A lot of people seemed to be pretty darn excited when they learned that Peter Cullen had been cast to reprise his role as the voice of Optimus Prime for last year’s blockbuster action movie. And as a voice actor, it’s neat to konw that people get so attached to these disembodied voices…well, disembodied, that is, from their human counterparts. On film or TV, these voices are anything but disembodied, as they breathe life into the characters and make them likable or unlikable, but memorable either way.

So lately a lot of press has been given to the voice of K.I.T.T. in the remake of “Knight Rider” set to begin airing in less than a week on NBC. Originally cast was Will Arnett, who’s been the voice of GMC Trucks for years. Oops. K.I.T.T., you see, is no longer a Trans Am, but a Ford Mustang. Sure, some of us consider this cross-step almost as crazy as the idea of making Dr. Emmett Brown’s next time traveling supercar out of a Mini Cooper, but then again, just as there are no more DeLoreans, there are no more Firebirds or Trans Ams in Pontiac’s lineup. So GMC 4-wheeled it over Arnett’s K.I.T.T. and the producers tapped Val Kilmer to be the new voice of the new brainchild of Knight Industries.

Ok, so we’ve got Cullen as Optimus Prime and Val Kilmer as the new K.I.T.T., but there have been so many actors who’ve voiced so many inhuman, or should we maybe say “non-human” characters in movies and TV over the years. Who are some of the more notable ones?

Well, of course, there’s the original K.I.T.T., voiced by William Daniels. And a fine job he did, too, reminding The Hoff’s Michael Knight, on many occasions, how very foolhearty he was being. And everybody knows that Anthony Daniels (no relation) played C-3PO in the Star Wars films. There’s Dick Tufeld, who provided the voice of the Robot in “Lost in Space”. But how many of the following can you correctly name without reading ahead? For me, most of these names were unfamiliar until I looked them up.

Number 5 - The spunky, clunky, cute little robot from “Short Circuit” was voiced by Tim Blaney, who reprised the role in the sequel from a couple years later, “Short Circuit 2″. A quick check on IMDb shows that a new sequel or remake is scheduled for this year!

W.O.P.R. - The behemoth military computer from “Wargames” was voiced by John Wood, who also played Dr. Stephen Falken in the film. According to commentary on the DVD, the voice was rendered as we heard it by having Wood read words flatly one at a time, and not in any order relating to the script, and then assembling them into W.O.P.R.’s lines and running them through a synthesizer. Pretty neat!

M.C.P. - Another example of a Brit voicing a computer, David Warner, who played Ed Dillinger / Sark, also voiced the big, bad computer at the heart of all the hijinks of Disney’s 1982 groundbreaking feature “TRON”. Ok, some of you right now are thinking “Groundbreaking?! TRON?!” But, heck yeah! Think about it! It was the first full-length feature film that was set mostly in 3D scenes. In 1982! That’s pretty cool. What else is pretty cool is that IMDb also shows a TRON listed for 2010. Wow. Hopefully the new one won’t include dialogue as ridiculous as in the original: Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn, the mastermind behind Space Paranoids, Matrix Blaster and a whole slew of games that Dillinger ripped off before canning Flynn, seemingly doesn’t even understand the computers that he uses to create the best video games in the world. This is evidenced by his emotionally-charged “Because, man! Somewhere, in one of these…”memories”…is the evidence!” Yeah. Ok. Next.

H.A.L. 9000 - Acronym’d computer #3 here, the antagonist of 1968’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, was voiced by Douglas Rain, who reprised the role in 1984’s “2010″. Maybe even more fun is that in Woody Allen’s 1973 film “Sleeper”, Rain is credited as voicing the “Evil computer/various robot butlers”. Hey, if I had a shot at adding that credit to my v.o. resume, I’d be all over that like sand on a beach.

Dalek - Peter Hawkins, who voiced the Daleks in the original Doctor Who series, passed away in 2006. The voice of the Daleks was also played by John Scott Martin. But BBC Wales’ new version of the show had already started without either of them, this time enlisting the vocal talents of Nicholas Briggs. A cool character to be sure, but if I hear that voice say “Exterminate!” ONE more time…

Enterprise - In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the ship’s computer was voiced by Majel Barrett, who was Gene Roddenberry’s wife. Barrett also played Lwaxana Troi, mother of ship’s counselor Deanna Troi and in fact is the only actor to be in all five Star Trek TV shows, having played the ship’s / computer’s voice in all five series as well as a handful of other characters.

Edgar - Ok, so it didn’t try to launch a global thermonuclear war, and it never tried to Exterminate! But Edgar, the lovesick computer in 1984’s “Electric Dreams” is one of my favorite talking machines. Ever. I’m not sure if it’s that he came to life when he had champagne spilled on his keyboard, or if it was that despite being a computer, his grammar was so dreadful (”What is an brain?”), or if it’s that I can relate to his unrelenting pursuit of Virginia Madsen. Um, wait a second…no, that was NOT me following her! Forget I said that! Anyway, whatever the reason, Edgar, voiced by Bud Cort, was cool, childlike, creepy and likable all at the same time. And I don’t get why “Electric Dreams” STILL hasn’t been released on DVD!

For me, each of the above performances is pretty memorable. Just goes to show you know a great performance can make a great character, and make that character live on for years and years.