Who was Mario’s first voice?

Peter Cullen is widely recognized as the first voice of Mario in the Donkey Kong Cartoon from 1982.

Cullen voiced Nintendo’s mascot Mario in the Donkey Kong segments on Saturday Supercade, making him the first person to ever provide a voice for the character in western media.

However, he is best known as the voice of Optimus Prime in the original 1980s Transformers animated series, reprising the role many times since 2007.

Cullen has also voiced many other characters across a wide variety of popular media, including;

• Eeyore in the Winnie the Pooh franchise,
• Monterey Jack in Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers,
• The first voice of KARR in Knight Rider and
• The vocalizations of the title character in Predator.

Cullen is also a voice announcer on Police Story 4: First Strike in advertisements for New Line Cinema, lending his experience as an ex-cop for the Santa Monica division to the cast.

He has also done voice work for promotions of the 1999 film “The Iron Giant”.

In 2007, Cullen returned to the role of Optimus Prime in Transformers media, starting with the first live-action film.