Adult Swim Veteran C. Martin Croker Dies Aged 54

Long-time Adult Swim voiceover artist and animator C. Martin Croker, who lent his talents to several well-known characters featured on the late-night Cartoon Network programming bloc over the past 20 years, has passed away at age 54.

The news of his death was broken by Adult Swim on Twitter late last night (AEST) with a simple tweet that featured a picture of the actor and the caption, "RIP C. Martin Croker". A cause of death has not been confirmed.

As Deadline.com notes, Croker was best known for supplying voices for Space Ghost Coast To Coast characters Zorak — who featured as the keyboard-playing insectoid offsider to the show's titular superhero-turned-TV host — and Moltar, the director/producer of the canonical chat show. Croker was also responsible for providing the voices of Dr Weird and his assistant, Steve, the pair of characters featured in cold opens during early seasons of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and again in Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters (2007).

Croker reprised his role as Zorak for Space Ghost Coast To Coast spin-offs The Brak Show, from 2000-2003 (plus its 2007 concluding webisode), and Cartoon Planet, from 1995-98 and again from 2012-2014. He also worked as animation director for 92 episodes of Space Ghost Coast To Coast's 110-episode run, and as an animator for cult comedy Ugly Americans on Comedy Central.

Croker was born Clay Martin Croker in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1962, and, according to Deadline, got his start working as an animator for the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) networks in the early 1990s. He was a pioneering creative force for Cartoon Network — owned by TBS, a subsidiary of Time Warner — in the mid- to late-'90s, being responsible for several designs and animations used for a rebranding in 1998 as well as contributing to several of Adult Swim's earliest televised efforts.