If you’re a fan of animation made within the last 20 years or so, it’s an almost sure bet that Rob Paulsen has been in something that you loved. While growing up, Paulsen aspired to be a hockey player, but after learning at age 18 that he “had neither the talent or the temperament to make a living playing hockey,” he turned to singing and acting, dropping out of college and moving to Los Angeles to chase his dreams at age 19.
He’s been supporting himself ever since, carving out several prominent niches in the pop culture consciousness as the voice of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Rapahel in the original animated TV series; Yakko Warner and Dr. Scratch-n-Sniff in Animaniacs; Pinky the lab mouse in Animaniacs and the spinoff show Pinky and the Brain; and the title character in The Mask animated series (for which he also sang the theme song).
Paulsen also has a long list of credits on shows including The Tick (where he replaced Mickey Dolenz as Arthur), The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, Time Squad, Samurai Jack, Jimmy Neutron, Danny Phantom, Ben 10: Alien Force, The Fairly OddParents, T.U.F.F. Puppy, and the Tinker Bell direct-to-video movie series.
Recently, Paulsen was named to play Donatello in Nickelodeon’s upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, the first to be produced since Viacom acquired the property from Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. He will join Jason Biggs (Leonardo), Sean Astin (Rapahel), Greg Cipes (Michelangelo), and Mae Whitman (April O’Neil). He has also launched a successful new podcast, “Talkin’ Toons with Rob Paulsen,” in which he’s talked with a list of luminaries in the voice-over world, and detailed the life of a voice actor in several solo podcasts. Toonzone was extremely happy to be able to chat with the extremely animated Rob Paulsen over the phone about these two of his latest projects.
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