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After hearing of the unfortunate news of the passing of Russi Taylor, I felt obligated to draw a picture honoring her memory. This was especially sad because Russi Taylor wasn't just one of my favorite voice actresses, but one who was involved in many cartoons that I grew up with. At the same time, I wanted to do a tribute to another voice actor I am fond of named Jack Angel, who is still alive at the time of this writing, but I still wanted to give him a preemptive tribute in case he ends up dying when I least expect it. A lot of my favorite actors have died unexpectedly recently, and we all know that the main reason we're afraid of death is how unpredictable it can be (especially since it's been proven that young people can die, too. You can just ask Anton Yelchin).

We shall start by going over some of my favorite roles of Russi Taylor. First off, Russi Taylor is not to be confused with the similarly-named voice actress Rosslynn Taylor (who I know for voicing Queen Rapsheeba in the Nickelodeon cartoon ChalkZone, She-Bang in Warner Bros.' Static Shock animated series, and the speaking voice of Mitzi Moth in the Oh Yeah! Cartoons short The Feelers).

Arguably Russi Taylor's most famous role was being the voice of Mickey Mouse's love interest Minnie Mouse from 1986 to this year in 2019, her last role released prior to her death being the 2013 Mickey Mouse series short "Carried Away". One interesting thing of note is that the voice actor of Mickey Mouse succeeded by Bret Iwan and Chris Diamantopoulos, Wayne Allwine, was actually married to Russi Taylor before he died. If there is an afterlife, then a silver lining here is that Russi has finally reunited with her late husband. I'm actually wondering who will be the new voice of Minnie Mouse from now on, because there's no way in Hades Disney's just going to ignore her from now on and expect us to forget she ever existed.

Her second most prominent Disney roles were Donald Duck's mischievous nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, originally playing them in the classic 1987 animated series of DuckTales, where she was also the voice of Mrs. Beakley's granddaughter Webbigail "Webby" Vanderquack. She continued voicing Donald's nephews for most of her career (though a few Mickey MouseWorks shorts instead had the three brothers voiced by Donald Duck's current voice actor Tony Anselmo), and even got to reprise her roles in the DuckTales Remastered remake of the video game by Capcom.

Russi Taylor's final contribution to the DuckTales franchise was voicing a teenage Donald Duck in the 2017 reboot, which I still have yet to give a chance (I've decided to hold off until I've revisited Quack Pack, TaleSpin, Rescue Rangers, and possibly after I've caught up on Adventures of the Gummi Bears).

Yet another role from a Disney cartoon I admire Russi Taylor for voicing was Becky, a minor recurring character in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, a spin-off of PIXAR's Toy Story films that was intended to be the in-universe cartoon that the Buzz Lightyear toys were based on (but has been prevented from ever being so much as referenced in the Toy Story films because former PIXAR head John Lasseter did not care for Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. While he's now been ousted from PIXAR because of his harassment scandal, I'm not certain if this will undo John's restrictions of Toy Story alluding to the Buzz Lightyear cartoon, especially since I can't conceive of the story going beyond Toy Story 4).

Becky was an adorable little alien girl introduced in the episode "Strange Invasion", where Buzz, Mira Nova, XR and Booster ended up on a planet inhabited by aliens who resembled your typical little green men and assumed that our heroes were threats. Booster ended up forming an endearing friendship with Becky, who affectionately referred to the Space Ranger as "Pickles". She returned in a sequel episode called "Stranger Invasion" (where our heroes had to defend Becky's home planet Roswell from the invading forces of Evil Emperor Zurg), plus she made a cameo in "Holiday Time" where she cried at seeing Booster eat the cookies meant for Santa Claus, but was cheered up when the real Santa showed up and danced with the little tyke.

Another famous role of Russi Taylor would be Phantasma, one of the monster girls that Norville "Shaggy" Rogers and Scooby-Doo encountered in the animated film Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, which was part of a series of animated films involving Hanna-Barbera properties called the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10. After years of being swept under the rug, the Grimwood Girls eventually made a comeback in a crossover episode of the Cartoon Network show O.K. K.O.: Let's Be Heroes!, which had Russi Taylor reprise her role as Phantasma and had Susan Blu and Pat Musik do the same with the vampire girl Sibella and Elsa Frankenteen, but Winnie the Werewolf and Tanis the Mummy were now voiced by Natalie Palamides and Kristen Li because their original voice actresses Marilyn Schreffler and Patty Maloney had respectively passed away and retired.

It just tears me up that in the event the Grimwood Girls ever make a proper return to the Scooby franchise, they'll have to get someone else to voice Phantasma. I liked all of the Grimwood Girls, but Phantasma was my favorite. I haven't yet seen their guest appearance on OK KO because of all the other works I'm focused on catching up with right now, but I hope I get around to watching it soon.

I also remember Russi Taylor voicing Melvin and Timmy in the 2003 Teen Titans animated series, who were two of three super-powered children Raven had to babysit once. Timmy had super-powerful tantrums, while Melvin (don't ask me why she has a boy's name) at first seemed to have telekinesis and blamed the destruction she caused on an imaginary friend named Bobby, but it eventually turned out that Bobby was real and looked like a giant creepy teddy bear.

The final set of characters voiced by Russi Taylor I'll acknowledge here are Martin Prince and the twins Sherri and Terri from The Simpsons. Martin Prince was one of the nerds at Springfield Elementary School who often got picked on by the school bullies Nelson Muntz, Jimbo Jones, Dolph Starbeam, and Kearney Zzyzwicz. Sherri and Terri were girls who often teased Bart and Lisa Simpson.

While it is likely that Russi Taylor has already recorded dialogue of her characters for Simpsons episodes that have yet to finish production and air, I am uneasy on what will be done after that. As I'm sure many people will agree, it will be difficult to accept anyone other than Russi Taylor as the voice of Martin Prince or Sherri and Terri. Also, there's the unnervingly likely fact that the future of Russi Taylor's characters in light of her death will be handled the same way as Phil Hartman's characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure (retired from the show with the exception of the occasional background cameo after Hartman was killed) or Marcia Wallace's character Edna Krabappel (who was killed off after Wallace died).

I will acknowledge that these are not all the characters Russi Taylor played in her life, but I'm just a human being. I can't be expected to know or remember every single cartoon character Russi Taylor has voiced!

Now we shall talk a little about Jack Angel (why do so many voice actors have such cool-sounding names?)

My favorite characters voiced by Jack Angel are both from the classic Disney cartoon Darkwing Duck. They are the villain Liquidator (originally a man named Bud Flood who tried to sabotage his competitors' drinking water before he ended up mutated into a being composed of water) and Moloculo Macawber, the father of Darkwing's love interest Morgana Macawber.

Another role involving Disney by Jack Angel was in the obscure Disney show Bonkers, where he voiced one-shot character Max Coody in the episode "Time Wounds All Heels" (Bonkers was one of those cartoons where the end credits listed the voice actors, but didn't clarify which characters they voiced, but I concluded that Jack Angel voiced Max Coody because I saw his name in the end credits of this specific episode).

Max Coody's story is that he was a criminal apprehended by Bonkers D. Bobcat's partner Lucky Piquel 20 years ago when he was just a rookie cop. Max Coody ends up coming back after all these years and makes cryptic comments towards Lucky that make him paranoid that this guy he put away two decades ago now wants to get even with him for sending him to the stony lonesome. In the end, it turns out that Max Coody had actually reformed and he just wanted to show Lucky his gratitude for helping him turn his life around.

Jack Angel also has a little experience in superhero cartoons. Spider-Man: The Animated Series had him replace the late Philip Abbot as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s leader Nick Fury, while the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Super Friends had him voice The Flash, Hawkman and Samurai.

The last retro cartoon featuring Jack Angel we'll be discussing is the Generation 1 Transformers cartoon, where he voiced Astrotrain, Omega Supreme and Smokescreen. He also replaced Robert Stack from the movie as the voice of Ultra Magnus and took up the role of Cyclonus when his original voice actor Roger C. Carmel died. On the Matrix of Leadership DVD set of The Transformers, there is a special feature where he was interviewed along with seven other veteran voice actors of the old Transformers cartoon. In the special feature, Jack Angel showed a sense of humor by joking that the role of Unicron was cursed on the basis that Orson Welles died shortly after he finished recording his lines and that Roger C. Carmel passed away not long after taking up the role of Unicron in the series. He even facetiously claimed that he would've died as well if he took up the role of Unicron from Roger C. Carmel as he did with Cyclonus.

Now to finish the discussion of my favorite roles by Jack Angel with something a little more modern. We go back to talking about Toy Story because Jack Angel played a character in both the original film and Toy Story 3: The former had him voice the wrestler action figure Rocky Gibraltar (albeit only in grunts), while the latter had him voice Lotso Huggin Bear's minion Chunk.

Jack Angel's no longer as active in voice acting as he used to be, but when the day comes that he meets his maker, he will be missed.

If anyone's worried, I assure you all that I do have plans for happier pictures and stories.

Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (c) Disney/PIXAR

Minnie Mouse, Bonkers, DuckTales, and Darkwing Duck (c0 Disney

Spider-Man (c) Marvel Comics

The Flash and Teen Titans (c) DC Comics

The Simpsons (c) 20th Century Fox

Scooby-Doo (c) Warner Bros.

Transformers (c) Hasbro

Description

Made with DeviantArt muro

After hearing of the unfortunate news of the passing of Russi Taylor, I felt obligated to draw a picture honoring her memory. This was especially sad because Russi Taylor wasn't just one of my favorite voice actresses, but one who was involved in many cartoons that I grew up with. At the same time, I wanted to do a tribute to another voice actor I am fond of named Jack Angel, who is still alive at the time of this writing, but I still wanted to give him a preemptive tribute in case he ends up dying when I least expect it. A lot of my favorite actors have died unexpectedly recently, and we all know that the main reason we're afraid of death is how unpredictable it can be (especially since it's been proven that young people can die, too. You can just ask Anton Yelchin).

We shall start by going over some of my favorite roles of Russi Taylor. First off, Russi Taylor is not to be confused with the similarly-named voice actress Rosslynn Taylor (who I know for voicing Queen Rapsheeba in the Nickelodeon cartoon ChalkZone, She-Bang in Warner Bros.' Static Shock animated series, and the speaking voice of Mitzi Moth in the Oh Yeah! Cartoons short The Feelers).

Arguably Russi Taylor's most famous role was being the voice of Mickey Mouse's love interest Minnie Mouse from 1986 to this year in 2019, her last role released prior to her death being the 2013 Mickey Mouse series short "Carried Away". One interesting thing of note is that the voice actor of Mickey Mouse succeeded by Bret Iwan and Chris Diamantopoulos, Wayne Allwine, was actually married to Russi Taylor before he died. If there is an afterlife, then a silver lining here is that Russi has finally reunited with her late husband. I'm actually wondering who will be the new voice of Minnie Mouse from now on, because there's no way in Hades Disney's just going to ignore her from now on and expect us to forget she ever existed.

Her second most prominent Disney roles were Donald Duck's mischievous nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, originally playing them in the classic 1987 animated series of DuckTales, where she was also the voice of Mrs. Beakley's granddaughter Webbigail "Webby" Vanderquack. She continued voicing Donald's nephews for most of her career (though a few Mickey MouseWorks shorts instead had the three brothers voiced by Donald Duck's current voice actor Tony Anselmo), and even got to reprise her roles in the DuckTales Remastered remake of the video game by Capcom.

Russi Taylor's final contribution to the DuckTales franchise was voicing a teenage Donald Duck in the 2017 reboot, which I still have yet to give a chance (I've decided to hold off until I've revisited Quack Pack, TaleSpin, Rescue Rangers, and possibly after I've caught up on Adventures of the Gummi Bears).

Yet another role from a Disney cartoon I admire Russi Taylor for voicing was Becky, a minor recurring character in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, a spin-off of PIXAR's Toy Story films that was intended to be the in-universe cartoon that the Buzz Lightyear toys were based on (but has been prevented from ever being so much as referenced in the Toy Story films because former PIXAR head John Lasseter did not care for Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. While he's now been ousted from PIXAR because of his harassment scandal, I'm not certain if this will undo John's restrictions of Toy Story alluding to the Buzz Lightyear cartoon, especially since I can't conceive of the story going beyond Toy Story 4).

Becky was an adorable little alien girl introduced in the episode "Strange Invasion", where Buzz, Mira Nova, XR and Booster ended up on a planet inhabited by aliens who resembled your typical little green men and assumed that our heroes were threats. Booster ended up forming an endearing friendship with Becky, who affectionately referred to the Space Ranger as "Pickles". She returned in a sequel episode called "Stranger Invasion" (where our heroes had to defend Becky's home planet Roswell from the invading forces of Evil Emperor Zurg), plus she made a cameo in "Holiday Time" where she cried at seeing Booster eat the cookies meant for Santa Claus, but was cheered up when the real Santa showed up and danced with the little tyke.

Another famous role of Russi Taylor would be Phantasma, one of the monster girls that Norville "Shaggy" Rogers and Scooby-Doo encountered in the animated film Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, which was part of a series of animated films involving Hanna-Barbera properties called the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10. After years of being swept under the rug, the Grimwood Girls eventually made a comeback in a crossover episode of the Cartoon Network show O.K. K.O.: Let's Be Heroes!, which had Russi Taylor reprise her role as Phantasma and had Susan Blu and Pat Musik do the same with the vampire girl Sibella and Elsa Frankenteen, but Winnie the Werewolf and Tanis the Mummy were now voiced by Natalie Palamides and Kristen Li because their original voice actresses Marilyn Schreffler and Patty Maloney had respectively passed away and retired.

It just tears me up that in the event the Grimwood Girls ever make a proper return to the Scooby franchise, they'll have to get someone else to voice Phantasma. I liked all of the Grimwood Girls, but Phantasma was my favorite. I haven't yet seen their guest appearance on OK KO because of all the other works I'm focused on catching up with right now, but I hope I get around to watching it soon.

I also remember Russi Taylor voicing Melvin and Timmy in the 2003 Teen Titans animated series, who were two of three super-powered children Raven had to babysit once. Timmy had super-powerful tantrums, while Melvin (don't ask me why she has a boy's name) at first seemed to have telekinesis and blamed the destruction she caused on an imaginary friend named Bobby, but it eventually turned out that Bobby was real and looked like a giant creepy teddy bear.

The final set of characters voiced by Russi Taylor I'll acknowledge here are Martin Prince and the twins Sherri and Terri from The Simpsons. Martin Prince was one of the nerds at Springfield Elementary School who often got picked on by the school bullies Nelson Muntz, Jimbo Jones, Dolph Starbeam, and Kearney Zzyzwicz. Sherri and Terri were girls who often teased Bart and Lisa Simpson.

While it is likely that Russi Taylor has already recorded dialogue of her characters for Simpsons episodes that have yet to finish production and air, I am uneasy on what will be done after that. As I'm sure many people will agree, it will be difficult to accept anyone other than Russi Taylor as the voice of Martin Prince or Sherri and Terri. Also, there's the unnervingly likely fact that the future of Russi Taylor's characters in light of her death will be handled the same way as Phil Hartman's characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure (retired from the show with the exception of the occasional background cameo after Hartman was killed) or Marcia Wallace's character Edna Krabappel (who was killed off after Wallace died).

I will acknowledge that these are not all the characters Russi Taylor played in her life, but I'm just a human being. I can't be expected to know or remember every single cartoon character Russi Taylor has voiced!

Now we shall talk a little about Jack Angel (why do so many voice actors have such cool-sounding names?)

My favorite characters voiced by Jack Angel are both from the classic Disney cartoon Darkwing Duck. They are the villain Liquidator (originally a man named Bud Flood who tried to sabotage his competitors' drinking water before he ended up mutated into a being composed of water) and Moloculo Macawber, the father of Darkwing's love interest Morgana Macawber.

Another role involving Disney by Jack Angel was in the obscure Disney show Bonkers, where he voiced one-shot character Max Coody in the episode "Time Wounds All Heels" (Bonkers was one of those cartoons where the end credits listed the voice actors, but didn't clarify which characters they voiced, but I concluded that Jack Angel voiced Max Coody because I saw his name in the end credits of this specific episode).

Max Coody's story is that he was a criminal apprehended by Bonkers D. Bobcat's partner Lucky Piquel 20 years ago when he was just a rookie cop. Max Coody ends up coming back after all these years and makes cryptic comments towards Lucky that make him paranoid that this guy he put away two decades ago now wants to get even with him for sending him to the stony lonesome. In the end, it turns out that Max Coody had actually reformed and he just wanted to show Lucky his gratitude for helping him turn his life around.

Jack Angel also has a little experience in superhero cartoons. Spider-Man: The Animated Series had him replace the late Philip Abbot as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s leader Nick Fury, while the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Super Friends had him voice The Flash, Hawkman and Samurai.

The last retro cartoon featuring Jack Angel we'll be discussing is the Generation 1 Transformers cartoon, where he voiced Astrotrain, Omega Supreme and Smokescreen. He also replaced Robert Stack from the movie as the voice of Ultra Magnus and took up the role of Cyclonus when his original voice actor Roger C. Carmel died. On the Matrix of Leadership DVD set of The Transformers, there is a special feature where he was interviewed along with seven other veteran voice actors of the old Transformers cartoon. In the special feature, Jack Angel showed a sense of humor by joking that the role of Unicron was cursed on the basis that Orson Welles died shortly after he finished recording his lines and that Roger C. Carmel passed away not long after taking up the role of Unicron in the series. He even facetiously claimed that he would've died as well if he took up the role of Unicron from Roger C. Carmel as he did with Cyclonus.

Now to finish the discussion of my favorite roles by Jack Angel with something a little more modern. We go back to talking about Toy Story because Jack Angel played a character in both the original film and Toy Story 3: The former had him voice the wrestler action figure Rocky Gibraltar (albeit only in grunts), while the latter had him voice Lotso Huggin Bear's minion Chunk.

Jack Angel's no longer as active in voice acting as he used to be, but when the day comes that he meets his maker, he will be missed.

If anyone's worried, I assure you all that I do have plans for happier pictures and stories.

Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (c) Disney/PIXAR

Minnie Mouse, Bonkers, DuckTales, and Darkwing Duck (c0 Disney

Spider-Man (c) Marvel Comics

The Flash and Teen Titans (c) DC Comics

The Simpsons (c) 20th Century Fox

Scooby-Doo (c) Warner Bros.

Transformers (c) Hasbro