Mark Halloran was a stand-up comedian working the Comedy Store in Los Angeles when the call about the cartoon came, and the voices he made are the ones that sound most like a comic doing impressions. We found one interview with him and no independent biography, so this page is short on purpose and says where it stops.
The impressions
By his account the animators supplied an illustration and a background for each character and he chose the sound. For Sly Rax he went for a Jack Nicholson sound, which he said gave the mercenary, or con artist depending on which of our sources you read, a rather sly edge. For Cliff Dagger he reached for what he called a Rocky Stallone sound. Duane Kennedy, he said, is the character closest to his own voice. Brad Turner’s actor, Graeme McKenna, singled out Mark’s impressions as a highlight of the sessions, which is the only other mention of him we found [1][2].
Both sides of the line
His five roles are spread across the front line: Sly Rax and Cliff Dagger for V.E.N.O.M., Buddie Hawks and Ace Riker for M.A.S.K., and Duane Kennedy, who belongs to neither. In the per-episode credits we opened he appears with Hawks, Rax and Dagger together in the same episode, so a scene between a M.A.S.K. agent and two V.E.N.O.M. agents is, on the sound track, one man talking to himself, which is the doubling pattern at its plainest. Our feature on the cast, One cast, two sides, sets the rest of it out.
A favorite he would not explain
Asked for his favorite character he named Vanessa, and declined to say why. Vanessa Warfield is a V.E.N.O.M. agent voiced by Sharon Noble, who said Vanessa was her own favorite too, and who built the voice from Lauren Bacall’s depth mixed with Miles Mayhem’s gruffness. Whether he meant the character or the performance is not something the interview settles [1][3].
What we could not find
Beyond the Comedy Store, the interview says he did commercials, other animation and impressions for the stage, without naming any of them, so we have no sourced crossover credits for him in other 1980s cartoons. He mentions that he has kept in touch with some of the cast, that he was recognized by someone from the show while working in a Los Angeles play, and that he once sold two vacuums before acting. He is working on a project he calls secret. The interview gives no date and no studio or session detail. Some of his answers are jokes, and we have not treated those as facts [1].
Notes
- Matt-Trakker.com interview; the page shows only the site’s own copyright range, so the interview date is unknown.
- Graeme McKenna interview on Matt-Trakker.com.
- Sharon Noble, MASKFORCE page, which reprints a 2014 interview.