Sound and spoken narrative have been a part of animated storytelling since Max Fleischer’s short Come Take a Trip in my Airship in 1924. Gradually, the sound quality improved, and voice actors started experimenting with more interesting, goofier, and more nuanced voices that perfectly epitomized the personality of their characters. Sometimes the voices were based on famous actors or friends and family members close to the voiceover performers, and sometimes they were completely original and wonderfully bizarre creations.

While just about every character from Looney Tunes or The Simpsons is worthy of mention, there are dozens of other shows and characters deserving of recognition. From some of the earliest Disney productions to the most recent Cartoon Network broadcasts, these are some of the most recognizable cartoon voices of all time.

Plus, nearly every worthwhile animated series that debuted over the last three decades is available to view on a major streaming service. In 2022, fans are never too far from their all-time favorite cartoon characters.

Beavis and Butt-head

Despite being two separate characters, Beavis and Butt-Head come as a package deal and are equally iconic. The stars of the 1990s MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head were both voiced by series creator Mike Judge, and both were chuckling, cranky teenage metalhead burnouts with low IQs and a penchant for potty humor.

Their voices, though, were very different. For Beavis, Judge went higher-pitched from the back of the throat, a little growly and with a bit of a lisp. Truth be told, he didn’t say much at all, mostly chuckling and uttering sentences that rarely ran longer than three words. Butt-Head, on the other hand, was much more verbose. Sure, he also chuckled all the time, but he had more to say, and he said it in a deeper, dopier voice. Both voices, though, are immensely memorable.

Winnie the Pooh

Pooh is the epitome of a wholesome cartoon character who wouldn’t hurt the butterfly that landed on his nose. The character’s voice was supplied by legendary voice actor Sterling Holloway, who was also known as Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat, the snake Kaa in The Jungle Book, and the voice of Purina Puppy Chow commercials.

Holloway provided the gentle, slightly sad voice of the honey-loving bear until 1977, but the two Pooh actors since then, Hal Smith and Jim Cummings, have been faithful to Holloway’s original tones. Just a year before his death in 1992, Holloway was honored as the first voice actor to be named an official “Disney Legend.”

Daria

Daria was a spinoff of Beavis and Butt-head; airing on MTV for five seasons from 1997-2002, it followed a high-school girl named Daria Morgendorffer who had one thing and one thing only in common with her chuckling classmates: misanthropy. In every other way, she was their opposite, with a fierce intelligence that manifested in a sharp, sarcastic wit.

Tracy Grandstaff, who was also a writer on the show, brought the character to low-key life with a droning, world-weary monotone that underscored how unimpressed she was by the world around her. It perfectly matched her face, which barely moved when she spoke, her perpetually half-lidded eyes occasionally shifting from side to side behind her round glasses.

Optimus Prime

Canadian voice actor Peter Cullen was the first voice of Optimus Prime in the original 1980s Transformers animated series, and, for many fans, he’s the only voice of Optimus Prime worth listening to. His take on the Autobot leader is not terribly emotive, but it’s definitely authoritative while remaining just gentle and sympathetic enough to make him adored not only by his fellow Autobots, but by Transformers fans, as well.

Who gets credit for inspiring Optimus’ voice? That would be Cullen’s brother, who fought in Vietnam and imbued him with a knowledge of quiet leadership. The distinguished voice actor can also be heard alongside another famous cartoon character as Winnie the Pooh’s depressed donkey friend Eeyore.

The Joker

Mark Hamill is not only beloved by fans far and wide as Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise, but also as the definitive voice of the Joker in various animated series. It all started with Batman: The Animated Series in 1992. As recounted by Hamill in an episode of Nerdist Podcast, heading into the audition, he didn’t feel he had a chance since he’s so associated with Skywalker, the ultimate good guy. How could he be taken seriously as a deranged evildoer? Thinking he had nothing to lose, he went all-out, and, as it turns out, that’s what landed him the role.

Hamill’s take is characterized, appropriately, by equal parts lunacy and silliness, quick low-to-high pitch transitions, and different, maniacal laughs for different occasions. He most recently voiced the Joker in this past summer’s animated film Batman: The Killing Joke and is also remembered for reprising the role in the Arkham video games.

Bullwinkle

Save for those who live in the National Lampoon’s Vacation universe and obsess over Marty Moose, everyone’s favorite cartoon moose is most definitely Bullwinkle J. Moose from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Bill Scott was one of the creators of the show, and he also happened to produce one of the all-time great cartoon voices in Bullwinkle. In fact, he made a career of it, voicing the moose from his first appearance in 1959 until his death in 1985.

Bullwinkle’s voice was made for comedy. The very sound of it is funny; it’s just plain, wonderfully dopey. Interestingly, over the past few years, another famous cartoon voice-over artist has taken over the voice of Bullwinkle, that person being SpongeBob SquarePants talent Tom Kenny.

Bender

Perhaps the most memorable cranky cartoon robot of all time is Bender Bending Rodríguez from the Fox TV series Futurama. There’s just about nobody he genuinely likes in the world aside from the two people on his “Do Not Kill” list, maybe. Though he was built to bend metal, Bender’s real joys come from human vices.

His voice perfectly fits his disgruntled, raunchy personality. Provided by prolific voice actor John DiMaggio, he sounds nothing like a robot. Rather, Bender’s voice resembles a surly native New Yorker with a wheezy laugh. In a 2010 interview with The New York Times, DiMaggio describes Bender as “the drunk at the end of every bar in the Northeast."

Yogi Bear

The inimitable animation production team of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera brought a seemingly endless stream of legendary characters into the world including Fred Flintstone, George Jetson, Tom and Jerry, and Scooby-Doo. It was Yogi Bear, though, that was the first to really become a household name, having debuted in 1958. He was obsessed with stealing the “pic-a-nic baskets” of visitors to his home, Jellystone Park, and fooling the park’s ranger.

Much like the later Hanna-Barbera character Barney Rubble from The Flintstones, Yogi was based on actor Art Carney’s The Honeymooners character, Ed Norton. For the first thirty years of the character’s existence, Daws Butler brought his take on Norton’s over-the-top enthusiasm to Yogi’s voice. Since Butler’s death in 1988, a series of other actors have voiced Yogi, including Dan Aykroyd in the 2010 live-action/computer-animated feature film, but all mimicked that same Norton-inspired voice made famous by Butler.

Stewie Griffin

There are many memorable voices on the Fox series Family Guy, but none more than the matricidal, evil genius baby Stewie Griffin. Like Stewie’s dad Peter and best friend Brian, the nefarious infant is voiced by series creator Seth MacFarlane, who made the brilliantly odd choice to give him an eloquent, arrogant, upper-class British accent. The tragedy is that nobody on the show can hear his hilarious voice other than Brian.

Where did that accent come from, exactly? MacFarlane was inspired by British actor Rex Harrison’s performance as Henry Higgins in 1964 musical My Fair Lady and his comedic transitions from dramatically high tones to dramatically low ones. In an interview conducted at PaleyFest LA in 2010, the series creator claims to have been fascinated by the character and even used the voice to pick up girls in college.

Eric Cartman

It’s a perpetual puzzle as to why the show’s feature characters Stan, Kyle, and Kenny want to hang out with Cartman; the kid is pure evil. The acts of cruelty Eric Cartman has committed over South Park’s many seasons are nothing short of appalling.

His voice, performed by series co-creator Trey Parker, oozes all of this despicableness. It’s high-pitched and whiny with a razor-sharp edge—especially when he’s upset. It’s also artificially pitched up slightly during post-production to give it an even more ear-piercing quality.

Betty Boop

Dating way back to 1930, Betty Boop was a caricature of flappers—young women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed hair, and loved dancing to jazz. She was baby-faced with a huge head and gigantic eyes that were way out of proportion to the rest of her body, yet the rest of her body was decidedly womanly. In fact, she’s viewed as one of the first animated characters to be deemed “sexy,” which became highly controversial as American society became more conservative in the mid-30s.

Created by Max Fleischer, who also birthed Popeye, Betty’s babyish face was matched by her childlike, high-pitched voice. Though originally provided by Margie Hines, it was Mae Questel who made a name for herself voicing the cartoon coquette. Questel brought the higher-pitched voice and occasional squeals that make Betty’s voice so iconic, and her performance is echoed in the tones brought by today’s Betty Boop voice actors.

Homer Simpson

Originally a series of comedic shorts developed for The Tracey Ullman Show, The Simpsons has since become one of the longest-running and most well-known animated series of all time. Meant to parody the everyday lives of American suburbanites, little has changed over the series’ more than three-decade run.

In that time, Homer Simpson, the show’s feature character, has only ever been voiced by Dan Castellaneta. His dopey, slow-witted speech is just perfect for the fan-favorite goofball, and it’s hard to imagine Homer sounding any other way.

Popeye

The character of Popeye the Sailor first appeared in a 1929 comic strip called Thimble Theater before he was introduced as a central cartoon character in a series of productions helmed by animation pioneer Max Fleischer. Unlike many other iconic cartoon characters, no single voice actor can truly stake a claim to Popeye, though William Costello certainly laid the groundwork in 1933.

Other notable names include Jack Mercer, who played the character on and off from 1935 to 1984, and Mae Questel, who lent her voice to the surly sailor in 1945 and 1961.

Shaggy Rogers

Scaredy-dog Scooby-Doo may be the star of the show in the many TV series and movies bearing his name, but it’s the voice of his human sidekick Shaggy that stands out from the rest. Ultimately, the rail-thin slacker has two states, those being scared and hungry.

The late, renowned radio DJ Casey Kasem gets credit for perfectly embodying those two emotions in the voice of Norville “Shaggy” Rogers. His high-pitched voice always seems to be in some heightened state of emotion, whether from fright or enthusiasm. There’s always a slight quiver to his speech, which is constantly peppered with the words “like,” “g-g-g-g-g-ghost”, and “Scoob.”

SpongeBob SquarePants

The overbearing nature of Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants harkens back to the vaudeville antics of early rubber hose cartoon characters. His emotions always seem to be dialed to ten, and his extreme antics sometimes push past parody. He’s a perfect blend of animation and vocal talents, the latter provided hilariously by Tom Kenny, a man of many voices. He’s all over the cartoon world, from Adventure Time to The Clone Wars to various superhero shows.

It’s no wonder SpongeBob is so intense, since his personality and voice were modeled after the often hyper-on-screen personas of Jerry Lewis, Stan Laurel, and Pee-wee Herman. It’s said that Kenny burst out with the iconic voice within seconds of hearing the details of SpongeBob’s personality. Interestingly, Kenny had used the voice before as a one-off character on Rocko’s Modern Life.

Mickey Mouse

Arguably the most recognizable animated character in the world, Mickey was, of course, the creation of Walt Disney himself. Dating all the way back to 1928, he’s among the oldest animated characters of all time. When audiences first saw him in the black and white short Steamboat Willie—the first cartoon to synchronize sound and picture—he was non-verbal aside from some whistling and high-pitched squeaks that hinted at the voice to come in later appearances

In those first talkie appearances, he was voiced by his creator, Walt Disney. All told, fifteen different people have provided Mickey’s voice over the past nearly ninety years, all using the distinct, somewhat shy falsetto that began with Disney. One of the actors, Wayne Allwine, who was the voice through the 80s, 90s, and 00s, said former voice Jimmy MacDonald told him, “you’re only filling in for the boss,” meaning Disney. That seems to be the guiding principle for all the actors, including current voice Bret Iwan, who took over in 2009.

Bugs Bunny

Bugs Bunny is cooler than everyone. Bugs Bunny will outsmart anyone. Bugs Bunny has more fun than any other Loony Tunes character. All these things are true about the world’s most famous rabbit, and he knows it—every bit of those character traits is rolled into his smarmy, Bronx/Brooklyn-accented voice. Somehow, despite his self-centered outlook, Bugs is immensely lovable, and that’s the miracle of Bugs Bunny and the voice created by the immortal Mel Blanc, who voiced him from Bugs’ official debut in 1940 until Blanc’s death in 1989.

Amazingly, Blanc originally second-guessed the incredible voice, giving him a Jimmy Stewart flare for his second short, but he immediately returned to the voice fans know and love. Though five actors have voiced Bugs since Blanc’s death, it was Jeff Bergman who took over for Blanc in 1990 and has voiced him exclusively since 2011, in a tone, of course, as close as he can get to Blanc’s original. But, frankly, nobody can touch that Blanc snark.