Andy Merrill

Andy Merrill is an American voice actor, television writer and producer best known for his portrayal of the character Brak on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, The Brak Show, and Cartoon Planet; as well as Oglethorpe on Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Career 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 voices Space Ghost in the first of two unaired pilots for the show.

In April 1994, Space Ghost Coast to Coast premiered on Cartoon Network. The concept 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 live action celebrity guests, with his old archenemies 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. Merrill helped produce and write for the show for years, and voiced "Council of Doom" members Brak and Lokar, who 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 17, 2016. It was then revealed 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 contribution 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 since their earliest Cartoon Network days.

Cartoon Planet In 1995, Cartoon Planet premiered on TBS (moving to Cartoon Network in 1996). Merrill wrote and produced the show, along with crew members who had worked on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, himself voicing the character of Brak. The main characters on Cartoon Planet were Space Ghost, Zorak, and Brak, and it was a show of skits and songs put together with the same limited animation used in Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

Originally, the skits and songs were filler for showing old cartoons owned by Turner Entertainment (Hanna-Barbera, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, Popeye the Sailor) until the skits and songs became more popular and Brak developed more of a personality and grew popular with fans. The show eventually became entirely skits and songs.

Brak spin-offs In 2000, two Sonny & 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.

Merill reprised his role of Brak on the episode "Space Con" of the Max series Jellystone! which is also based on Hanna-Barbera characters.

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

Influences In a 2003 IGN interview, Merrill stated that his parents were the biggest influences on his career. He further added Steve Martin, Soupy Sales, Jerry Lewis, and Roger Miller. He later tweeted that he was working part time at Adult Swim.

Filmography