actor Walter Massey, and Ironhide in the Transformers film series. Harnell has been the announcer for America's Funniest Home Videos since 1998.
History[]
Harnell is originally from Teaneck, New Jersey. Harnell's parents were Alice and composer Joe Harnell.
Career[]
Harnell started his career with minimal experience. In 1989, he provided the voices of Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox in the then-new 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 once again for the 2011 video game Kinect Disneyland Adventures.
In 1991, he sang the theme to Taz-Mania. In 1992, he went on to voice his most popular roles, Wakko Warner on Animaniacs and Secret Squirrel on 2 Stupid Dogs. From 1994 to 1996, he supplied the voice of Sewer Urchin in the animated series The Tick.
Also in 1996, he was Hunter on Road Rovers. Harnell's next appearance 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 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, Marlin and Bruce in Finding Nemo (video game) Jerry in Totally Spies, Linguni in Pucca, and Doctor Finklestein in The Nightmare Before Christmas's video game spin-offs, as well as in the Kingdom Hearts series replacing the late William Hickey who voiced him in the film. In 2005 he voiced Buzz Blister in Tom & Jerry: Blast off to Mars. 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 a few appearances on Superhuman Samurai Cyber-Squad, both on-screen and voice-over. 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 played a small role in Samurai Jack as he voiced Ringo and a waitress in the episode "Jack Under the Sea". 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 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 Deception (Barricade) in that film. He returned to voice Ironhide once again in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
He voiced a minor character in the popular animated film Up, which Ratchet & Clank co-star David Kaye was also in. He replaced Brad Garrett as the voice of Professor Buffo in Special Agent Oso.
Harnell's most recent work has been supplying the voice of Texas in the Chris Prynoski cartoon Motorcity.