Tom Kenny
Tom Kenny at 2004 the Los Angeles Animation Festival
Born	Thomas James Kenny (1962-07-13) July 13, 1962 (age 49) Syracuse, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, comedian, voice actor
Years active	1980–present
Spouse	Jill Talley (1993-present)
Children	2 children

Thomas James "Tom" Kenny (born July 13, 1962) is an American actor, voice actor, and comedian. He is known for his long-running-role as SpongeBob SquarePants in the television series of the same name, as well as the live-action character Patchy the Pirate, Gary the Snail and the French narrator based on Jacques Cousteau. He is also the Mayor and narrator of Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls and ScoutMaster Lumpus and Slinkman from Camp Lazlo. Aside from voice acting, Kenny starred in the short-lived Fox sketch show The Edge and was a cast member of the HBO sketch comedy program Mr. Show, where he worked with his wife, Jill Talley. He is also known for being one of the longest-working voice actors to voice Spyro in the Spyro the Dragon series. He voiced Spyro three times, followed by Elijah Wood who voiced Spyro on the same number of instances. Later in 2011, the role of Spyro was passed on to Josh Keaton in: Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure.

He currently voices the Ice King in the Cartoon Network animated series Adventure Time with Finn and Jake, and voices additional characters on Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. He also voices Quantum Ray in Cosmic Quantum Ray and Plastic Man in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. As of 2007, he hosted the TV show Funday Night at the Movies on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) which encourages children to watch old movies.^[1]

Kenny was born and raised in Syracuse, New York.

Musical career[link]

He was the lead vocalist for the Syracuse, New York-based band The Tearjerkers since the early 1980s, when he replaced the original vocalist Buddy Love. Other members of The Tearjerkers included Charlie Robbins, Dave DeCirce, and Dave Soule, who is still active in the central New York music scene. "Syracuse Summer" is the group's best-known song, and is included on The History of Syracuse Music, Volume XII and XIII. While the Tearjerkers did not become a national act, one Tearjerkers roadie would go on to achieve fame: comedian Bobcat Goldthwait. Goldthwait's film Shakes the Clown features Kenny as Shakes' bitter archrival. In 1980, Kenny was briefly a member of Syracuse-based pop punk band The Trend along with Goldthwait.

Kenny appeared regularly on NBC's music video show Friday Night Videos, in a recurring comedic Music News segment. In 1991, he took over as the show's regular host until being replaced later that year by Frankie Crocker.

In 1996, Kenny appeared along with his wife, Jill Talley, in the music video for "Tonight, Tonight" by The Smashing Pumpkins, playing a young couple taking their honeymoon on the moon. The video was very popular, winning six MTV Video Music Awards. Kenny also appeared in the music video for "Sing" by the band Travis.

In 2006, Kenny co-wrote and recorded SpongeBob SquarePants: The Best Day Ever with producer Andy Paley. Kenny's singing on the CD is done in the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants and other characters from the show. Other musical artists on the CD include: Brian Wilson, Tommy Ramone, and Flaco Jiménez. The music pays homage to The Beach Boys, The Archies, The Lovin' Spoonful, and The Troggs, among others.^[2]

Kenny makes a vocal cameo in the track "TMZ" on Weird Al Yankovic's 2011 album Alpocalypse.

Acting career[link]

Kenny has acted in many films and TV shows, debuting in How I Got Into College (1989) and later he appeared in films such as Shakes The Clown and Comic Book: The Movie. He appeared in sketch comedies The Edge and Mr. Show. He also appeared in the live-action segments of SpongeBob SquarePants as Patchy the Pirate.

Voice acting career[link]

Kenny at the 2008 Comic-Con International

Although most famous for being the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants since the series premiere in 1999, in "Help Wanted", Tom Kenny has voiced many characters in over 200 productions. It was revealed by Kenny, that his favorite character to voice for, was Slinkman in Camp Lazlo. ^[3] Kenny said that he voices "a lot of sweet yellow characters for some reason."^[4]

He is known to provide the voice of the various meows of Gary the Snail in SpongeBob, but he played his first set of voice actor roles for Rocko's Modern Life, primarily as Heffer Wolfe.^[4] Joe Murray auditioned Kenny for voice acting roles for the series in a casting call in Los Angeles, California.^[5] On one occasion, the producers required Kenny to fill the role of Charlie Adler, who was absent on that occasion. In addition, Kenny had to perform one song and learn how to play another song within ten minutes due to time constraints. He said that this helped him believe that he could stand "toe to toe" with other voice actors.^[6]

Joe Murray chose Kenny for a voice acting position in Camp Lazlo as Lumpus and Slinkman, because Murray, after seeing Kenny's previous work for Rocko's Modern Life, felt that Kenny "adds writing to his roles" and "brings so much".^[7]

He was the voice of Dog in CatDog, as well as the voice of Cliff. He also had a few roles in The Powerpuff Girls TV show. He was the Mayor, the Narrator, Mitch Mitchelson, Snake and Little Arturo from the Gangrene Gang, Rainbow the Clown, etc. He plays a number of roles in the Transformers Animated TV show. A few of the characters he voices in this series are Starscream and his clones, Isaac Sumdac, and Waspinator. He is also the voice of the Autobots Skids and Wheelie in the live-action Transformers film series. He has voiced the Penguin on the TV show The Batman. On Dilbert, Kenny voiced Ratbert, Asok and other one-time characters. He played Mr. Hal Gibson in the animated kids show Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force GO!.

In 2009, Kenny became a regular cast voice in the Fox comedy series Sit Down, Shut Up. He voices Muhammad Sabeeh "Happy" Fa-ach Nuabar, the secretive custodian who is plotting a terrorist attack, as well as Happy's interpreter.^[8] The series premiered on April 19, 2009.^[8] Kenan Thompson, Kristin Chenoweth, Jason Bateman, Nick Kroll, Cheri Oteri, Henry Winkler, Will Arnett and Will Forte are the other main cast members.^[8]

He is also the voice of Rin in the English versions of video games Final Fantasy X and its sequel, Final Fantasy X-2.

He also voiced the Best Buy elf from the retail stores' Christmas TV commercials.

He replaced Ken Sansom as the voice of Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh (2011).

He will voice the Sandman named Sandy in the upcoming film Rise of the Guardians, which in theaters November 21, 2012.

Kids' Choice Awards[link]

Nickelodeon's annual Kids' Choice Awards is narrated by Tom Kenny. At the 2005 Kids' Choice Awards, he called himself "The World's Best Announcer". At the 2006 Kids' Choice Awards, he called himself the "Man of 1,000 Voices, all of them this one." Kenny was featured as the Voice in a Box at the 2008 Kids' Choice Awards. On the 2009 Kids' Choice Awards, he called himself, "the only announcer who does all of his own stunts." At the 2010 Kids' Choice Awards, he described himself as, "the only announcer that makes all this stuff up as he goes." At the 2011 Kids' Choice Awards he called himself as "the only announcer who was born this way." At the 2012 Kids' Choice Awards he called himself "the invisible announcer."

Personal life[link]

Kenny is married to Jill Talley. They have two children, a boy and a girl, Mac and Nora. He is friends with many actors such as Adam Sandler, Bill Faggerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, William Shatner, David Cross and many others.^[9]

Filmography[link]

Notable roles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tom Kenny

• Tom Kenny at the Internet Movie Database
• Tom Kenny at the Notable Names Database
• Interview with Tom Kenny on Fresh Air

William Mark "Bill" Fagerbakke (born October 4, 1957) is an American actor and voice actor. He is well known for his long-running-roles as Patrick Star in the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants and Michael "Dauber" Dybinski on the sitcom Coach. To date, he has also appeared in 10 episodes of the Sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" as Marshall Eriksen's father Marvin.

Life and career[link]

Fagerbakke, who stands at 6'6" (1.98 m), was born in Fontana, California. Fagerbakke is a 1975 graduate of Minico High School in Rupert, Idaho, and attended the University of Idaho in Moscow. He played football for the Vandals as a reserve defensive lineman until a knee injury ended his athletic career in spring drills before his junior season, which turned his focus to theater. He was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity and earned his bachelor's degree in 1981, a result of "two years of football and four years of school."^[1][2] He later attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

He has appeared on television in roles such as Assistant Coach "Dauber" Dybinski on Coach, in movies, including Funny Farm, and several on-and-off Broadway stage shows.^[3][4] He had a role as the mentally disabled Tom Cullen in the 1994 mini-series Stephen King's The Stand. In 1999, he had a role in HBO's original series Oz as Officer Karl Metzger. He is the voice of Patrick Star on the Nicktoon, SpongeBob SquarePants.^[5]

In 2007, he made a cameo appearance on the show Heroes as Steve Gustavson in the episodes "Run" and "Unexpected." Fagerbakke has received critical acclaim as a thespian by the Screen Actors Guild and Juilliard School of Performing Arts for his roles as Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and Torvald in Ibsen's A Doll's House.^[4] In 2009, he had a role in the film, Jennifer's Body. He also played the role of Marvin Eriksen, Sr. in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.

Filmography[link]

• Perfect Strangers (1984)
• Almost Partners (1987)
• The Secret of My Success (1987)
• Funny Farm (1988)
• Coach (1989–1997) (TV Series)
• Loose Cannons (1990)
• Porco Rosso (1992)
• Aaahh!!! Real Monsters (1994–1996) (additional voices)
• Beethoven (1994) (TV Series)
• Stephen King's The Stand (1994) (TV Series)
• Gargoyles (Animated TV series – voice of Broadway) (1994)
• Felidae (1994) (English dub) Gus
• Dumb and Dumber (TV series) (1995) (TV Series)
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996) (TV Series) Dirk
• Jumanji (1996–1999) (TV Series) Alan Parrish
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) (voice)
• Under Wraps (1997) Harold/ted
• Oz (TV Series) (1998–1999) Karl Metzger
• Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles (Animated TV series) – Sgt. Gossard (1999)
• The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (TV Series) Thud
• SpongeBob SquarePants (1999–Present) (voice) (TV Series) Patrick Star,Additional Voices (appeared in 245 episodes)
• The Ultimate Christmas Present (2000) Sparky
• Batman Beyond (2000) Payback
• Lloyd in Space (2001) (TV series – Larry, Kurt)
• Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp's Adventure (2001) (voice) Mooch
• Jackie Chan Adventures (2001) (voice) henchman
• Ken Park (2002)
• Final Fantasy Unlimited (2002) (voice) Fungus (in some episodes)
• Patrick the Snowman (2002) (voice) Patrick Star
• Quigley (film) (2003)
• Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast (2003) (voice) Patrick Star
• The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) (voice) Patrick Star
• SpongeBob SquarePants B.C. (Before Comedy) (2004) Patar (Caveman version of Patrick Star), Caveman
• Balto III: Wings of Change (2004) (voice) Ralph
• Callback (2005)
• The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper (2005) (voice) Ted The Polar Bear
• The Legend of Frosty the Snowman (2005) (voice) Frosty the Snowman
• The Endless Summer (SpongeBob SquarePants short) (2005) (voice) Patrick Star
• How I Met Your Mother (2005–2012) Marvin Eriksen Sr.
• W.I.T.C.H. (2006) Gulch & Karl Deplerson ("V is for Victory")
• Family Guy (2007) (voice) Patrick Star (archive footage from The Campfire Episode; uncredited) - Road to Rupert
• Kim Possible (2007) (voice) Myron
• El Chavo (animated series) (2007–present) Ñoño
• According To Jim (2007) (TV Series) Howard
• Shrieking Violet (2007) Larchmont
• Finding Amanda (2008) Larry
• Transformers Animated (2008) Bulkhead, Master Disaster and Hot Shot
• Space Buddies (2009) Pi
• Halloween II (2009) Deputy Webb
• The Spectacular Spider-Man (2009) Morris Bench
• Jennifer's Body (2009) Jonah's Dad
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2010) Ronnie Raymond, Lead
• Sym-Bionic Titan (2010) Meat
• Young Justice (2011) Big Bear
• The Artist (film) (2011) Policeman