William Salyers

William Salyers and the Unlikely Voice Behind Regular Show’s Slacker Raccoon

Bartlesville, Oklahoma sent an unlikely candidate to the top of American animation. Born August 16, 1964, William Salyers grew up in Pawhuska, graduated from its high school in 1982, then headed to the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico – a theater training ground, not an obvious launchpad for cartoon voices. Stage work shaped his instincts for character before a single animated credit existed on his resume. When he eventually broke into voice work, the theatrical grounding showed: Salyers plays emotional weight even when a character is ostensibly a joke.

Regular Show came along and changed everything. As Rigby – the laziest, most impulsive raccoon in cartoon history – Salyers had to be annoying without becoming grating, endearing without tipping into saccharine. He held that line for seven seasons on Cartoon Network, and the character ran long enough to earn a theatrical movie and a 2026 revival with Regular Show: The Lost Tapes. Few voice performances sustain that kind of cultural half-life.

Moral Orel and the Darker Side of the Dial

While Rigby dominated his public profile, Salyers was simultaneously doing something stranger on Adult Swim’s Moral Orel. Reverend Putty and Mr. Littler are not crowd-pleasing characters – they exist in a deeply satirical world that uses stop-motion aesthetics to dismantle small-town American religiosity. Salyers leaned into that discomfort, demonstrating that his range was never limited to comedy.

Mass Effect and the Character Gamers Still Talk About

Mordin Solus arrived in Mass Effect 2 voiced by Michael Beattie; BioWare replaced him with Salyers for Mass Effect 3, and the internet still argues about it. What Salyers delivered was a rapid-fire, scientifically precise performance for a salarian with a complicated moral past – a character whose final moments became one of the most discussed scenes in game narrative history. The role cemented his reputation in gaming circles independent of his animation career.

Doctor Octopus and the Marvel Spider-Verse

Insomniac’s 2018 Spider-Man game handed Salyers one of comics’ most iconic antagonists. His Otto Octavius arc – mentor turned villain across Marvel’s Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – required playing the same character at multiple stages of psychological collapse. He also brought the Penguin to the 1966-style Batman animated films and voiced Virman Vundabar in Justice League Action, Bruce Banner in Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and Mayor Jessop in Batman: Caped Crusader in 2024.

Anime Dubbing and the Continuing Pipeline

Alongside superhero and game work, Salyers has maintained a steady presence in English anime dubbing. Credits include Spriggan (2022), Vinland Saga Season 2 (2023), Shaman King, and the 2025 dub of Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. The 2026 slate already shows Nippon Sangoku: The Three Nations of the Crimson Sun, indicating no slowdown in output. Toranosuke Yoshida in Persona 5: The Animation added another JRPG-adjacent credit to a resume that keeps accumulating across categories.