It is with great sadness that I bring to you word (if you haven't heard it already) that Tim Curry, star of stage and screen, recently passed away in his home at the age of 80. According to an article from The Guardian (citing Variety), he passed away peacefully, and the cause has yet to be determined.
Curry had a prolific career, and there's a good chance you have even seen or heard him perform, even if you aren't aware of it. Perhaps his best known performance is that of Dr. Frank N. Further in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Or maybe that would be as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in It? Or Wadsworth in the movie adaptation of the Hasbro/Parker Brothers/Waddingtons murder mystery board game, Clue? Of course, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention Soviet Premier Anatoly Cherdenko in the video game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. (Just to name a few.)
He didn't just shine in front of the camera, but behind the microphone as well. From Ferngully to Disney's Beauty and the Beast to Rugrats to Scooby-Doo, he's voiced all sorts of characters in animation and videos games, too. In Fox's Peter Pan & the Pirates, he lent his voice to an excellent and memorable version of none other than Captain Hook himself. In Darkwing Duck, he was the voice of the Canard Crusader's very first supervillain, Taurus Bulba. Sonic the Hedgehog SatAM? Princess Sally's father, King Acorn. He even gave Perry the Platypus a voice (by proxy) as Dr. Lloyd Wexler in Phineas and Ferb. (Again, just to name a few.)
It's only a shame that he never got to bring his passion into our world, where things are more than meets the eye, The Transformers.
Oh, wait -- he did.
Debuting in Episode 12 of the 2012 season of Transformers: Rescue Bots, "The Other Doctor", Tim Curry lent his voice to Doctor Thaddeus Morocco, creator of the MorBots and many headaches for Rescue Force Sigma-17 from Griffin Rock. He would go on to voice the character for his appearances in the first season, culminating in the excellent two-part season finale, "It's a Bot Time" and "Bot to the Future".
Unfortunately, due to a stroke he suffered only two months after the character's debut, he was not able to reprise the role in later seasons. Instead, that task fell to Jonny Rees, though you can feel the influence of Curry in his work.
Not everyone checked out Transformers: Prime's sister series, however, and so may have missed the one and only role he got to perform alongside the Robots in Disguise. Fortunately, a YouTube user by the name of "Артём Ляш" has put together a handy playlist of Morocco's many appearances on the show, which you can find right here:
Yeah, the playlist starts a little earlier than Episode 12. They were dropping some hints towards his arrival earlier on.
It's not much, but I just wanted to take an opportunity here to pay tribute to the works of Mr. Curry and thank him for the wonderful performances he gave us.
Thank you, and we'll see you in SPACE!
