"Greetings, fellow humans!"
An American voice actor known for his distinctive high-pitched voice, Richard Steven Horvitz (born July 29, 1966) is often cast as zany, dimwitted characters who do a lot of screaming. If whatever you're watching has a character who's small, nasal, manic, and slightly hammy, there's a good chance Richard Horvitz is involved.
His best known works include the voice of the original Alpha 5 in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, and Power Rangers Turbo, Raz in Psychonauts, Billy in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Daggett in The Angry Beavers, Kaos in Skylanders, the Berserker in The Darkness video game, the title character Zim from the show Invader Zim, Rodney J. Squirrel in Squirrel Boy, and as Orthopox in the Destroy All Humans! series. He was also Alan Eakin in the obscure Carl Reiner film Summer School, one of his first (and few) on-camera performances.note
While many of Horvitz's characters scream, he has said himself that the hardest role he's ever had to play was Zim, since Zim's speaking voice is screaming.
Notable roles include:
Anime
- Dr. Rota in Dragon Ball Super (credited as Rico Bonet)
- Fritz in Duel Masters
- Kanchome (2005–2006), Additional Voices in Zatch Bell!
Film
- The Grinch's Answering Machine in How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
- ADR in EuroTrip
- Alpha 8 and Alpha 9 in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always
- Snap in Seal Team (2021)
- Alan in Summer School
Western Animation
- Daggett in The Angry Beavers
- Rodney J. Squirrel in Squirrel Boy
- Billy and his father Harold in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy
- Zim in Invader Zim
- Aviarious in Kim Possible
- Grey Matter, Sublimino, Additional Voices from Ben 10
- Theodor in Totally Spies!
- Crayon Boy in Codename: Kids Next Door
- Jimmy Osgood in Static Shock
- Mixadel, Scrud, Splasho, Freezi-Breezi, and Boopsie the Mixie Cat in Mixels
- Kaos in Skylanders Academy (Role Reprise from the games below)
- Worly in Danger Rangers
- Ocho on Elena of Avalor
Live-Action TV
- Alpha 5 in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, and Power Rangers Turbo, as well as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (credited as Richard Wood)
- Datascammer in Power Rangers in Space
- Smogger in Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue
- Mantamobile in Power Rangers Time Force
- Alpha 7 in Power Rangers Wild Force
- Sherry the Fairy in The Adventures of Timmy the Tooth
- Minotaurbot's second voice in VR Troopers
Video Games
- Razputin "Raz" Aquato in the Psychonauts series.
- The Berserker in The Darkness
- Orthopox in the Destroy All Humans! series
- Rumble, Ziggs and Heimerdingernote from League of Legends
- The Kabbage Boy Guitarist, Jack the Lift-Op, various voices in Brütal Legend
- PMCSoldiers in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
- Fel Imp (Warlock minion), Saboteur Kip'tilak, Kaz'tik the Manipulator in World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
- the Slipskull Chimera in Resistance
- Kaos in the Skylanders series
- Space Weaver in Broken Age
- Lani-Loli in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
- Zurkon Jr. in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
- Zim in Nicktoons: Globs of Doom and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
Other
- Moxxie, Crimson, Eddie, and a doctor in Helluva Boss. He also voice-directs the series proper.
Tropes associated with Richard Steven Horvitz
- Acting for Two: He usually voices several characters in series he works on, Billy and his dad Harold being a notable example.
- Ax-Crazy: Several of his characters, most notably Zim.
- Butt-Monkey: His characters constantly go through Hell and back all the time! In case of Moxxie, it's also a Literal Metaphor.
- He Also Did: He's played the Green Grapes Guy in many of the recent Fruit of the Loom ads.
- Large Ham: About 80% of his characters tend to eat the sets.
- Laughably Evil: He frequently plays comedic villains, Kaos being a particularly big example.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Despite his pigeonhole in terms of roles, Richard does have a moderately good vocal range. Case in Point: Compare Rumble/(new) Heimerdinger or the PMC Soldiers to any of his other roles.
- Motor Mouth: While not as famous as his hamminess, he can spit out words at an impressive speed when he really gets going.
- No Indoor Voice: Many, many, many of his characters speak in screams. He had to work alternate days for Invader Zim so he wouldn't permanently damage his throat. This was best illustrated at a convention appearance in which he and other notable voice actors did a live reading of the script of The Avengers.Quinton Flynn: (as Raiden) You don't have to yell.
Horvitz: (as Zim) HAVE YOU NOT SEEN MY SHOW?! - Playing Against Type:
- As the PMC Soldiers in Metal Gear Solid 4, a bullying victim named Jimmy in Static Shock, and the subdued and intelligent Grey Matter in Ben 10.
- He's normally known for playing Large Ham characters, but in the video game Kinectimals he voices a sweet and soft-spoken lemur fairy named Bumble.
- Raz from Psychonauts is not only outright heroic (a rarity for Horvitz at the time), but also rather smart and down-to-earth.
- Moxxie in Helluva Boss is the Only Sane Man who, while capable of hamming it up, apparently suffers from panic attacks from too much stress. He also voices Moxxie's father Crimson, a low-key, sinister mafia don played seriously for the most part.
- His role as Lani Loli in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time also gets stressed very easily, acting like a pretty meek guy despite being an ancient artifact of untold power.
- Typecasting: Mostly plays very crazy and dimwitted characters who tend to do a lot of screaming or are considered very obnoxious. That being said, he is able to break out of the role on occasion, such as his role in Helluva Boss as Moxxie, a straight-laced but small-statured and often put-upon imp who is a tactical genius and skilled ranged fighter. He also plays Raz from the Psychonauts franchise, who is a down-to-earth, young and intelligent psychic who has saved the world twice in the span of a week.
- Vocal Dissonance: He's actually made jokes about the fact that telemarketers who have called him have mistaken him for his wife.
