Phil LaMarr

I’ve recently realized that all of my favourite voice actors are old news. Christine Cavanaugh has been gone for a few years, Rob Paulsen mostly does one shot characters, and Jim Cumming’s reign as the Voice of Disney is coming to an end. There’s a new generation of voice actors, and it’s high time I learned their names. Jason Marsden was the first of them to grab my attention. Phil LaMarr was the next.

Someone emailed me several months ago – probably two years at least – commenting on how surprising it was that I had not made a page for Mr. LaMarr. I most likely failed to respond, and I apologise to the visitor I slighted. It was unintentional; I am rather regretfully absentminded.

At the time, I had heard of Mr. LaMarr, but was not familiar with any of his work. In fact, I was still having a difficult time keeping Phil LaMarr and LeVar Burton straight. But I’ve since become a fan (a rather large fan) of Weekenders (as well as Next Generation, so I don’t make that mistake anymore), and I occasionally watch Mad TV and Static Shock.

As a live actor, LaMarr shows an amazing talent on both MadTV and a few episodes of Whose Line is it Anyway? As a voice actor, he is perhaps even more impressive.

On Weekenders, LaMarr plays Carver Descartes, a terribly sarcastic young man whose inflections are enough to make up for his shallow egotism. They were also what first impressed me about Mr. LaMarr. His delivery as the character is spot on, and Carver’s inflections occasionally even rival Tino’s. LaMarr is also Bluke and Coach Coulson...interesting roles, to say the least, and fabulous examples of the second thing to impress me about LaMarr – his range.

Among his other voice credits are Jack of Samurai Jack, Wilt of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Virgil Hawkins (aka Static of Static Shock), Hermes Conrad of Futurama, and Bolbi Stroganovsky of Jimmy Neutron. But that’s only a small portion of his work.

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Created September 3, 2004.