Robert Axelrod was one of the most talented Voice actors recruited for Power Rangers. The tragic news of his recent passing has been hard on stars and fans alike. On Instagram I recently found a special post honoring him by David Fielding known to fans as Zordon. It was incredibly heartfelt. They were enemies on the show but the actors respected each other. I decided to look into Axelrod's full career for this article. A career which began in 1985, when he had his very first voice acting job. He played the lead character on an anime series about talking Squirrels. Bannertail the squirrel was orphaned at a young age and was adopted by a mother cat. Gaining cat like abilities he was first turned away by other squirrels. However his bravery and wild moves saved them in many tough situations. A female squirrel named Sue became his love interest. This served as Robert's first role and helped get a feel for the work. He was also in the 1988 anime series Wowser and played the rival hero Ratso Catso. While working on Wowser he also had his first meeting with Barbara Goodson. She voiced the character Bob Lovely. The two of them have a very natural chemistry. Though I have not watched Wowser I imagine they played well off each other there as well.
The classic characters Finster and Lord Zedd will forever be remember as two of the original antagonists of MMPR. Over the course of his life his wild personality drove him to darker and more mischievous characters. He has played other heroes like the famous Digimon characters; Wizardmon and Armadillomon. However they were far from traditional heroes. Wizardmon became a hero because of Gatomon. Her kindness touched his heart. Together they undermined Myotismon,and rescued Kari Kamiya. However Wizardmon is killed in battle, and he goes down saving his friends. Armadillomon was slacker-like and tried to avoid battling whenever possible. It was his human partner Cody who urged him on to join the fights. Cody had a strong dedication to helping his friends and a strong curiosity to confront new obstacles. Cody and Armadilomon were opposites but when working together they saved the others many times over. Robert also worked with Don Beck on two episodes of the Spider-man cartoon and they played Punisher and Mirco. Truly though many of Axelrod's characters were dark characters much like the ones he played on PR. He voiced Disney's Headless Horseman who appeared in many Disney shorts. He also played the tricky Dr. Londes on the anime series Cowboy Bebop. Dr. Londes is said to be a young boy trapped in a grown man's body who sought to reverse his condition by any means necessary. Dr. Londes caused much chaos in the dystopian realty of this series. Robert also occasionally was in live-action movies. Including films like The Revenant, The clapper, and The Anatolian. His final film role was earlier this year as Mr. Rodgers in the film Induced Effect. His character dealed out a deadly drug and he was said to be a shrewd businessman who mainly cared about profit and not consequences. Darker roles seemed to attract him more. He liked living on the edge and showing off his hidden deadly spark. Another very tricky character he played was featured in Lost Galaxy. The monster known as Mututarnrum tricked Leo and separated him from the team by impersonating his brother. He also came close to finishing off the others before Leo escaped and showed up to turn the tide of battle. Axelrod was also a script reviewer and loved to helped young writers and incourage them to work hard. He even reviewed one of my first stories while he and I were still in contact after Mooncon. He was passionate about everything he did, he was humble with his fans, and loved meeting them. He put a little of himself into each character and made sure they all reflected a different side of him. He was on three of my favorite cartoons. He was driven. Robert's passing is so so sad!!! 😭 😢 We will miss him a lot but use his accomplishments as inspiration and dare to face your own challenges in life and put a little of yourself into everything you do just like he did. I strongly hope I will not have to report on any more actor deaths this year. R.I.P. Robert Axelrod. Neither your dark characters nor your not so noble heroes will ever fail to enchant us!
A wonderful tribute to Axelrod. I hope you have posted it to his website. You are a great researcher. Stupendous!