Corey Burton

Corey Burton is an American voice actor.

He is the current voice of Captain Hook, Ludwig Von Drake and others for The Walt Disney Company, Shockwave on The Transformers, Brainiac in the DC Animated Universe, Count Dooku and Cad Bane in the Star Wars franchise, Zeus in the God of War series and Hugo Strange in Batman: Arkham City.

Burton started his career at age 17 under the stage name Corey Weinman, with an imitation performance of Hans Conried for Disney.

He studied radio acting with Daws Butler for four years and went on to work with nearly all of the original Hollywood radio actors in classic-style radio dramas.

He was unsure at first about pursuing voice-work, due to his shy demeanor and Autism Spectrum Disorder, but credits the diverse world and character design of Disney's The Haunted Mansion attraction as his inspiration to move forward.

Burton has done extensive voice-work for Disney, including animated features and theme park attractions at the Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney World, and Tokyo Disney Resort.

He provides the "Feature Presentation" voice on direct-to-video video releases and can be heard as the narration voice at Disneyland.

He performed a Frees imitation as the voice of the announcer in the 1999 film Dudley Do-Right and did likewise as the voices of the alien foreheads in Larry Blamire's 2008 satire Trail of the Screaming Forehead.

He provided the voice of Captain Hook in Disney's Return to Never Land and dubbed the voice of Deems Taylor in Fantasia for the film's 2000 and 2010 re-releases.

Burton has voiced sound-alikes and original characters for over 50 Disney Storyteller records.

His roles include:

Burton, for many years, served as a protégé to voice actor Paul Frees.

Following Frees' death and his son Fred's temporary takeover, Burton stepped in and imitated Frees' voice as the Ghost Host in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion Holiday attraction.

He also recited the classic line "Welcome, foolish mortals" in the opening of the 2003 film adaption and currently serves as the Ghost Host's voice in every Haunted Mansion franchise-related media, adoptions, and events.

He was approached to record a new safety spiel for the intro to the original Haunted Mansion ride.

He declined and the spiel was instead recorded by voice actor Joe Leahy.

He provides many other Paul Frees-like voices for Disneyland Park, including several newer pirates in the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction (like the "Pooped Pirate" and the pirate voice that guides you on and off the boat), Grumpy on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train attraction, and several voices in Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

He performed another Frees imitation for comedian Stan Freberg's album Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America, Volume Two.

In the 60th Anniversary Edition and 2010 special edition of Disney's Fantasia, Burton re-recorded all of Deems Taylor's commentaries.

Burton appeared as Shockwave, Sunstreaker, Brawn, and Spike Witwicky in the original Transformers animated series by Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions.

He would later voice Megatron, Ratchet, Ironhide, Brawn, Cyrus "The Colossus" Rhodes, Spike Witwicky, and Longarm Prime / Shockwave in Transformers: Animated by Cartoon Network.

Burton stated in an interview that Shockwave was by far his favorite character to perform in the original series.

Despite this, he turned down the offer to reprise the role in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, as he felt he had voiced the character enough times.

Consequently, the part was given to Frank Welker, the voice of Megatron / Galvatron.

For Star Wars, Burton voiced Count Dooku, Cad Bane, and Ziro the Hutt in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and has continued to voice Cad Bane in Star Wars: The Bad Batch and The Book of Boba Fett.

He has also voiced several characters in video games.

For the Kingdom Hearts series, Burton voiced Ansem the Wise in Chain of Memories, Birth by Sleep, and Dream Drop Distance due to Christopher Lee's health problems.

For the cinematic version of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, he re-dubbed Lee's lines that he had previously recorded for the Nintendo DS version.

He reprised his role as Ansem the Wise for Kingdom Hearts III.

Burton has portrayed the supervillain Brainiac in the DC Animated Universe.

He appeared as the character in Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Static Shock, and Justice League Unlimited, as well as the non-DCAU media Legion of Super Heroes, DC Universe Online, and Lego DC Super-Villains.