November 3 - Jim Cummings

On this day, in 1952, James Jonah Cummings was born in Youngstown, Ohio. As a young man, Jim moved to New Orleans, Louisiana where he became something of a jack-of-all-trades. He designed and painted floats for the annual Mardi Gras parades, he worked as a deckhand on the riverboats and he found local success as the singer/drummer for the band FUSION. After getting married, Jim relocated again, this time to Anaheim, California. His new job would be as the manager of a video store. Then, in 1984, his life would change forever as Jim began a career as a voice actor on the cartoon series The Transformers in the roles of Afterburner and Rippersnapper. They would be the first of over 400 parts that Jim would play, and that's only so far.

Jim's first gig with Disney was on 1985's Dumbo's Circus as the voice of Lionel the Lion. This led to the Adventures of the Gummi Bears where he played Chummi Gummi and took over his first role from Paul Winchell, doing Zummi Gummi for the show's final season. Naturally this rolled into doing voices for another Disney Afternoon show, DuckTales.

Jim's biggest role came next. The studio was looking for someone to replace Hal Smith (who had taken over for Sterling Holloway several years earlier) as the voice of Winnie the Pooh. Jim's audition was a spot on imitation of Sterling and he won the role that would last a lifetime. As if that wasn't enough, a year later he would take over another role from Paul Winchell and become the voice of Tigger. The start of this double Milne action was on the Disney Afternoon show The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and has continued through countless television programs, direct-to-video movies, theater releases, video games, you name it up to this year's movie Christopher Robin.

But it doesn't stop there. Jim is also the voice of Darkwing Duck. When Jeremy Irons had voice trouble, Jim was the singing voice of Scar in The Lion King. He was totally Scar's voice for The Lion King 2. He was Pete in Goof Troop, House of Mouse and the Goofy movies. He's done voices for dozens more Disney series: Timon and Pumbaa, Aladdin, Star Wars Rebels, 101 Dalmations, The Little Mermaid. It seems like if there's been an animated series that Disney's done, Jim is somewhere in the credits.

Disney isn't the only place Jim is demand. He was the singing voice for Rasputin in Anastasia. He's voiced characters in movies along side the likes of  Scooby Doo, Shrek, Jimmy Neutron, the Powerpuff Girls, the Land Before Time dinosaurs and literally hundreds of others. The good news, for both Jim and for us, is that he doesn't show any signs of stopping. Who knows how many more performances and characters Jim will bring us in the coming years. The one thing I think we all hope for is at least a few more featuring a certain tubby little cubby and his bouncy friend.