Michael Clarke Duncan Voiced More Of Your Childhood Than You Likely Realized

The late, great Michael Clarke Duncan will surely go down as one of the most recognizable voice actors ever to work the mic. A proper Hollywood star, Duncan had quite an illustrious career, earning an Academy Award nomination for his emotional performance in 1999's "The Green Mile" and appearing in a number of other live-action films from "Daredevil" and "Armageddon" to "Sin City." However, he arguably made an even bigger impact as a voice actor.

Starting in the early 2000s, Duncan began voicing all manner of characters across both TV and film. From supervillains to anthropomorphic animals and everything in between, he built a truly impressive list of credits over just a decade. And that's without even mentioning all of his work in the video game industry. Sadly, Duncan's life was cut short in the summer of 2012. He suffered a heart attack in July of that year and never recovered, ultimately passing away on September 3 at the age of 54.

It's always tragic to see such a talented star gone too soon. But for his fans, Duncan left behind an iconic collection of work that continues to entertain and inspire. If you were a kid growing up in the 2000s, there's hardly any chance you didn't hear his voice on the screen at least a couple of times. In fact, Michael Clarke Duncan voiced more of your childhood than you may realize.

Michael Clarke Duncan got his start in voice acting with a few uncredited roles in the '90s cartoon "The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat." That led to a couple of video game roles in 2000, and eventually, more TV work.

Throughout the early 2000s, Duncan played a variety of minor roles in different animated series, such as Coach Webb in the critically acclaimed cartoon sitcom "King of the Hill," Mongo in "The Proud Family," and Rashid Randall in "Static Shock." The latter was one of many superhero cartoon roles for Duncan, which included the imposing warrior Krall in "Teen Titans." After playing Marvel's Kingpin in the 2003 live-action "Daredevil" movie, he reprised the role in "Spider-Man: The New Animated Series." A decade later, Duncan voiced Groot in another Spidey cartoon, "Ultimate Spider-Man."

In between comic book bouts, he lent his resonant voice to shows like "Jimmy Neutron," playing Commander Baker, and "Family Guy," in which he voiced a variety of roles. Rounding out his run of iconic 2000s cartoons, Duncan voiced Rockwell in "The Fairly OddParents" and a grown-up version of man-in-the-chair Wade in the TV movie "Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time." The prolific star even made his way into one of the most famous animated franchises of all time — "Looney Tunes" — as sci-fi villain Massive in the bizarre action reboot "Loonatics Unleashed."

Though he assembled a large number of TV voice acting credits over the course of a relatively short amount of time, Michael Clarke Duncan's movie VO work is probably what he's more famous for. His first such part came in the lackluster 2001 movie "Cats & Dogs," a baffling story about a secret spy war between the two species starring Tobey Maguire and Alec Baldwin. Duncan played the relatively small role of Sam in the film, but bigger and better things soon came his way when he landed the part of Tug in Disney's "Brother Bear." He returned for the sequel in 2006, and the roles continued to come in after that.

That same year, Duncan voiced a kindly wolf in "Air Buddies," and in 2008, he played Commander Vachir in the Dreamworks hit "Kung Fu Panda." He also voiced Elder Marley in the oft-forgotten computer-animated fantasy flick "Delgo," starring alongside the likes of Freddie Prinze Jr., Val Kilmer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Malcolm McDowell.

In 2010, Duncan returned to the franchise (if you want to call it that) that kickstarted his movie voice-acting career, reprising the role of Sam in "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore." And as is only fitting given his history with the superhero genre, he voiced the animated Kilowag in Ryan Reynolds' live-action "Green Lantern" movie in 2011, adding one more classic comic book character to his resume.