Peter Cullen is a legendary voice actor. Notably, he’s voiced Optimus Prime of The Transformers since 1986. Some of his other voice acting credits include Gremlins, Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, Winnie the Pooh and literally hundreds of others. My personal favorite are his epic narrations from the fabled Toonami Promos of the early 2000s. These promos would be used as bumpers between regular programming and often would promote special films to be featured during the Toonami programming block on Cartoon Network.
The Big O promo easily sits at the top of my list. Not only is Big O one of the best animated series ever created, but this Toonami Promo is slammin’. The duet of Peter Cullen’s deep but stoic concentrated voiceover and the electronic flat beat-esque house background track gets me amped every time. These kinds of bumpers just don’t get cut like they used to. It’s an absolute banger of a promo:
I would never advocate for piracy but if you’re curious what Toonami programming was like back then, visit here to get a sense for the nostalgic vibe of Toonami.
I’m fairly sure Peter Cullen even voiced other Adult Swim promos as well. Surely there’s some Cullen VO just sitting in the Williams Street video archives. If you have access to these or know someone who does, please email me. Until then, here’s some other Cullen Toonami Promo gems I have saved: