Voice actors tend to be the lesser known aspects of a film or television series. Their voices are heard, but the audience never really gets to know them personally. This is the case for a man who started his career in the 1960s and has been the voice of Curious George, Garfield, Speed Buggy, Scooby-Doo, and most notably, Fred Jones. Even though Scooby-Doo is unarguably a more pronounced character than Fred Jones in the Scooby-Doo franchise, Welker had a much larger role in voicing Fred Jones than he did voicing Scooby-Doo.
For some background information, Welker was born in 1946 and began his career in the 1960’s as a stand up comedian and impressionist. As of 2021, Welker holds over 860 film, television, and video game credits. Because of this feat, he has a box-office gross of $17.4 billion. Welker’s career took off in 1969 when he received his first major voice role as Fred Jones in the new Saturday morning cartoon, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Little did Welker know that fifty-two years later he would still be an iconic voice in one of the most well known cartoons to ever come to television.
Flashing back to 1969, it is important to note that, at the time, Welker yearned for Shaggy’s role, not Fred’s. In fact, Casey Kasem, the original voice of Shaggy, tried out for Fred’s role originally. As it turns out, the roles were reversed and Welker ended up with Fred’s while Kasem assumed Shaggy’s.
From 1969 until 1988, Welker voiced Fred whenever Fred was present. There were several…
