Josh Robert Thompson

Josh Robert Thompson (born March 11, 1975) is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, and impressionist.

He is best known for his work on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, providing the voice of robot skeleton and Craig Ferguson's sidekick Geoff Peterson along with numerous characters and impersonations, as well as his celebrity impersonations on Family Guy and The Howard Stern Show.

Thompson performs voice impressions of Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Matthew McConaughey, George Lucas, and Donald Trump.

In The Kelly Clarkson Show, he currently serves as game announcer "God," using his Morgan Freeman impression.

He has also performed as a stand-up comedian, often touring alongside Ferguson.

Thompson was born on March 11, 1975.

He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, "raised by classic television."

He would watch as actors became different characters and began to mimic them.

At age eight, his grandmother bought him a Fisher-Price tape recorder that he used to create radio-style "shows", voicing the host and the guests.

The following year, he performed on stage in Peter Pan at the Cleveland Play House.

During his junior year at Padua Franciscan High School, Thompson delivered one line for the school's production of Oklahoma! and walked off to laughter and applause.

"Then someone backstage said, 'They're clapping for you. They love you.' After that, I was hooked."

Thompson and some of his classmates got a video camera and began making feature-length and short films, and television-style shows.

He graduated from Padua in 1993.

Thompson moved to Los Angeles a few years later and performed on local television and as a stand-up comic while working toward his degree in TV, Radio and Film Production at California State University, Fullerton.

He uses his middle name professionally because a "Josh Thompson" was already registered with the Screen Actors Guild.

Thompson's Arnold Schwarzenegger impression first gained national attention during the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election.

Posing as Schwarzenegger, Thompson phoned in to Fox News Channel's morning program, Fox & Friends, fooling the hosts into believing (at least for a short while) that he was, in fact, Schwarzenegger.

Thompson's Fox News prank caught the attention of The Howard Stern Show, and the impression—dubbed "Fake Arnold" by the show's producers—soon became a mainstay on the program.

At around the same time, Thompson also made a number of appearances on the Conway and Steckler and Conway and Whitman radio shows in Los Angeles (KLSX), and 96fm's Breakfast show in Perth, Western Australia, where he voiced a number of characters, including Fake Arnold, Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Jackson, and Bill Cosby.

In April 2005, Thompson's "Fake Arnold" character proposed a fictitious plan to "blow up the moon".

Fake Arnold's phony agenda managed to dupe MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, who appeared soon after on his television program, publicly lambasting the Governor for his alleged plan.

Ten days later, after learning that the entire moon destruction scenario was a hoax, Scarborough apologized on-air for his erroneous comments.

On January 10, 2006, one day after Stern's show debuted on Sirius Satellite Radio, Thompson fooled Star Trek actor George Takei into believing he was actually speaking with Governor Schwarzenegger.

Several minutes after the phone call with Fake Arnold ended, Takei was finally let in on the joke.

One year later, the Takei prank was ranked sixth out of the Top 10 best moments from the show in 2006; it was also named as a top moment in the ten-year satellite tenure of the program.

Thompson has made several uncredited appearances in the show doing voice impressions like "Fake Arnold".

In February 2007, Thompson made his first on-camera television appearance as Governor Schwarzenegger on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS.

He became a regular performer on the show, making appearances as Robert De Niro, "Frat Guy", Brian Deese, and Levi Johnston, and as the voice of Morgan Freeman.

Starting on April 20, 2010, Thompson voiced Ferguson's robot skeleton sidekick Geoff Peterson, originally using pre-recorded clips of various reactions to the host's cues.

Thompson tweeted his "recipe" for Geoff's voice in September: "1 part Snagglepuss. 1 part Vincent Price. 2 parts George Takei."

His last appearance was in 2011.

More recent impressions on Stern's show are done by another impersonator who also does many of the same voices as Josh.

On May 16, 2011, Thompson performed Geoff as a show guest; in a later skit spoofing the show's opening broadcast, Thompson portrayed Peterson as a living sidekick who suggested that Ferguson could reanimate his skeleton should something befall him while skydiving.

Beginning June 29, 2011, Thompson voiced and performed Geoff live for nearly every episode, both in-studio and in such locations as Paris, France.

Once Thompson began voicing Geoff Peterson live, he incorporated several of his own impressions into the character's repertoire.

He has performed his Morgan Freeman impression for Freeman during the actor's appearances.

In June 2011, Geoff asked Freeman, "Would you like to hear my Morgan Freeman voice?"

and "What would you like to say to yourself?".

His live-action projects include a lead role in the 2014 romantic comedy Nowhere Girl, as well as a crowdfunded pilot episode called The Josh Robert Thompson Show.