Corey Burton

**Corey Weinberg** (born August 3, 1955) is an American actor, known professionally as Corey Burton.

## Early Life

Burton was born Corey Gregg Weinberg in the Granada Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles on August 3, 1955.

## Career

### Early Career

Burton began his career at age 17 under the stage name Corey Weinman, with an imitation performance of voice actor 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 Asperger syndrome, but credits the diverse world and character design of Disney's The Haunted Mansion attraction as his inspiration to move forward. He voiced 169 different characters across 124 episodes of Adventures in Odyssey, a series by the Evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family.

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 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.

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

Burton is perhaps best known to Disney fans for his imitation of the late voice actor Paul Frees 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 film version of The Haunted Mansion.

Burton 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.

Burton provides many others 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.

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

Burton 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.

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 favourite 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 and Cad Bane in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and has continued to voice Cad Bane in Star Wars: The Bad Batch. He has also voice 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 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. Although not set within the DCAU, he also reprised his role in Legion of Super Heroes, DC Universe Online and Lego DC Super-Villains.

## Awards and Nominations

 Outstanding Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production
 2011