Adult Swim Animator And Voice Actor Clay Martin Croker Dies At 54
Adult Swim animator and voice actor Clay Martin Croker died yesterday at the age of 54, as reported by Adult Swim creative director Jason DeMarco and contributor/rapper MC Chris. Croker is best known for voicing both Zorak and Moltar on the long-running Cartoon Network talk show parody “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” a series credited for establishing Adult Swim, spawning four separate spin-off shows — “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” “Sealab 2021,” “The Brak Show,” and “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law” — and produced the majority of the writers and staff who still currently work for the alternative programming block.
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Croker began his career animating promos for TNT in the early-90s, but moved to Cartoon Network a few years later to help animate and design bumpers for the network’s rebranding. It was then producer Mike Lazzo, now Senior Executive Vice President in charge of Adult Swim, was tasked to create an animated show for adults. This ended up being “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” a re-imagined take on the 1960s Hanna Barbera series “Space Ghost” where superhero Space Ghost hosted a talk show. Croker served as the animation director on the series and is responsible for coming up with the idea to add villains Zorak and Moltar as Space Ghost’s bandleader and show director/producer respectively. Zorak and Moltar would repeatedly and openly antagonize Space Ghost during his show and distract from his conversations with the guests.
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Apart from “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” Croker also animated the popular Adult Swim series “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” as well as the feature-length film “Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters,” and provided the voice for Dr. Weird on the series.
In honor of Croker’s memory, Adult Swim aired the first “Space Ghost” episode “Elevator” at 12:30am this morning.
RIP C. Martin Croker pic.twitter.com/Ol6RNHhs60
— [adult swim] (@adultswim) September 18, 2016
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