Peter Cullen Hits the Big Time

 Last month, the one and only Peter Cullen passed away at the age of 85. Though most will remember him best for characters like Optimus Prime and Winnie the Pooh's Eeyore, his earliest roles were actually at Hanna-Barbera. Starting off with minor roles in 1979's Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Cullen would have a recurring presence in their productions until The Pirates of Dark Water concluded in 1993 (acting against type, he voiced the villainous henchman Mantus). His voice could be found in many of their shows during that time, including The Smurfs, The Snorks, The Jetsons, and even the infamous rival of The Transformers, Challenge of the GoBots.

Normally, I don't talk a lot about Hanna-Barbera productions of the 70s and 80s, but there's no denying that the studio was still full of talent during this period, and Peter was no exception. He's voiced countless characters that have entertained generations, and today, I'm honoring him by looking back at an often forgotten portion of his career.

Below is a piece on Cullen that ran in the January 7th, 1974 edition of The Gazette, a paper from Cullen's birthplace, Montreal, Canada. You won't see any mention of cartoon voice-acting here. Rather, the focus is on Cullen's move away from CBC radio work to hitting it big on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Peter was one of the many regulars on the show, joining a cast that included other greats like Steve Martin and Teri Garr. Certainly not a bad beginning for what would become quite the career if you ask me.

Cullen: Starting to Hit it Big

By L. Ian MacDonald

    It is going on three years since Montreal comedian Peter Cullen gave up on the CBC and gravitated to Los Angeles, where he now works steadily on the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and the Bobby Goldsboro Show.
    He knew he was beginning to hit it in Hollywood this fall, when they invited him to play in a celebrity golf tournament at Pinehurst, North Carolina.
    This was before the fuel shortage forced airlines to curtail service and, for the occasion, 65 actors and their families were ferried across America in a chartered 727. 
    Peter Cullen, who plays to a 15 handicap, found himself paired with Roberto Di Vicenzo, the magnificent Argentinian player who once lost the Masters by marking down the wrong score.
    "I said, "Hey Roberto, you want me to keep score?" Cullen recalled the other day at the end of a Christmas visit with his family. 

    When it came time to perform at an elaborate dinner, nobody wanted to go on first. "I said, 'You want an icebreaker, I'll break the ice," said Cullen, who went out and broke up the place with his impressions of Richard Nixon and Howard Cosell. 
    This sort of willing attitude comes from working at the CBC, where all performers are underpaid and nobody is a star. Paradoxically, the CBC rehearsal hall mentality that drives our pest people out of the country, prepares them well for the Big Apple.
    If you can survive on a show with $7,000 budget, as Cullen did on a successive CBC comedy series, you can flourish on a $200,000 weekly production like Sonny and Cher.
    Having started as more or less as an announcer and a glorified extra, Cullen is beginning to find his level on America's top-rated and best produced variety series. On last week's show, he was given four minutes solo with the Cosell number. He has an offer to do a guest shot with Mary Tyler Moore. And he's involved in one or two series pilots with Blyebearde Productions, who put the Bonos on the TV map.
    So it's evident that if the bottom fell out of the Sonny and Cher market tomorrow, Cullen wouldn't lack for work.
    But at 32, Cullen apparently wants a bit more than that. Privately, he talks about putting aside enough money so that in a few years he might come home and go into the film business.
    California lifestyle, he says, is nothing beside his own city.
    And he asks about the CBC.
    "Tell me," he says, "is there anything for me here?"