Jess Harnell

Jess Q. Harnell (born December 23, 1963) is an American voice actor and singer, best known for voicing Wakko Warner on Animaniacs and Ironhide in the Transformers film series. Harnell has been the announcer for America's Funniest Home Videos since 1998.

Early life
Harnell is originally from Teaneck, New Jersey. Harnell's parents are Big Band singer Margaret "Frankie" Crockett and acclaimed musician and composer Joe Harnell.

Career
Harnell started his career with minimal experience and has gone on to become one of the top voice actors in the industry, in addition to a successful career as a rock and session singer. A small sampling of his credits: In 1989, he provided the voices of Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox in the then-new Splash Mountain attraction at Disneyland Park, reviving the roles last played in 1946 by Johnny Lee and James Baskett, respectively, in the film Song of the South. Harnell also recorded some new character dialogue for the subsequent Walt Disney World version of the attraction. He was later called in to reprise these roles once again for the 2011 video game Kinect Disneyland Adventures.



In 1992, he went on to voice two of his most popular roles, Wakko Warner on Animaniacs and Secret Squirrel on 2 Stupid Dogs. From 1994 to 1996, he supplied the voices of Sewer Urchin, The Human Bullet and Chief Louder in the animated series The Tick.

Also in 1996, he was Hunter on Road Rovers. One of Harnell's next appearances was as the principal stormtrooper in the 1997 Star Wars fan film Troops, a parody of the Cops TV series set in the Star Wars universe. Harnell voiced Joe Tabootie on the Nickelodeon show ChalkZone, Petrol on Firehouse Tales, Crash Bandicoot in Crash Tag Team Racing, Crash of the Titans, and Crash: Mind over Mutant, Lo-Lo in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, Spyro the Dragon in Spyro: A Hero's Tail and Spyro: Shadow Legacy, Marlin in Finding Nemo (video game) Jerry in Totally Spies, Linguni in Pucca, and Doctor Finklestein in The Nightmare Before Christmas video game spin-offs, as well as in the Kingdom Hearts series replacing the late William Hickey who voiced him in the film. In 2005 he voiced Buzz Blister in Tom & Jerry: Blast off to Mars and numerous other characters in subsequent Tom & Jerry features. He also voiced wild and energetic Cro Magnon Doubledome from the Longhair and Doubledome cartoon shorts for Cartoon Network's Big Pick (also starring Daniel Davis as Longhair).

In 2001, he was the singing voice of Buster on Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure. He also voiced Captain Hero on Comedy Central's animated comedy Drawn Together and he also does the voices of Wooton Bassett, and Bennett Charles on the radio drama Adventures in Odyssey, as well as playing the lead role of Finnian Jones for the Lamplighter Theatre Radio Drama. He also made appearances on Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad. His voice also made an appearance in NASCAR Rumble, and is credited for in-game commentary in the follow-up game Rumble Racing. Jess also replaced Brad Garrett as the voice of Fatso during season 3 of The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper. He also played a role in Samurai Jack as he voiced Ringo and a waitress in the episode "Jack Under the Sea". In 2007 he replaced Neil Flynn as the voice of The Plumber in Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. He also voiced the Smuggler in that popular series.

In that same year, he voiced the characters of Ironhide and Barricade in the Michael Bay-directed Transformers, making him the only voice actor to play both an Autobot (Ironhide) and a Decepticon (Barricade) in that film. He returned to voice Ironhide once again in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen  and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

He voiced a character in the popular animated film Up and replaced Brad Garrett as the voice of Professor Buffo in Special Agent Oso. For a more complete represnation of Harnell's extensive v=credits, please see his IMDB page.

Music career
As a musician, Harnell released his only solo album in 1995 called The Sound Of Your Voice. He is the lead vocalist in the highly acclaimed world's first Pop/Metal mashup rock band, Rock Sugar, which evolved from his previous band, Loud & Clear. With Loud & Clear or Rock Sugar, Harnell released four albums: 2003's Disc-Connected, 2007's self-titled demo album, 2008's Festival Of Fire, and 2010's Reimaginator. Rock Sugar has played on some of the biggest bills in the world, opening for such rock luminaries as AC/DC, Def Leppard, Linkin Park and Aerosmith.