Jared Drake Bell (born June 27, 1986) is an American actor and musician, who first got stated on The Amanda Show before becoming best known for playing Drake Parker on Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh. He has also starred in a few films such as Yours, Mine, and Ours, Superhero Movie, College, and the three live-action The Fairly OddParents! movies where he played a 23-year-old Timmy Turner. Bell later went on to voice Spider-Man in Ultimate Spider-Man and White Tiger in The Little Penguin: Pororo's Racing Adventure along with various other Marvel cartoons.
Not to be confused with rapper Drake, although he has
◊ joked about it often
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In 2021, he was arrested and "charged with attempted endangering children and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles." He pleaded guilty to one count of child endangerment and one count of disseminating harmful material to juveniles and was sentenced to two years probation. The victim also alleged sexual assault from Bell on two separate occasions, to which he denies those claims and maintains his innocence.
Tropes associated with Bell's works:
- The Cast Show Off: He's performed plenty of songs for his TV and movie appearances, including the theme song of Drake & Josh, as well as in Superhero Movie, and another song for A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up Timmy Turner along with Daniella Monet.
- Celebrity Voice Actor: As Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Ultimate Spider-Man and a few other Marvel-related projects.
- Game-Breaking Injury: In January 2015, Drake shattered his wrist and due to the way it healed, the doctors told him that he may not be able to play guitar ever again. Luckily, this trope was ultimately subverted as he was back to playing guitar in a few months.
- Hotter and Sexier:
- His second album, It's Only Time, is this compared to his first. Up Periscope in particular was seen as very raunchy by many who still saw Bell as a Nickelodeon kid.
- The man himself got all shredded◊ on◊ 2017◊ and posted◊ some pretty NSFW photos. Some people joked how their childhoods are now officially over.
- Middle Name Basis: His first name is actually Jared; Drake is his middle name.
- Mondegreen: A line in his song "I Found a Way" (the Drake & Josh theme song) was frequently misheard as "It's gonna take some time to realize", with his fans singing the error in concerts. He had to pause a concert in 2020 to clarify that the last word in that line is "realign".
- New Sound Album: Not only was It's Only Time one to his debut Telegraph, trading in straight head teen pop for a Beatles-influenced sound (most notably Yellow Submarine), but then he trades that in for a rockabilly sound on Ready, Steady, Go!, even enlisting Stray Cats front man Brian Setzer as producer.
- Old Shame: His film debut Drifting School is often considered one of the worst movies ever. Fortunately, no one seems to remember it.
- The Other Darrin: He's been on both ends of this in Ben 10. He initially voiced Michael Morningstar in season 1, replacing Wil Wheaton. By season 2, he was replaced by Yuri Lowenthal.
- The Other Marty: Spider-Man's dialogue on The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes was originally recorded by his The Spectacular Spider-Man voice actor Josh Keaton until he was asked to rerecord the dialogue.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When PETA gleefully condemned Steve Irwin on Twitter and said that he deserved his death on what would have been his birthday no less, Drake had this absolutely brutal reply in response:So your response here is this Human deserved what he got and is better off dead?! You are a disgusting organization and should be absolutely ashamed!! He was a FATHER and a HUSBAND and did WAY more for wild life conservation than the IDIOT INTERN hired to write this tweet!
- Promoted Fanboy: He went from being a comic book fan while growing up to voicing Spidey himself in Ultimate Spider-Man. Although he has said that he always liked Batman more...
- Star-Making Role: As Drake Parker from Drake & Josh.
- Typecasting: Expect him to play either the carefree cool kid, the shy geek, or himself.
