Pat Fraley — Michael CavaciniMichael Cavacini

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been one of the most enduring and entertaining forces in pop culture over the past 35 years. Since the release of the original comic book in 1984, the Ninja Turtles have made a lasting impact on generations of fans around the world. Animated series, live-action movies, video games, toys, concerts—the Ninja Turtles (also known as TMNT) brand has dominated nearly every medium imaginable. Being born just a year after TMNT, I’ve been a devoted fan for as long as I can remember. To cap off my celebration of 35 years of TMNT, I’m going to take a look back at the totality of its existence, including my favorite films, shows, video games, and more bearing the TMNT name. Also included is part of an interview I conducted with Pat Fraley, the iconic voice of Krang from the original 1987 animated series. I hope you enjoy this turtle-powered retrospective. Cowabunga, dude!

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Pat Fraley is well known for creating and performing the evil, bodiless Krang on the original animated TV series: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Pat has created voices for over 4,000 characters—placing him in the top 10 of all time to be cast in animated TV shows. His performances and projects across all entertainment mediums garnered him Emmy, Annie, Cleo, and Audie award wins and nominations.

As a teacher, Pat is the architect of voice over instruction. For nearly 50 years, he has guided more performers into meaningful voice over careers than anyone in the history of voice over instruction. He has taught audiobook narration for 20 years. During the past 10 years, Scott Brick, an award-winning audiobook performer, has taught alongside Pat.

I spent 90 minutes speaking with Pat, making this my longest interview ever, and it was a delight. We talked about his impressive and lengthy career, bonded over both of us being teachers, and much more. I hope you enjoy reading this interview as much as I did conducting it.

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