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Van Partible's animated series "Johnny Bravo" debuted on the Cartoon Network on July 14, 1997. It was one of four new shows that Cartoon Network premiered in 1997 and 1998 that served as a declaration for a new creator-forward direction the network was taking. "Johnny Bravo" debuted alongside Genndy Tartakovsky's "Dexter's Laboratory," David Feiss' "Cow and Chicken," and Craig McCracken's "The Powerpuff Girls." In 1999, that lineup would be complemented by "Ed, Edd n Eddy," and "Courage the Cowardly Dog." These shows were all quirky and idiosyncratic and attracted a generation of fans.

"Johnny Bravo" was about a barrel-chested, Elvis-voiced lug who lived with his mother and attempted to find love in the big city. His buffoonery and vanity, however, usually kept him single. Johnny was played by prolific voice actor Jeff Bennett, who has been acting professionally since 1991. Van Partible had been working on a version of the show as early...

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 brings dual protagonists Peter Parker and Miles Morales to face new villains like Venom and Kraven. Yuri Lowenthal, the voice actor for Peter Parker, discusses the challenge of portraying a symbiote-infected Spider-Man and the depth of the character's transformation. Insomniac's reimagining of the Spider-Man story keeps fans engaged by including beloved elements while introducing fresh twists and surprises.

The long-anticipated Marvel's Spider-Man 2 finally arrives this week, pitting dual protagonists Peter Parker and Miles Morales against a rich roster of new villains like Venom and Kraven. The Insomniac title has greatly expanded upon the world seen in the original Marvel's Spider-Man and Miles Morales, letting players swing all over Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Actors like Naruto's Yuri Lowenthal and Nadji Jeter of The Last of Us reprise their roles of Parker and Morales alongside new cast members like Candyman's Tony Todd as Venom.

Yuri Lowenthal...

Ever since the Metal Gear series stepped into the third dimension in 1998, it has remained one of the greatest in the gaming pantheon thanks to its focus on cinematic presentation and iconic characters. Metal Gear Solid for the PS1 was one of the first games to make sure everything was voice acted, from dramatic cut-scenes to countless codec conversations, to basic gameplay instructions.

This is why the relatively short game still managed to span two discs! And ever since then, we’ve been sneaking toward those giant walking battle tanks in anticipation of the next line of dialogue.

This also means a lot of voice actors reading a lot of lines. It seems that everyone we meet has something to say, from the folks back at mission command to the sleepy sentries unfortunate enough to be in our way, and while we love the wide range of verbose personalities, it...

Josh Keaton has always been a gamer. In his youth, he whiled away the hours on Atari and Nintendo, enthralled by interactive stories spun in pixels. There was one element, however, that always broke the spell. "It stuck out to me when I was younger how bad a lot of the voice acting was in video games," he says with a chuckle. "They were just getting into technologies that would allow them to even have real voices. Before, it was all text-based. It was almost like the beginning of film, where everybody was just figuring out what to do." Since then, of course, technology has advanced far beyond the back-and-forth paddle-swinging of Pong. Today's games are elaborate cinematic opuses, and they require talented actors to bring them to life. Keaton, who has voiced characters in such popular games as Metal Gear Solid 3, Spider-Man, and God of War II, is one of those actors.