Doug Stone was cast as Matt Trakker, the man who founds the team and then, session after session, lent his voice to the people trying to wreck it. He is the hinge of the whole cast list: Matt Trakker for the heroes, and for V.E.N.O.M. Maximus Mayhem, the twin brother of the villain who spends the series at war with Trakker, along with Nash Gorey and Bruno Sheppard.
How he got there
By his own account Doug was living in Canada when DIC cast the show, had signed with an agency only a few months earlier, and read for Matt Trakker about three times, long distance to Los Angeles, before he got the part. He had done radio dramas as a child and came back to voice work as an adult through a demo recorded for a local advertising company, which led to commercials and eventually a move to Los Angeles. Every role was auditioned, and he picked up Dusty Hayes only after another actor was let go before recording began [1].
The fan wiki gives a birth date of 27 December 1950 in Toronto and says the cartoon was his first voice job. Neither point appears on Wikipedia, whose page for him lists voice activity from 1972, which is hard to square with a first voice job in 1985 unless the wiki means his first professional animation role. We print the wiki’s date as reported rather than confirmed and leave the disagreement standing [2].
Four men from one throat
What makes his work on the show worth hearing is that he built the voices physically. The wiki records that he pushed his chest forward to find Hondo’s depth, bent forward and went nasal for Dusty, hardly moved his face for Bruce Sato, and stood very straight for Matt, which matches his own description of Matt as a stand-up guy with a serious, chest-out posture. In his words Hondo was deepened, Dusty went up into a high register and Bruce was kept softer [1][3].
The side he played for V.E.N.O.M. is the more surprising one. Maximus Mayhem is the twin of Miles Mayhem, who is voiced by Brendan McKane, so on the cast sheet the hero shares a voice with the villain’s brother while the villain shares a voice with the hero’s systems commander. Nothing we found says that was planned. Our feature on the doubling, One cast, two sides, sets out who played which side.
The small parts
The fan wiki also lists a long run of one-episode parts, among them a Mayor of Hong Kong, an Emir of Amrah, Dr. Choi and the Major David Krauss of The Everglades Oddity. Wikipedia and MASKFORCE do not carry Krauss, so we mark that credit as reported. He also told the interviewer that he sometimes credited non-union work under pseudonyms, among them Gully Jimson, David Orosco and Doug Store, which is worth knowing if you search credit databases for him [1][3].
After the cartoon
Doug says he now makes his living entirely from voice acting, mainly anime and games. He is best known for Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid, and he names Bleach, Naruto and Fist of the North Star, a small part in Lilo and Stitch, and supplemental voices for the whole of Hercules and Xena. Wikipedia adds credits as a director, ADR director and casting director. He has never attended a convention, saying he does not feel he warrants the attention, and he said he would prefer any new project to be animated [1][2].
Notes
- Matt-Trakker.com carries the interview with a posting date of April 2020 and an interview date of 7 September 2010. We read it on that site and have not seen the original questions.
- Wikipedia, the fan wiki and the interview disagree on how his voice career began; see above.
- The fan wiki’s role list is a fan compilation. Episodes shown as verified on this page are the ones where we opened a MASKFORCE credit page and found his name against the roles.