Chris Latta

From Transformers Wiki

The name or term "Chris" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, seeChris (disambiguation).

Not pictured: Patrick Swayze.

Christopher Collins, a.k.a.Chris Latta (August 30,1949 -June 12,1994) was an American screen actor and voice actor. Though typically credited under his stage nameChris Latta, he was occasionally credited under his given name. Some of his non-Transformers roles includeCobra Commander andGung-Ho fromG.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Darkstorm and Cravex fromVisionaries, Sergeant Knox and General Dire fromStar Blazers,D'Compose andTendril fromInhumanoids, the Beetle and the Sandman fromSpider-Man & His Amazing Friends, the first voice of Mr. Burns and Moe the bartender onThe Simpsons, and in live-action as the first King Koopa in the infamousKing Koopa's Kool Kartoons.

Latta led something of a checkered lifestyle, the details of which are not fully known, but which anecdotes and stories by members of theTransformers cast and crew have hinted at.Flint Dille has claimed that he and other members of the production staff had to frequently bail Latta out of jail; on at least one occasion Latta claimed that he had simply been jaywalking. Latta died in Ventura, California, his cause of death officially recorded as a cerebral hemorrhage following a long illness. Although his contemporaries speak fondly of him when asked at variousBotCons, there have been several cryptic comments made that suggest there is more to the story of his death —Peter Cullen remarked that he was a victim ofHollywood's tendency to "devour its young",^[1]Susan Blu said that Latta was "a sweet guy who had his demons",^[2] and Flint Dille noted that Latta "died, and we never really found out how."

“	Everyone else here is a comedian, but that's not what I am... What I am is a psychotic who's learned to market his problem.	”
—An eerily prophetic line from Latta's stand-up routine.

Roles

The Transformers

Notes

Frank Welker had been credited with the role of Laserbeak for many years, based mainly on his history of providing "animal noises" for many cartoons, before the discovery of unmodified voice recordings revealed that it was actually Latta squawking away.
Additionally, it's become recently known that Latta also filled in forPeter Cullen's role of Optimus Prime in at least the episode "Countdown to Extinction"; given that his lines were dubbed over later by Cullen, it's likely Latta's reading was only for the studio recordings at Sunbow, likely as a scratch track for the animators to work off of.^[3]
Latta and the other deceased cast members of the first four episodes of the series received an In Memoriam tribute at the end of theTransformers 40th Anniversary Event in 2024.