Kari Wahlgren

**Kari Wahlgren** (born July 13, 1977) is an American actress who has provided English-language voices for animated movies, TV series, and video games. She has provided voices for a number of series including *Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!*, *Fish Hooks*, *Phineas and Ferb*, *Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz*, *Ben 10*, *Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness*, *Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters*, *Rick and Morty*, *Bunnicula*, *The Fairly OddParents*, *Bunsen Is a Beast*, and the Nickelodeon versions of *Winx Club* and *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*. She voices Scratch in ***Pupstruction***.

## Early life and education

Wahlgren was born and raised in Hoisington, Kansas. She was inspired as a child by the Disney Princesses and other voices in animation. Her parents were teachers, which encouraged her to support charities and organizations that promote reading and education later in her career. On her eleventh birthday, when she and her family were in California and toured the building for Focus on the Family, she was asked to do a bit role in their radio drama *Adventures in Odyssey*, as an eleven-year-old character named Gloria McCoy.

Wahlgren graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Arts in Theater in 1999.

## Career

Wahlgren lived in Kansas City, Missouri, where she did some radio spots, then moved to Los Angeles in 2000 to work on her acting career. In an interview in *Lawrence Journal-World*, she said that she was not getting much on-camera work, so she shifted her energies towards voice-over work, and that her experience with dialogue and Shakespeare classes helped a lot towards landing roles that involved various characters, some of which had accents or were from certain time periods.

Wahlgren's involvement in animation voice-over took off in 2004 when she was cast in a lead role in the Disney/Jetix ensemble action superhero show *Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!* where she voiced Nova. The show ran for four seasons from 2004 to 2006. She would also pick up recurring villain roles such as Samantha Paine aka Magness in *A.T.O.M.* and Charmcaster in *Ben 10*, the latter of which would return in the show's sequels and related video games. In 2007, she voiced Tak's friend Jeera in Nickelodeon's computer graphics-animated series *Tak and the Power of Juju*. She voiced little sister character Suzy Johnson in Disney’s hit series *Phineas and Ferb*, and participated in the second season of the animated comedy *Lil' Bush* where she voiced Lil' Hillary and Lil' Condi.

Wahlgren became a regular cast member for *Fish Hooks*, which premiered in 2010, where she voiced Shellsea and many supporting and guest characters. She landed the role of Tigress in the television adaptation *Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness* (replacing Angelina Jolie); the series premiered in 2011 and has run over four seasons. Also in 2011, Wahlgren started voicing Faragonda in the Nickelodeon revival of *Winx Club*. In 2012, she had the lead role of Allie Underhill in the action series *Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters*, which spanned 52 episodes, and picked up roles in other cartoon shows such as *Gravity Falls* and *Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja*. She voiced Meg, the starring love interest in the Disney short film *Paperman* which screened before *Wreck-It Ralph* in the theaters in 2012. In an interview with her school's alumni association, she said that she was asked to do the role because of her previous involvements in *Bolt* and *Tangled*. Recording for the film took about 30 minutes, mostly of vocal sounds. The short went on to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

In 2015, she joined the cast of *Fairly OddParents* as a starring character Chloe Carmichael in its show's tenth season. She continued to voice Jessica and other characters for *Rick and Morty* which has concluded its third season, and voiced Amanda in the Butch Hartman-produced series *Bunsen Is a Beast* which aired on Nickelodeon in February 2017. In July 2017, she voiced Dorothy Gale in the animated television series *Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz* broadcast on Boomerang.

## Personal life

In December 2022, Wahlgren announced her pregnancy with her first child, a son with drummer Bobby Rock due in January 2023.

## Gallery

### Images

* Events
* Behind the scenes