Sam "Mad Lad" Riegel with his cursed flask.
"Sam Riegel's voice gives him super strength!"
Samuel Brent Oscar Riegel (born October 9, 1976 in Washington, DC), also known as Sam Regal, Jack Lingo, or to Spike Spencer, "The Gay Man with the Fan"
, is a voice actor, writer and director who has worked on both 4Kids Entertainment dubs and too many California dubs to list, as well as video games, original animation series and on-camera roles. He is often typecast as a Muggle or one of Those Two Guys, but when he's not, he'll probably be a hammy antagonist.
He is one of the hosts of Geek Pad, part of the ComedyComedy channel on YouTube. He has been nominated for a 2009 Daytime Emmy for his writing on Imaginary Bitches, and then later won one in 2018 for his directing on Danger & Eggs. He also started a podcast, "All Work No Play", with fellow voice actor Liam O'Brien. He is one of the nerdy-ass voice actors starring weekly in the Dungeons & Dragons stream Critical Role.
You are not going to spell his name right on the first try.
He's the older brother of Eden Riegel; a live-action actress who in the recent years entered the voice acting business.
He's also a self-professed unrepentant corporate shill.
Notable roles by Emmy Award-Winning Sam Riegel:
Anime
- Abhmad Saluja, Dolji and Spartos in Magi: Labyrinth of Magic
- Array Danon Ci in Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne
- Clovis la Britannia in Code Geass
- Faust VIII in Shaman King
- Furio Tigre in Ace Attorney (2016) (a Casting Gag as his character impersonates Phoenix Wright, whom Sam plays in the main game series)
- Gunter von Christ in Kyo Kara Maoh!
- Kazuho Yoshii in Texhnolyze
- Kiyotsugu in Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan
- Kudamon in Digimon Data Squad
- BlueMeramon in Digimon Fusion
- Li'l Slugger in Paranoia Agent
- Maki Ichinose and Ruri'iro Kujaku in Bleach
- Mephisto Pheles in Blue Exorcist
- Metal Bat in One-Punch Man
- Minoru Shiraishi in Lucky Star (as an allusion to him voicing Taniguchi in Haruhi Suzumiya, who the real Minoru Shiraishi also voiced)
- Rex Raptor, Arkana/Pandora, and the first voice of Tristan Taylor in Yu-Gi-Oh!
- Shinobu Morita in Honey and Clover
- Shirou Emiya in Fate/stay night (Darrin'd by Bryce Papenbrook starting with Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works])
- Shuuichirou Oishi in The Prince of Tennis
- Souichirou Kadotake in Ghost Talker's Daydream
- Suzuki in Kill la Kill
- Taniguchi in Haruhi Suzumiya and The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan
- Viral in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
- Wan Derbard in K.O. Beast
- Yajiro Kojima in Grenadier
- Yashiro Isana in K
- Zaku, Baki, Rinji, and the first voice of Shino Aburame in Naruto
Video Games
- Allegretto in Eternal Sonata
- Allegro Nantabile Cantabile in Code of Princess
- Alphinaud in vanilla Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
- Arthur and Jones in Rune Factory 4
- Azel and Ravel in God Hand
- Braham Eirsson in Guild Wars 2
- Donatello and Baxter Stockman in Turtles in Time Re-Shelled
- Edward Chris von Muir in the remake of Final Fantasy IV
- Flynn Scifo in Tales of Vesperia and The First Strike
- Reid Hershel in Tales of the Abyss and Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology
- Jude Mathis in Tales of Xillia and Tales of Xillia 2
- Gramble Gigglefunny in Bugsnax
- Jade, Ganache, and Younger Brother in the Neptunia series
- Jakob in NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... (replacing Yuri Lowenthal)
- King Jibral in the Blue Dragon video game, and Jiro in the anime
- Kanata in Trinity Universe
- Kazuki Sendo in To Heart
- Ky Kiske in Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- (replacing Liam O'Brien)
- Marcus "Shamrock" Lampert in Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation
- Mori Motonari in Sengoku Basara (both the anime and Samurai Heroes)
- Phoenix Wright in the Ace Attorney series, starting with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and later in Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice
- Raigh in Fire Emblem Heroes
- Ren in Indivisible
- Renya Kagurazaka in The Guided Fate Paradox
- Silabus in .hack//G.U.
- Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man video game
- Stahl and Donnel in Fire Emblem: Awakening
- Templeton "Faceman" Peck in LEGO Dimensions
- Starscream in Transformers: War for Cybertron and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
- Steve Burnside in Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles
- Gabriel "Gabe" Chavez in Resident Evil: Revelations 2
- Teddie in Persona 4: Arena, Persona 4: The Animation, and Persona 4: Golden (replacing Dave Wittenberg)
- Shu Nakajima in Persona 4
- "Tennessee Kid" Cooper in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time
- The male Walker in Rage 2
- Yuto Kannagi/York Neely in Cross Edge
- Zor in Sonic Lost World
Web Video
- Scanlan Shorthalt and Taryon Darrington (Campaign 1), Nott the Brave aka Veth Brenatto (Campaign 2), Fresh Cut Grass (Campaign 3) in Critical Role
Western Animation
- Donatello, Dark Donatello, and Dr. Chaplin in the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series
- Emperor Awesome in Wander over Yonder (also the show's voice director)
- Jimmy/Iso in Jackie Chan Adventures
- Milo Scarlett and Leo Scarlett in Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold
- Riven in the Nickelodeon version of Winx Club
- Scanlan Shorthalt in The Legend of Vox Machina
- Vampos in Mixels
Staff:
Voice Director
- Fallout: New Vegas (2010)
- Sofia the First (2012)
- Sanjay and Craig (2013)
- Wander over Yonder (2013) note
- Fresh Beat Band of Spies (2015) note
- Pickle and Peanut (2015)
- Dawn of the Croods (2015) note
- Elena of Avalor (2016)
- Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh (2016)
- Future-Worm! (2016)
- Rocket & Groot shorts (2017)
- Ant-Man shorts (2017)
- Danger & Eggs (2017)
- Welcome to the Wayne (2017) note
- Ducktales (2017)
- Unikitty! (2017) note
- Trolls: The Beat Goes On! (2018) note
- Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2018)
- Fancy Nancy (2018)
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) note
- Hot Streets (2019) note
- DC Super Hero Girls (2019) (Lauren Faust series)
- Twelve Forever (2019) note
- Archibald's Next Big Thing (2019)
- Kid Cosmic (2021)
- Kiff (2023)
Tropes associated with Sam Riegel’s roles:
- Casting Gag: After getting replaced by Eric Vale as the voice of Phoenix Wright in the Ace Attorney anime adaptation, which is dubbed by Funimation and largely uses Dallas-based actors, Sam was cast in the anime's second season as Furio Tigre, a guy who impersonates Phoenix.
- Celebrity Voice Actor: One gag in Critical Role episode "The Favor" had him call upon his celebrity colleagues to endorse him for a joke about him running for president (long story). These celebrities were Aimee Carrero, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Grey Griffin from Elena of Avalor (he also worked/works with Grey on various other shows), Bobby Moynihan and Ben Schwartz from DuckTales (2017), and Tony Hale from Archibald's Next Big Thing. He also called on his old friend Dave Hewlett (presumably through Andrew Miller, who is Eden Riegel's husband) as well as Timothy Simons.
- Large Ham: A lot of characters he voices fit into this, regardless if he's typecast or Playing Against Type. Even in real life, his antics in and out-of-character in Critical Role show that he can be a very theatrical prankster.
- Pigeonholed Voice Actor: A large majority of the characters he voices are Ridiculously average characters (Taniguchi and Minoru Shiraishi, Stahl, and Donnel) or badasses with no supernatural abilities (Flynn Scifo, Stahl and Donnel); and if they aren't, they tend to be eccentric and quirky that can get the job done (Mephisto Pheles, Phoenix Wright, Array, and Teddie) Scanlan Shorthalt is arguably him pigeonholing himself into the latter archetype.
- His typecast is subverted with Shiro in K, where he is a sophisticated 90-year-old immortal All-Loving Hero and Big Good who got body-swapped into a 17-year-old high school student... and a maniacal cackling villain when he's body-snatched. He does the latter really well, actually.
- Playing Against Type:
- Viral, Starscream, and Mouri Motonari.
- Doubly so with Shadow Teddie in Persona 4 Golden.
- Also invoked with Ky Kiske, a deep-voicednote knight-turned-world leader with a British accent.
- In K, his character Yashiro is, at different times, a rather
Moe example of an Ordinary High-School Student, a cackling maniacal Card-Carrying Villain, and a rather sophisticated type. (At least one of these is not actually him, but let's not spoil which, since the point is that Sam does the voice for all of them). - One of the Code Geass audio dramas shows a completely different side to his character from what you see in the anime - he goes from Alas, Poor Villain Jerkass Woobie to flat-out Moe.
- Promoted Fanboy: When he announced he was the voice of Phoenix Wright in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, he also mentioned on Twitter that he's a big fan of the Ace Attorney games.
- Star-Making Role:
- In terms of voice acting, Donatello in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Shirou Emiya in the 2006 Fate/stay night anime (the latter as a California-based actor).
- For voice directing, it's Sofia the First.
- What Could Have Been: Auditioned to play the Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012); the role ended up going to Kevin Michael Richardson.
- Written by Cast Member: He co-wrote a few episodes of Wander over Yonder and Pickle and Peanut since he's the voice director for both shows.
