Corey Burton


Corey Gregg Weinberg, known professionally as Corey Burton, is an American voice actor, known as the voice of Ludwig Von Drake, Captain Hook and others for The Walt Disney Company, Shockwave in The Transformers, Brainiac in the DC animated universe, Count Dooku and Cad Bane in various Star Wars media, Hugo Strange in , and Zeus in the God of War series and various Disney works.

Early career

Burton began his career at age 17 under the name Corey Weinman, with an imitation performance of voice actor Hans Conried for Disney. He studied radio acting with Daws Butler for four years and went on to work with nearly all of the original Hollywood radio actors in classic-style radio dramas. He was unsure at first about pursuing voice-work, due to his shy demeanor and Asperger syndrome, but credits the diverse world and character design of Disney's The Haunted Mansion attraction as his inspiration to move forward.

Disney

Burton has done extensive voice-work for Disney, including animated features and theme park attractions at the Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disney Resort. He provides the "Feature Presentation" voice on direct-to-video video releases and can be heard as the narration voice at Disneyland. He provided the voice of Captain Hook in Disney's Return to Never Land and dubbed the voice of Deems Taylor in Fantasia for the film's 2000 and 2010 re-releases.
Burton has voiced sound-alikes and original characters for over 50 Disney Storyteller records. His roles include:
Burton is perhaps best known to Disney fans for his imitation of the late voice actor Paul Frees as the Ghost Host in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion Holiday attraction. He also recited the classic line "Welcome, foolish mortals" in the opening of the film version of The Haunted Mansion.
Burton was approached to record a new safety spiel for the intro to the original Haunted Mansion ride. He declined and the spiel was instead recorded by voice actor Joe Leahy.
Burton provides many others Paul Frees-like voices for Disneyland Park, including several newer pirates in the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, Grumpy on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train attraction and several voices in Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
Burton performed another Frees imitation for comedian Stan Freberg's album Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America, Volume Two.
Burton performed a Frees imitation as the voice of the announcer in the 1999 film Dudley Do-Right, and did likewise as the voices of the alien foreheads in Larry Blamire's 2008 satire Trail of the Screaming Forehead.

''Fantasia''

In the 60th Anniversary Edition and the 2010 special edition of Disney's Fantasia, Burton re-recorded Deems Taylor's commentaries.

Animation

''Transformers''

Burton appeared as Shockwave, Sunstreaker, Brawn and Spike Witwicky in the original Transformers animated series by Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions. He would later voice Megatron, Ratchet, Ironhide, Brawn, Cyrus "The Colossus" Rhodes, Spike Witwicky and Longarm Prime / Shockwave in ' by Cartoon Network.
Burton stated in an interview that Shockwave was by far his favorite character to perform in the original series. Despite this, he turned down the offer to reprise the role in ', so the part was given to Frank Welker, the voice of Megatron / Galvatron.

''Star Wars''

For Star Wars, Burton voiced Count Dooku and Cad Bane in and several video games.

''Kingdom Hearts''

For the Kingdom Hearts series, Burton voiced Ansem the Wise in ', Birth by Sleep and ' due to Christopher Lee's health problems. For the cinematic version of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, he re-dubbed Lee's lines for the Nintendo DS version. He reprised his role as Ansem the Wise for Kingdom Hearts III.

Brainiac

Burton has portrayed the supervillain Brainiac in the DC animated universe. He appeared as the character in , Justice League, Static Shock and Justice League Unlimited. Although not set within the DCAU, he also reprised his role in Legion of Super Heroes, DC Universe Online and Lego DC Super-Villains.

Other television highlights

Film

Television

Video games

Theme parks