Peter Claver Cullen (July 28, 1941, Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a Canadian voice actor. He is best known as the original voice of Optimus Prime (as well as Ironhide) in the original 1980s Transformers animated series, and most other incarnations of the character, as well, and Eeyore in the Winnie-the-Pooh franchise. He also voiced Monterey Jack in Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers from season one through some of season two. Starting in 2007, Peter Cullen has reprised his role as Optimus Prime in related Transformers media, starting with the first live-action film.
In 1968, he and Joan Stuart appeared as "Giles" and "Penelope" in Les Anglaises, a recurring segment about a French-Canadian man with an English-Canadian wife, on the CBC Radio comedy series, Funny You Should Say That.
Cullen played a French-Canadian astronaut character named Commander Bi Bi Latuque alongside Ted Zeigler for the 1969 children's show, The Buddies on CFCF-TV in Montreal. He honed his voice skills by working as a radio announcer, notably in his home town of Montreal on (then) MOR station CKGM doing the overnight and weekend swing shifts. From 1967-69, he was the announcer for Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.[citation needed]
From 1971-74, he, Zeigler and Billy Van were series regulars on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. In 1974, Cullen was the announcer and a series regular (with Ted Zeigler and Billy Van) on The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show. He lent his voice to a character in the album "The Story of Halloween Horror" in 1977.
In the 1980s and the 1990s, Cullen appeared on a number of television shows. He has played Coran, Stride the Tiger Fighter, and King Alfor in the Lion Voltron series, the transforming spaceship/robot Ramrod in the 1980s anime series Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, Commander James Hawkins in the Vehicle Voltron series, Eeyore in the Winnie-the-Pooh series, KARR in Knight Rider, Antor and Bomba, and Gunner, in Dino-Riders, Airbourne, Nemesis Enforcer and Zandar in G.I. Joe, He played "Mantor/Mantys" in Coleco's 5 episode mini-series Sectaurs in 1986; Red Skull in the 1981 cartoon series of Spider-Man, Klaar and Zanzoar in Megas XLR and Mantus in The Pirates of Dark Water. He also had a voice part in the 1984 motion picture Gremlins, as a gremlin, and the first season of the 2008 Knight Rider series as KARR. He also did voicework in The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible series, notably as Japheth, one of Noah's sons in the "Noah's Ark" episode, and the King of Nineveh in the "Jonah" episode. He was well known by some as the main villain Venger in the animated series of Dungeons and Dragons. He played the evil sorcerer Renwick in the lesser known series Little Wizards and played Cindarr in the short-lived series Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light.
