John DiMaggio

John DiMaggio's career rests on a voice that sounds like a gearbox being asked to do something it was not designed for, and on the fact that he can point it in two opposite directions. In Futurama he is Bender, a machine built entirely out of appetite and contempt, whose whole comic engine is the gap between what he wants and what he deserves. In Adventure Time he is Jake the Dog, possibly the warmest character in modern American animation, patient and shapeless and endlessly kind. Same throat, no overlap.

The rest of the resume is a survey of what a working voice actor's life actually looks like. Marcus Fenix in the Gears of War games, Dr. Drakken in Kim Possible, Hak Foo in Jackie Chan Adventures, the Scotsman in Samurai Jack, Brother Blood in Teen Titans, Shnitzel in Chowder, Rico in the Penguins of Madagascar, Fu Dog in American Dragon: Jake Long, Hammerhead and Sandman in The Spectacular Spider-Man, Aquaman in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, King Zog on Disenchantment, Jocktopus, Niblet, and a long tail of DC animated features.

In feature animation he is mostly used as texture rather than as a lead: Jerry Jumbeaux Jr. in Zootopia, Saul in Bolt, Beard Papa in Wreck-It Ralph, a janitor in Bee Movie, Crosshairs in the Transformers films. That is not a complaint. Those parts exist because someone in the booth needs to be able to deliver two lines and make the world feel populated, and he has been doing it for close to thirty years.