Andy Merrill

Andy Merrill
Born	Andrew Ronald Merrill November 27, 1966 Newark, Ohio, United States
Occupation	Writer, producer, voice actor
Years active	1994–present
Children	1

Andy Merrill (born November 27, 1966 in Newark, Ohio) is an American television writer, producer and voice actor best known for his comedy voice portrayal of the character Brak on Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Cartoon Planet, and other related productions from Cartoon Network utilizing characters from the Space Ghost series. He is a graduate of Asbury University, where he majored in media communications.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast

Merrill joined Cartoon Network within several months of its inception (in 1992), coming over from sister company CNN. He started working in programming, and in 1993 he and then head of programming Mike Lazzo helped put together the first animated late-night talk show, Space Ghost Coast to Coast. He voiced Space Ghost in the first of two unaired pilots for the show. In April 1994, Space Ghost Coast to Coast (SGC2C for short) premiered on Cartoon Network. The concept of SGC2C was that 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon superhero Space Ghost had retired from being a superhero and was hosting his own talk show, in which he interviewed with real celebrity guests, with his old arch enemies Zorak and Moltar as band leader and director. To date, the show has had over 90 episodes aired on television, and was one of the motivating forces behind the creation of the Adult Swim programming bracket started in 2001. He helped produce and write for the show for years, and voiced "Council of Doom" members Brak and Lokar, who would appear on the show periodically, mostly Brak.

Merrill, along with Coast to Coast friend and co-star George Lowe, wrote on social media that their friend and co-star C. Martin Croker died on September 18th, 2016. It was then revieled that Adult Swim would play the first produced episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast aired 12:30 eastern, 11:30 central that night in honor of Croker's contrabution not only to Space Ghost, but many Adult Swim shows in both animation and voice overs. The three of them, along with Dave Willis, Dana Snyder and Carey Means had been friends with each other since their days of working together.

Cartoon Planet

In 1995 a spin-off from SGC2C, Cartoon Planet, premiered on TBS (but later moved to Cartoon Network in 1996), with Andy once again writing and producing the show (along with a few other crew members that also worked on Space Ghost Coast to Coast) and voicing the character of Brak. The three main characters on Cartoon Planet were Space Ghost, Zorak and Brak, and it was basically a show of skits and songs put together from the same limited animation used on SGC2C. Originally the skits and songs were just used as filler for showing old Hanna-Barbera, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies and Popeye cartoons, until the skits and songs became more popular and Brak developed more of a personality and grew popular with fans. The show eventually just became made up fully of skits and songs.

Brak's spin-offs

In 2000 two Sonny and Cher-style variety show specials premiered on Cartoon Network, titled Brak Presents the Brak Show Starring Brak. The show featured new animation, and new songs with celebrity guests and fellow Space Ghost villain Zorak. However, the specials were met with mixed reviews from fans. In the early hours of December 21, 2000, a new sitcom parody cartoon premiered, titled "Leave It to Brak", which was actually the pilot episode for the future Adult Swim show The Brak Show, which premiered on Adult Swim in 2001 and ran for three seasons.

Acting

Year	Production	Role	Other notes
1994–2008	Space Ghost Coast to Coast	Brak, Lokar, Live-Action Space Ghost	Also writer and producer
1995–1999; 2012–2014	Cartoon Planet	Brak, Dancin' Space Ghost
2000	Brak Presents the Brak Show Starring Brak	Brak	Special
2000–2003; 2007	The Brak Show	Brak
2000–2015	Aqua Teen Hunger Force	Oglethorpe	Actor, 21 episodes
2005	Sunday Pants	Dr. Lyle Pushkin	Actor
2007	Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters	Oglethorpe	Movie
	Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Pro-Am	Oglethrope	Video game
2008	Assy McGee	Yusuf	Season 2, Episode 9
2011	Pound Dogs	Dog Pound Worker Guy	Short
	Secret Mountain Fort Awesome	Additional voices
2013	Adventure Time	James, Additional voices	2 episodes
	TripTank	Various characters	2 episodes
2015–2016	Gravity Falls	8-Ball, Teeth	3 episodes

Other notes

He left Atlanta briefly, moving to New Jersey for a year, and joining Boomerang (an asset of the Turner Broadcasting System) in its programming department.

References

External links

• Andy Merrill at the Internet Movie Database