Let’s talk about Loki’s Miss Minutes voice performer, Tara Strong. Even better, let’s talk about her exclusively in terms of her career, since we don’t have the time or energy or expendable internet cachet to cover any of the other reasons that she might be trending.
The pantheon of voice actors can pretty much be split into two categories. On one side, you’ve got the tourists — celebrities, folks who never get any traction, friends of the director — with a couple of credits to their name. On the other, you have the lifers. People whose IMDb pages will crash your browser if you’re unlucky enough to click the link labeled “See All.”
Tara Strong doesn’t just fit into that second category, she basically defines it. With well over 600 acting credits under her belt, she’s done more voice work this year than a lot of actors do in their entire careers. It would frankly be weird if you hadn’t heard Strong’s voice at some point. Here, we’ll dig into some of her most memorable roles, and we won’t stop until Chrome stops responding.
5) A slew of Marvel projects
Over the last 30 years or so, comic book adaptations have become a pretty reliable ATM for any voice performer with the right connections. This wasn’t lost on Strong, who’s racked up a list of vocal roles in Marvel projects long enough to make Stan Lee himself feel self-conscious.
In live action, Strong pulled double duty as Miss Minutes on Loki and, after Miley Cyrus declined to return, Mainframe in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. In animation, Strong really grabbed life by the horns, playing a cavalcade of beloved characters: Scarlet Witch, Magick, Nova Prime, Firestar, H.E.R.B.I.E., three different versions of Mary Jane Watson, and all of the Stepford Cuckoos, to name a few.
4) Basically every animated DC project
Beginning in 1997 with The New Batman Adventures, Strong became a load-bearing column of the DC animated multiverse when she took on the role of Barbara Gordon, AKA Batgirl, a part that she would continue playing for the next quarter century. (Her last turn as the character came in 2022’s Teen Titans & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse.) In addition, she’s played a full spread of Detective Comics mainstays: Raven, Cheetah, young Superman, young Batman, Batwoman, Billy Batson, and a host of background reporters, scientists, and professors.
Arguably her most famous work for the company came when Strong took over the role of the Joker’s main squeeze beginning in 2011 with Batman: Arkham City, following a baton pass from original Harley Quinn actress Arleen Sorkin. Since then, she’s been credited as playing the part in nearly 40 different projects, from the Injustice franchise to Robot Chicken.
3) Timmy, The Fairly OddParents
If you’re too young, too old, or too busy to have watched any of the Fairly OddParents entries from the last 20-plus years, it might seem unusual to see the role of Timmy Turner this high on a list of a prolific performer’s greatest hits. If that’s the case, let me ask you: How many people can you name who made a living off of reading the words “obtuse, rubber goose, green moose, guava juice, Giant snake, birthday cake, large fries, chocolate shake?” The woman’s an artist, that’s all we’re saying.
2) Bubbles, Powerpuff Girls
In the 1990s, kid-centric, female superhero protagonists that could kick the absolute snot out of villains were relatively hard to come by. Then came The Powerpuff Girls, and the realization that girls could be more than superheroes. They could be superheroes that punched a monkey’s teeth out every day after school. One third of the team, Bubbles, was brought to bubblegum-flavored life by a classic Cartoon Network performance by Strong, who played the role in over a dozen shows, TV movies, and video games between 1998 and 2014.
1) Tuffy, Jay Jay the Jet Plane
The cold, hard fact of the matter is that, no matter how memorable, iconic, and defining Tara Strong’s other work might be, the majority of it comes at the cost of any notion of the singular, the unique. Like it or not, there will always be another performer waiting to take on the role of Poison Ivy, or Supergirl. If Strong retired today, there would be a new Harley Quinn tomorrow.
But nobody will ever take over Tara Strong’s role as Tuffy the Tow Truck on the 2001 children’s program Jay Jay the Jet Plane. Whether that’s because her work was irreplaceable, or because this show was the televised analog to a sleep paralysis nightmare — that’s for history to decide. Either way, Tuffy, the sentient tow truck with a human face, was something distinctive, isolated, and unrepeatable. If that’s not worth the number one spot on the list, we posit that nothing is.
Published: Oct 21, 2023 04:24 pm