Franklin Wendell Welker (born March 12, 1946) is an American voice actor. He began his career in the 1960s, and holds over 860 film, television, and video game credits as of 2023, making him one of the most prolific voice actors of all time. With a total worldwide box-office gross of $17.4 billion, he is also the third-highest-grossing actor of all time, as of 2011.
Welker is best known for voicing Fred Jones in the Scooby-Doo franchise since its inception in 1969, and the title protagonist himself since 2002. In 2020, Welker reprised the latter role in the CGI-animated film Scoob!, the only original voice actor from the series in the movie's cast. He has also voiced Baby Kermit in the original Muppet Babies, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in Epic Mickey and its sequel; Megatron, Galvatron, Soundwave, and various characters in the Transformers franchise; Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II on The Simpsons; Shao Kahn and Reptile in the 1995 Mortal Kombat film; Curious George in the Curious George franchise; Garfield on The Garfield Show; Nibbler on Futurama; the titular character in Jabberjaw; Speed Buggy in the Scooby-Doo franchise; Astro and Orbitty on the 1980s revival of The Jetsons; and various characters in The Smurfs as well as numerous animal vocal effects in many works.
