Baker attended Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he studied philosophy, biology, fine arts, and German, the last of which he studied overseas for a year at the University of Göttingen.[7] He was involved in local theater productions and singing groups. After graduating with a BA in philosophy in 1986, he was involved in many community theater projects, including a sketch comedy movie that aired on local public television.[8]
Career
Legends of the Hidden Temple
In 1989, Baker moved to Orlando, Florida, where he worked on an improv sketch comedy show titled The Anacomical Players at EPCOT Center's Wonders of Life pavilion and joined various projects for Disney and Universal Studios.[2][8][9] His first major experience on national television was on the Nickelodeon game show Legends of the Hidden Temple from 1993 to 1995, where he was not only the announcer, but also the giant talking rock-god Olmec.[8][10] He portrayed Olmec with a "big, booming, loud, god-like voice". During parts of the show, he would narrate a legend, and then ask the kid contestants related trivia questions. The show lasted three seasons and 120 episodes. When host Kirk Fogg moved to Los Angeles, he was encouraged to move there as well.[11] In 2016, he and Fogg reprised their roles for a live action television movie adaptation of the show.[12] He reprised his role of Olmec again when Legends was revived in 2021 on The CW.[13]
On the live-action front, he became the co-host and announcer for the game show Shop 'til You Drop which spanned several hundred episodes when it resumed broadcasting on the Family Channel and on the Pax television network, until a series retool in 2003; it was produced by Stone Stanley Entertainment, which had earlier co-produced Legends of the Hidden Temple.[24] He also had an on-screen recurring role as Phil Berg in the Nickelodeon sitcom series The Journey of Allen Strange where he plays a crazed journalist who tries to expose Allen's identity as a space alien.[25]
In 2007, Baker got the role of Perry the Platypus in the Disney series Phineas and Ferb. At the San Diego Comic-Con 2013 panel, Baker mentioned that when he auditioned, he was asked to provide three different creature sounds, regardless of whether it actually sounded like a platypus, of which one was selected as Perry's characteristic sound.[38] Perry has become a breakout character for the series,[39] with Baker appearing at multiple Comic-Con panels for the show.[38] In 2014, Perry was nominated for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award for Best Animal Sidekick. Coincidentally, another one of Baker's voiced characters, Waddles the pet pig in Gravity Falls, was nominated for the same category.[40]
Further animation voice-over work
In 2005, Baker landed a role as Klaus Heisler, an Olympic ski jumper from Germany who was body-swapped into a goldfish, in the primetime cartoon sitcom American Dad![41][42] The series has run for over 15 seasons on Fox and TBS. In an interview with Pop Break, Baker said that he liked playing Klaus because he loves the German language, the part was well written, and it is not stressful on his voice. He compared the rehearsals to being on The Carol Burnett Show.[43] He participated in American Dad panels at San Diego Comic-Con 2010,[44] 2012,[45] and 2014;[46] and the New York Comic Con in 2014.[47] In 2017, he received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for Klaus in the episode "Fight or Flight".[4] He also voices other characters on the show, most notably Rogu, a homunculi tumor that came off of Roger.
His voicing of council member Tarrlok in Korra garnered a nomination for the Behind the Voice Actors (BTVA) Voice Acting Award in 2012.[48][49][50][51] In addition to television shows, Baker voiced characters in many animated and live action animation films, including some of the classic ghost monsters in Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed,[52] and Maurice in Happy Feet.[21] He also had roles in the Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated TV series and its direct-to-video releases.[21]
Video games, more voice acting, and other projects
In the video game world, Baker reprised his roles in Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon's multitude of show-related game releases. He provided the voice for Otto Von Fassenbottom, a German race car in the 2007 video game, Cars Mater-National Championship. He also voiced Gravemind in Halo 2 and Halo 3,[21] and the title character Joe in the Viewtiful Joe series released from 2003 to 2005.[61] He provided the creature sounds for the Spore video game which allows players to create and evolve their own creatures.[62][63] At San Diego Comic-Con 2008's opening night, he was a featured performer at the Video Games Live concert, where he voiced characters from Gears of War and other series.[64] He provided voices for two Blizzard Entertainment characters – Murky, a baby murloc in Heroes of the Storm, and Hammond, a genetically engineered hamster in Overwatch.[65] He voiced multiple characters from the De Blob series. He is also the voice of the Death in Dante's Inferno, released in 2010,[66] and Atlas and P-body in Portal 2, released in 2011.[67] He also voiced Reuben the pig in Minecraft story mode in 2014.
Baker has appeared on various panels at Comic-Con and other conventions where he talks about voice acting in general.[77] He also created a website called IWantToBeAVoiceActor.com, where he answers frequently-asked questions about voice acting and gives advice.[70] The site has been cited by fellow voice actors Steven Blum and Rob Paulsen as a valuable resource for getting into voice acting.[78][79]