Many of us grew up watching countless hours of cartoons, some of which may have included G.I. Joe. If not, we at least were exposed to the toys of G.I. Joe or if not the knockoff known as The Corps….ugggghhh. Nonetheless, we had some sort of patriotic initiation as a child in 80s and 90s America. G.I. Joe is a cartoon show which still maintains its nostalgia to this day.
Here are some of the GI Joe cartoon voice actors who served
Lee Weaver
Lee Weaver has acted in film and TV since 1955. You may recognize his face – or moreso his voice – especially as everybody’s favorite mountain G.I. Joe trooper Alpine. His character had funny quips and comebacks, most notably with his on-screen best friend Bazooka, aka the soldier wearing the Steve Grogan number 14 New England Patriots jersey in combat. Weaver served in the U.S. Army at some point between the late 1940s and 1950s before beginning his show business career.
He has been in big-time series such as Sanford and Son, Kojak, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Starsky and Hutch, Mork & Mindy, MacGyver, Six Feet Under, Veronica Mars, CSI, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community and Soul Man. His film roles have been in movies like Donnie Darko, Godzilla, O Brother, Where Are Thou? and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
Ed Gilbert
Ed Gilbert’s appeared in such live-action shows as Combat!, Mannix and The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. He is known to us G.I. Joe fans as the voice of General Hawk and he served in the US military during the Korean War. Maybe that is why he played a General, at least for a cartoon, so authentically. Gilbert inspired me to buy more toys and comics!
He had 132 acting credits across the screen in cartoons and live-action projects such as Batman: The Animated Series, Scooby-Doo, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, The Tick, Gargoyles, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, The Real Ghostbusters, The Smurfs, The Transformers, Rambo, DuckTales, Knight Rider, Dallas, The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman and Mod Squad.
Jack Angel
Jack Angel worked as an actor and voice-over artist from 1957 to 2019. He provided key characters for many shows such as Super Friends, The Transformers and….you guessed it, G.I. Joe (a nod to Frank Stallone and Norm MacDonald). In G.I. Joe he was the role of Wet Suit, a Navy SEAL and all-around tough guy. He served as an enlisted soldier in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and earned his way into the officer ranks, which may be why he played the role of Wet Suit so well. He even attended Army Ranger Training School and went to San Francisco State University after coming home.
He voiced significant roles in The Transformers such as Ramjet, Smokescreen, Astrotrain, Ultra Magnus and Cyclonus. He worked on such projects (including video games) as The Real Ghostbusters, Tiny Toon Adventures, The Smurfs, A.I. Artificial Intelligence (yes the Spielberg film, he played Teddy), the Toy Story movies, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cars, Finding Nemo, EverQuest II, World of Warcraft, Wolfenstein, and Final Fantasy XV.
Dick Gautier
Dick Gautier acted in some great and instrumental shows for pop culture. One of which is Get Smart, which he played a robot as it parodied the spy world and still influences spy shows with a comedy twist today. He also played Robin Hood in the comedy series When Things Were Rotten. Before all of those successes served in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s.
Gautier got to act alongside comedy heavyweights including Dick Van Dyke and Kay Medford and was a panelist on game shows such as Match Game, Family Feud and Win, Lose or Draw. He went into voice-over work in the 1980s and portrayed Rodimus Prime (as Judd Nelson was only the voice for the cartoon movie) in The Transformers series and then Serpentor in the G.I. Joe cartoon. Gautier did more voice work in such series as Tom & Jerry Kids, The New Yogi Bear Show and The Smurfs.
Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith is one of the most prolific actors of the 20th century starting in the late 1920s during the silent era. His career spanned eight decades until his passing in 1997. He won several Emmys and was twice nominated for an Academy Award. He is known to a lot of people as Rocky Balboa’s original coach and trainer in the Rocky films. He served in the US Army Air Forces in World War II from 1942 to 1945 and earned the rank of Captain. He served in the Office of War Information and took part in training and educational films for the service.
Before his service, he worked in theater in New York City as well and eventually earned a Tony award later in his career. He made his way into television and is forever remembered as the villain of The Penguin in the Batman series of the 1960s alongside Adam West and Burt Ward. To us G.I. Joe fans he played Golobolus, leader of Cobra-La and the main antagonist in the G.I. Joe: The Movie. He acted in such projects as the Twilight Zone, In Harm’s Way, Foul Play, Bonanza, Puff the Magic Dragon, and In the Heat of the Night.