Having a deep and easily-recognizable voice, Karl Diedrich Bader (born December 24, 1966 in Alexandria, Virginia) is a natural choice for a voice actor and has had roles in such animated features as Ice Age, The Simpsons, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and The Penguins of Madagascar. He appeared in the 1999 film Office Space as Peter's mulleted neighbor Lawrence, My-ik in 2002's Evil Alien Conquerors, and in the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite as Rex, the owner of a martial arts dojo. He was also in the 2004 film EuroTrip as a thief. All of these roles had Bader altering his appearance in some way so as to be less recognizable (except EAC, which is weird, considering he plays an alien). He appeared in an episode of 7th Heaven as the character portrayed by Colton James, T-Bone's father in 2007. He also appeared on the TV legal drama Shark, surprisingly in the same episode as his former on-screen wife from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Charlayne Woodard, who played Janice Smith in the 90's sitcom. He also appeared in the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm titled "The TiVo Guy." His most famous non-voice roles, however, are as Drew Carey's Cloud Cuckoo Lander friend Oswald Lee Harvey on The Drew Carey Show and as Jethro Bodine in the remake film of The Beverly Hillbillies. He also provides the voice for the title character of Korgoth of Barbaria.
Bader has the honor of lending his voice to five different Batman cartoons as both heroes and villains: Batman Beyond, The Zeta Project, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Harley Quinn (2019). In the last two he voices Batman himself.
Notable roles include:
- Batman in Batman: The Brave and the Bold (He would reprise the role for JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time, Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Harley Quinn (2019); he also voices Kilowog, Owlman, Matches Malone, Lord Death Man and Solomon Grundy in this series)
- Guy Gardner in Green Lantern: The Animated Series
- Zeta in The Zeta Project and the Batman Beyond episode "Countdown"
- Tank "The Shredder" Evans in Surf's Up
- Rufus in Open Season 2
- Oswald Lee Harvey on The Drew Carey Show
- Jethro Bodine in the remake film of The Beverly Hillbillies
- Peter's mulleted neighbor Lawrence in Office Space
- Rex in Napoleon Dynamite
- Korgoth in Korgoth of Barbaria
- Andrew Hacker in Bones
- My-ik in Evil Alien Conquerors
- Adonis in Hercules: The Animated Series
- Warp Darkmatter in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command
- Rabbit in Skunk Fu!
- Wilson in Starship Regulars
- The Rat King in The Penguins of Madagascar
- Simian in Ben 10: Alien Force
- Hoss Delgado in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy
- Shadow Thief in The Batman
- Hundun in Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness
- Jason Canmore in Gargoyles
- Himself in I Know That Voice
- The Missing Link in the Monsters vs. Aliens series
- Fiskerton from The Secret Saturdays
- Crick, Scamp, a Dethalian guard, and many more on Miles from Tomorrowland
- Booster Gold in Justice League Action
- Kraven the Hunter and Moon Knight in Ultimate Spider-Man (2012)
- Peter Perfect in Wacky Races (2017)
- Bigfoot in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)
- Bill Ericsson in Veep
- Stan the guard in Tangled: The Series
- Martin Murphy and Sheriff Murphy in Milo Murphy's Law
- Albert on Phineas and Ferb
- Brad Adams on Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon
- Mrs. Vanders in Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy
- HAM in Scooby-Doo! Moon Monster Madness
- Incidental characters on Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!
- Superman: Red Son: Lex Luthor
- Jules Verne on Transformers: Rescue Bots
- Dr. Mandroid on Transformers: EarthSpark
- Greg Otto on American Housewife
- Grizzled Narrator in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
- Ranger White in The Blackening
- Sergeant Hoagie in Chowder
Add the tropes, walk away:
- Full Circle Portraying: In addition to voicing He-Man's father King Randor in Masters of the Universe: Revelation, he also voiced Trap Jaw — making the first Batman actor to voice Trap Jaw as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021) would cast Roger Craig Smith (who first voiced Bruce Wayne in Batman: Arkham Series prequel games) as Trap Jaw.
- Large Ham: Especially in Napoleon Dynamite.
- The Other Darrin: He is often brought in to voice characters previously voiced by Will Arnett.
