Juke Vox Heroes: Neil Patrick Harris

Welcome to the first post in what will be an occasional series called Juke Vox Heroes. This feature will identify an actor that has lent his or her vocal stylings to a surprising number of places and examine their vast canon of work.

I couldn’t think of a better actor to kick-off the series than the great Neil Patrick Harris. Born in Albuquerque NM, he burst on the scene in 1989 as the boy genius doctor Douglas “Doogie” Howser on the hit series Doogie Howser, MD. Now 36, Mr. Harris has since appeared in many film, television and Internet roles. Of course he can also be found weekly as as the dressed-to-the-nines womanizer Barney "Barnman" Stinson on CBS’ comedic tour-de-force, How I Met Your Mother.

Mr. Harris has conquered almost every medium imaginable (yes, even Twitter), this includes little known and extensive voice work in animated productions, video games and audio books.

Let’s begin the NPH auditory analysis with Barney Stinson. In 2008, Mr. Harris co-wrote the New York Times Best Seller The Bro Code. The book was written in character as Barney and (predictably and awesomely) later became an audio book read by than non other than Swarles Barkley himself. Click on the cover to hear an excerpt.

However let’s go beyond Barney, back to 1991 around the Doogie days. That year Mr. Harris made a cameo voice appearance in a Simpsons episode entitled “Bart the Murderer.” (Listen for him at around 21:20 into this clip.) Years later he guest starred -- as Barney -- on two episodes of the Family Guy (along with HIMYM costar Josh Radnor).

Next up, Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Captain Planet was an animated environmental TV show conceptualized by Ted "I love life, I love the planet" Turner that aired from 1990 to 1992. At some point we'll write a separate post just on this show as it featured the voices of so many stars of the day (how about Dionne Warwick, Fred Savage, Steve Gutenberg, Mark Hamill AND Casey Kasem? — he has an extensive voice career in his own right as Shaggy on Scooby Doo — and they're just the tip of the iceberg).

But back to Mr. Harris. He provided the voice of Todd Andrews for an episode in the third season called “A Formula for Hate.” Todd was a high school basketball player that contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. As you can imagine, Todd's classmates didn't treat him very well once the word got out about his condition -- that's where the Planeteers came in. Side note: this marked one of the first times that a U.S. Cartoon addressed HIV/AIDS education. Other guests in the episode included Danica McKeller AKA Winnie Cooper and Elizabeth Taylor (talk about a star-studded cast). Check out Neil as Todd below; it certainly brings back the memories.

Since Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Mr. Harris’ voice has appeared at least a dozen animated programs including Max in Capitol Critters, a 1992 series about the lives of rats, mice and roaches that reside in the basement and walls of the White House, and Flash in 2008's Warner Home Video release, Justice League the New Frontier. See Max and the Flash in action below.

In 2009, he made the move to more modern animation techniques , appearing as Steve the Monkey in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and just a few weeks ago in CBS’ updated Yes, Virginia as Virginia’s father.

Steve the Monkey

In addition to traditional animation, Mr. Harris he can be found as the dreadlocked stoner DJ Veteran Child in the hit video game, Saints Row 2 and Wallace “Wally” Wellesley in Eat Led: The Return of Matt Hazard. “Wally” is the nemesis of Matt Hazard who is, incidentally, voiced by Will Arnett. 

These are just a few of Mr. Harris' voice credits, the full list can be found here. But if film, television, online and gaming aren't enough, you can find him reading a number of children's books. Yep, Mr. Harris is also an accomplished narrator and reads on Beverly Cleary's Socks and the Henry Huggins series as well as three books in John Grogan’s Marley & Me collection (check out the sound bites below).

As we end this post, we'd like to salute you Neil Patrick Harris, and thank you for all the work you do. Looking forward to hearing more in 2010. 

Update on Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 6:35PM by WViT

Not sure how we missed this the first time around, but Mr. Harris' voice recently appeared on Cartoon Network's Batman: The Brave & the Bold series in an episode called "Mayhem of the Music Meister!," marking a return the musical villain he plays so well. 

(And just try to tell me that the Meister isn't an animated version of Tom Hulce's Amadeus.)