Wally Burr

From Transformers Wiki

Not to be confused with the similarly-named Autobot, Wally Blurr.

Walter S. "Wally" Burr (June 2, 1924 – July 9, 2017^[1]) was an American voice actor and voice director. He worked on numerous cartoons during the 80s, including the role of voice director on the original Transformers cartoon and G.I. Joe. Aside from voicing some incidental characters, he also filled in roles for regular voice actors who were unavailable for taping. Some voices he did included The Atom on Superfriends, Emmett Benton on Jem, Huang Zhong in Dynasty Warriors, and Rock in Soulcalibur.

Prior to voice directing and acting, Burr served as the youngest tank commander in the United States Army at the time back in World War II during the invasion of Normandy.^[2]

Voice roles

The Transformers

Dancitron Promoter
Hun-Gurrr (toy commercial)
Jazz (in "Kremzeek!")
Kremzeek
Museum Guard (in "Masquerade")
Nergill
Ratchet (in "Masquerade")
Seaspray (in his PSA)
Shrapnel (one line only, in "Traitor")
Thundercracker (in "War Dawn")

Transformers: Prime

Kup (BotCon 2013)

Voice direction

The Transformers

Convention appearances

Notes

Burr has had many stories told of him by actors, who universally recall his perfectionist recording sessions as exhausting, voice-straining experiences, to the point that Michael Bell jokingly implicated the strain involved as the cause of Orson Welles's death.^[3] In contrast to most directors, Burr was regularly insistent on prolonging recording sessions out to the eight-hour maximum defined by the Screen Actor's Guild - whether, to quote Townsend Coleman, "it was necessary or not."^[4] That habit of his, it is said, was a major contributing factor to the 1987 animation voice artist strike; one of the striking actors' primary demands was the reduction of the maximum session length to four hours. Maurice LaMarche had less-kind words, suggesting that all Burr really wanted was for the actor to "parrot" the lines back to him as he himself would have performed them.^[5] However, when LaMarche appeared at BotCon 2013, he read a prepared (and lengthy) apology and redaction of his harsher criticisms, as Burr was also in attendance, leading to big smiles and handshakes between the two.