It's hard to imagine Toonami without the deep, booming voice of the off-screen announcer. Toonami fans immediately recognize the voice who makes the promotions of any show on the block sound that much cooler. Heck, he even made Hamtaro sound like it was an interesting acquisition. However, many younger Toonami viewers (and a few older ones) may not know the face behind the voice, but his contributions are familiar to many generations of fans.

His name is Peter Cullen.

A mountain of a man, he's a veteran voice actor in the United States behind many iconic characters in pop culture. In 1983, Mr. Cullen was the original voice of the popular Nintendo mascot Mario on Saturday Supercade, an animated anthology of video-game action. Around the same time, he began voicing Eeyore, the gloomy old donkey in the Hundred Acre Woods, for Disney in countless Winnie The Pooh productions and attractions for the studio, including The New Adventures of Winnie The Pooh, The Book of Pooh, and the countless Pooh movies. A year later, Mr. Cullen cemented his place in pop culture history as the first voice of the Autobot leader Optimus Prime on Transformers, a role that many others have portrayed. To this day, Mr. Cullen's original performance is still the template in which many who portray Optimus Prime.

He also had roles on other shows in the 80s, including Rainbow Brite (as the oafish Murky Lurky as well as the series' narrator), My Little Pony, Pac-Man (as Sourpuss, Pac-Man's sneaky pet cat), Dungeons and Dragons, Rude Dog and the Dweebs, The Biskitts, and Toonami veteran Voltron: Defender of the Universe (as King Alfor, Princess Allura's father). He also made a memorable appearance as the voice of K.A.R.R., K.I.T.T.'s evil doppleganger on the live-action series Knight Rider.

He still contributes his talents on countless productions, including television series, movies, movie trailers, and commercials in addition to his duties at Disney and Toonami. Mr. Cullen recently provided vocal tracks on dj Dieselboy's last two studio-mix albums, Project Human and The Dungeonmaster's Guide. He's also the imaging voice on the Toonami original series IGPX.