Daran Norris, born 1964, turns 49 today. He’s been steadily working since 1988, though admittedly, as a live-action actor, he’s been more of a “Hey, it’s that guy!” His two biggest roles in the flesh were on television shows – he played Gordy the janitor on Nick’s Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide and Cliff McCormick, Neptune’s most incorruptible lawyer, on Veronica Mars. He also popped up in an episode of Party Down as a con man swindling a group of rich people for a time share.
However, as a voice actor, he’s appeared in hundreds of animated shows and video games, and like H. Jon Benjamin and Patrick Warburton, he has a voice that’s immediately recognizable. His two most famous roles in that regard are Spottswoode, the leader of Team America, and Cosmo the fairy from The Fairly Oddparents. He’s contributed other voices to single or multiple episodes of many other shows, including Cowboy Bebop, Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Stroker and Hoop, Batman, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, and many, many more. He’s lent his voice to numerous games based on Nickelodeon shows and several titles in the Final Fantasy series.
He’s currently the voice of Burger King, in addition to the many other currently airing shows he works on.
Other birthdays today:
Penn Badgley, actor (27)
Aishwarya Rai, actress (40)
Toni Collette, actress (41)
Charlie Kaufman, writer/director (55)
Marcia Wallace, voice actress (died 2013)
