Gottfried Kramer, center, with fellow dubbers Wolfgang Kieling (Bert) and Wolfgang Draeger (Big Bird)
Gottfried Kramer (1925-1994) was a German voice actor who dubbed Oscar the Grouch on Sesamstrasse and Bruno on the German dub of Dog City.
As a dubbing actor working in Hamburg, Kramer was heard as Marlon Brando in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus and The Name of the Rose, Burt Lancaster in The Osterman Weekend, Humphrey Bogart in Dead End, Orson Welles in F for Fake, James Baskett as Uncle Remus in Song of the South, and Charlton Heston in Almost an Angel. TV dubbing roles included K.I.T.T. on Knight Rider, Stuart Margolin on The Rockford Files, Dabney Coleman on Columbo, Phil Harris and other guest stars on Fantasy Island, and over thirty parts on Bonanza. Cartoon roles (often alternating between villains and elderly mentors) included Grandpa Smurf on The Smurfs, Dr. Watson on the Sherlock Hound anime, Ming the Merciless on Defenders of the Earth, Sly Sludge on Captain Planet, and Merlin on The Legend of Prince Valiant. For records and cassettes, he was Col. Hathi in multiple Disney releases, Captain Haddock in the Tintin series, and Mer-Man in the Masters of the Universe cassettes.
A frequent player in German film and television, he appeared on Tatort, Hamburg Transit, and Der Landarzt and in the films Viola und Sebastian (with Frank Glaubrecht) and Der Lord von Barnbeck (with Inken Sommer). He also had a bit part in the English language film The Counterfeit Traitor (1962, with William Holden and Peter Capell).