Remembering Peter Cullen, the Voice of Optimus Prime, Dead at 85

Peter Cullen has died at 85. This has been a crazy week when it comes to celebrity deaths. Dolly Parton and Tim Curry, both 80, died in the same stretch of days, and then came the news of Cullen's passing. There's an old joke that celebrity deaths come in threes, and this week there were actually more than three, since an actor from Menace II Society and Don't Be a Menace also died, though he wasn't as high profile as Cullen or as widely known as Curry, who appeared in so many things across such a wide margin of pop culture.

At least Cullen got to live a full life. Whenever someone dies in their 30s or 40s, that feels wrong in a different way, but 85 means he got the whole run. As I put it, "this man has been Optimus Prime since before I was born." There are actors who can mimic the voice, but as I said, "Nobody can really do it right."

I heard the news from a friend

I found out about Cullen's passing that morning from a friend I know as Mr. senpai, who texted out of nowhere wondering whether another veteran actress from that same generation of animation dubbing might be the last one left. She isn't, though she is even older than Cullen was, and I've worried about her passing for years given how long she's been up there in age.

Old Toonami promos Cullen narrated

I pulled up a run of classic Toonami promos to watch back, starting with the one calling Dragon Ball Z "a huge cartoon hit" according to the Wall Street Journal. That promo is actually a mix of an earlier dub and the later DBZ season 3 Frieza saga material, not all one dub as people assume. And that Wall Street Journal quote gets used as praise in the promo, but the actual article wasn't favorable to Dragon Ball Z. It was pointing out how violent the show was and worrying about its influence, the same kind of hand wringing people still do about video games and anime today.

One coincidence in these promos genuinely stopped me. The season five promo, covering the Other World Tournament arc, says it premiered Monday, September 10th, 2001. That's less than 24 hours before the September 11th attacks. Talk about insane timing.

I also went through the Final Countdown promo for the last stretch of the Buu Saga, the Ronin Warriors promo, which for a lot of people was their first anime before Dragon Ball Z or Pokemon ever existed, plus Outlaw Star, Tenchi Muyo, Mobile Suit Gundam, and Gundam Wing. One promo I pulled up was for Rurouni Kenshin, which is trickier to look back on now since the manga's creator later went through public controversy, raising the question of whether you can separate a show from the person who created it.

Cullen's career went well beyond Optimus Prime

Cullen voiced Eeyore and Monterey Jack from Rescue Rangers, and there was talk during the tribute of an obscure 1976 Ruby-Spears King Kong cartoon he was part of. There was also a moment of correcting an earlier assumption: Cullen did not voice Mario in Captain N or the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, that was Captain Lou Albano.

Michael Bay almost didn't cast him as Optimus in the 2007 film

Of the Michael Bay Transformers movies, I liked the first one and the third one, and the rest can go without praise from me, but the one thing that kept me watching them all was Cullen as Optimus. There was a real controversy at one point because Michael Bay reportedly did not want Cullen to play Optimus for that 2007 revival. "Huge mistake. Huge mistake. Huge mistake," as I said. That it didn't happen that way is something I actually respect about Bay, that he brought Cullen in, because it couldn't have been anybody else.

I also said I enjoyed Transformers One, and thought Chris Hemsworth did a good job voicing Orion Pax in that film. And on the live action side, I loved Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which might be my second favorite of the live action movies.

The obituary details: born in Montreal, a 20 year gap before Bay brought him back

Part of the tribute included reading through obituary coverage on Cullen. According to the CBC, he was born in Montreal, Canada. Cullen got his start in radio in the 1960s before moving into television and film. While he voiced many other characters, he's best known for the deep, gravelly, intimidating voice of Optimus Prime. He reportedly hadn't been cast as Optimus in 20 years when director Michael Bay asked him to return for the 2007 film. He reportedly died at his home in Los Angeles on August 26th at age 85.

I hope that he died with his loved ones, because if there's an ideal way to go, that's it, and I hope that happens to me when it's my time.

No one can voice Optimus quite like he did

Now that he's gone, I don't know where Transformers goes from here as a fan. Toonami has been over for a while, but Transformers keeps going with reboots and new movies, and no one can do the voice quite like Peter Cullen. Hemsworth did a good job as Orion Pax, but even that isn't quite the same. "No one can do it," as I said.

Asked whether Dragon Ball would end once its last remaining original voice actor is gone, my answer was that I don't think so, but I wouldn't be totally against it, honestly. What happens to the Transformers franchise from here, now that we've lost the voice no one else can replace?