Len Maxwell

Len Maxwell (1930-2008) was a New York-based voice actor heard in commercials, animation, and comedy records. He was frequently heard on Sesame Street in recurring "What Happens Next?" sketches and other inserts with the human cast. He narrated using an imitation of Pete Smith (producer and nasal-toned narrator of a long-running series of MGM comedy shorts).

Maxwell began as a stand-up comic and appeared in Jay Ward's unsold 1964 sketch comedy pilot The Nut House (with Don Francks). He soon worked almost entirely off-camera, however, lending his voice to commercial campaigns for the New York Public Libraries, Hawaiian Punch (as Punchy for a time), and more. Maxwell and Frank Buxton supplied all the voices for the 1966 Batman-spoofing cartoon Batfink (Buxton as the title role and main villain, Maxwell as sidekick Karate, the police chief, narrator, and most others). Maxwell and Buxton worked together again on Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily?. For this redub of a Japanese spy film as a comedy spoof, the pair wrote dialogue and supplied most of the male voices (with Maxwell returning on-camera to interview Allen in host segments). In records, he wrote, voiced, and sang on A Merry Monster Christmas, used the Pete Smith voice to narrate The New First Family 1968, played Barry Goldwater for the political spoof I'd Rather Be Far Right Than President, and was heard on The Yiddish Are Coming, The Yiddish Are Coming and Jack E. Leonard's Scream on Someone You Love Today.

For the Depatie-Freleng special The Incredible, Indelible, Magical Physical, Mystery Trip, Maxwell originated the voice of Timer (later, with a different voice actor, to hanker for hunks of cheese in ABC interstitials). He was heard in several shorts by animator Ted Petok, including the Oscar-winning The Crunch Bird, and voiced bat Bewildered and others in the stop-motion feature I Go Pogo. One of his last roles was as commentator Nick Diamond on the clay animated series Celebrity Deathmatch.