Witwicky family
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The Witwicky family members are fictional characters from the original "Generation One" Transformers universes, and are the closest human allies of the Autobots.
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[edit] Spike
[edit] Animated Series/Film
The most famous of all the Autobots' human allies, Spike Witwicky was fourteen years old, aiding his father, Sparkplug, in his work on an offshore oil rig when the Transformers entered his life in 1984. A Decepticon attack on the rig left Spike and Sparkplug in peril, and when Optimus Prime rescued them, they offered their friendship and aid to the Autobots, teaching them about the ways of Earth. Spike had a lot to learn about the robots in disguise, however, as one of his first actions saw him unwittingly bring the disguised Soundwave into Autobot Headquarters. He later aided Hound in battle against Rumble, and when the Autobots were planning to return to their home planet of Cybertron, he intended to go with them.
That was not to be, however, as the re-emergence of the undefeated Decepticons kept the Autobots on Earth, protecting it and its inhabitants from their enemies. Spike proved an invaluable source of information for the Autobots, teaching them about subjects such as dinosaurs and various Earthly sports, and enjoyed journeys to such fantastic locales as Cybertron, Dinobot Island and medieval England. However, he underwent his own share of troubles, occasionally being captured by the Decepticons for various reasons, and suffering the torture of seeing his own brainwashed father under Decepticon control. Spike formed a fast friendship with the young Autobot, Bumblebee, and the two often adventured and traveled together.
In one particular adventure in 1985, when he was fifteen years old, Spike met a girl named Carly, who he immediately took a liking to, although at first, Carly was more interested in getting to meet the Autobots. As time went on, Carly developed an attraction to Spike, and through adventures together, including a solo mission to Cybertron, it blossomed into a romance. As they entered their twenties, Spike and Carly were married, and in 1993, Carly gave birth to a son, Daniel. As Spike himself grew older, his experience and closeness to the Autobots saw him appointed Earth's official ambassador to Cybertron, but as the Autobots pressed their attack to reclaim Cybertron from the Decepticons in 2005, the 35-year-old Spike was stationed on Moonbase Two, which was attacked and consumed by the planet-eater, Unicron. Wearing a transforming "exo-suit" battle armor, Daniel rescued his father before Unicron was destroyed.
Although Spike was generally limited to performing more diplomatic duties throughout 2006, he was pivotal in the initial defeat of the invading Quintessons, destroying the mechanism that the aliens had used to immobilize all Transformers and freeing them. In 2007, Spike was among the Transformers and humans blasted to the planet Nebulos by the energies of the Plasma Energy Chamber, where he performed the process that bonded some Autobots with a group of Nebulan rebels to form the Headmasters. Later, Spike himself became a Headmaster, merging with the pacifist Autobot, Cerebros, who in turn combined with a giant Transformer body Spike had created, forming Fortress Maximus. With the power of Fortress Maximus, Spike rescued Daniel from the clutches of the Decepticons, and was in the process able to reroute the destructive energy created by the opening of the Plasma Energy Chamber to revitalize Cybertron, creating a new Golden Age.
Throughout all stages of his life, the voice of Spike was performed by Corey Burton.
[edit] Headmasters
Across the Pacific, in Japan, however, the events of 2007 were stricken, and replaced with a full-length new series, entitled Transformers: Headmasters. Due to the different concept for Headmasters in Japan, which did not incorporate Nebulans or humans, Spike was not a component of Fortress Maximus in this series, but still played an important role in Cybertron/Earth relations. At one point, so desperate for peace, Spike even arranged negotiations between himself and Galvatron, in hopes of developing a joint energy-production program — hopes which were soon dashed.
Either in the boardroom or on the battlefield, Spike was always fighting for peace and prosperity in his own way, but he almost paid for it with his life when an explosion amidst an attack by Trypticon imbedded an inoperable piece of shrapnel in his body. In order to save Spike's life, Fortress telekinetically purged the shrapnel, and Spike was soon back in action, co-ordinating part of the Autobots' clean-up operation when the Decepticons fled the planet, and arranging a counter-attack when they returned.
In both Headmasters and the original Japanese dubs of the US animated series, Spike was voiced by Masashi Ebara. In the infamously inaccurate English dub of Headmasters, his name was warped into "Sparkle."
[edit] Marvel Comics
The role played by the young Spike in the animated series was filled in the Marvel comic book series by his younger brother, Buster, exclusive to that continuity (see below). Indeed, Buster was fully intended to exist in place of Spike for the comic book series, until the release of the Fortress Maximus toy in 1987, which included Spike as a Headmaster partner, hence necessitating the hurried introduction of Spike into the comic book continuity.
Returning home from college to discover that his father's garage had been destroyed, Spike investigated the Autobots' deserted base at Mount Saint Hillary, learning that Buster had been captured by the Earth-based Decepticons. While there, he encountered a group of new Autobots, led by Fortress Maximus, who had just arrived from the planet Nebulos, and in a subsequent attack by Scorponok's group of Decepticons, Fortress Maximus's Nebulon partner, Galen Kord, was killed in a rockfall. Before dying, he gave his control helmet to Spike, allowing the boy to control Fortress Maximus in battle and force the Decepticons to retreat. In the aftermath of the battle, Spike accepted the Autobots' offer to be fully binary-bonded to Fortress Maximus as his new Headmaster partner in order to save Buster from the Decepticons.
As Fortress Maximus, Spike led the attack on the Decepticons' island base, defeating Shockwave in an outer space battle, but failing to rescue Buster, and turning to the other Earth-based Autobots for help. Acting commander Grimlock refused, disgusted at the thought of a human leading the Autobots, but relented when he saw the rationality of the act during a massive Decepticon attack on the Autobot forces. With the deceased Optimus Prime subsequently restored to life as a Powermaster, Spike rescued Buster from the Decepticons amidst the chaos caused by Starscream's attempt to gain the power of the Underbase.
Following that clash, Spike, having accomplished what he set out to do, attempted to abandon his Autobot life, and return to living a normal human lifestyle. Unfortunately, his connection with Fortress Maximus proved to be far deeper than anyone knew when he was attacked by the Decepticon Pretender Beasts, Snarler and Carnivac, and discovered that Maximus's mind actually continued to exist within his own. Despite recombining with Maximus to defeat the Decepticons, Spike again returned Maximus's body and his exo-suit to the Autobots, and succeeded for a short time in living a normal life, until he found himself drawn to the crash of the Ark in Canada in 1991. Merging with Fortress Maximus again, he defeated the maddened Galvatron, and some time thereafter, gave up his life to stop the plans of Megatron by sacrificing himself to destroy the Ark.
[edit] Dreamwave Comics
In the 21st Century re-imagining of the G1 universe by Dreamwave Productions, Spike was given a fragment of the Matrix by Optimus Prime when the Autobots departed Earth in 1999, having finally captured the Decepticons and intending to return them to Cybertron. They did not get that far, as an explosion tore their craft, the Ark II, apart shortly after it left Earth's atmosphere, leaving the Transformers, and the small human crew - including Spike's father - believed dead.
In 2002, however, Spike - now married to Carly and fathering Daniel - found that this was not the case when he was approached by General Hallo of the American military. A terrorist, Adam Rook, had recovered several of the inactive (but functional) Transformers and brought them under his control, intending to sell them on the black market as weapons of mass destruction; in order to stop him, the military had recovered a Transformer of their own. That Transformer was Optimus Prime, who Spike was able to reactivate by replacing the Matrix fragment. Unfortunately, Spike soon discovered that Hallo was part of an even more insane scheme, having originally worked with Rook to developing the Transformer-controlling program, and being double-crossed by him. Confronting Hallo just as he launched a nuclear missile at San Francisco, Spike took his life in his hands and nearly met his end, until Hallo was gunned down by military agents.
In the More Than Meets The Eye character profile series, it is shown Dreamwave intended to eventually have Spike become a Headmaster partner for Fortress Maximus. However, unlike other similar entries in the MTMTE series, no information was given about Spike at all leaving many readers with more questions than answers. But with Dreamwave shutting down, this storyline may never come to be.
[edit] 2007 Film
Spike is set to appear in the Transformers live-action film. He will be portrayed by Shia LaBeouf. He buys Bumblebee unintentionally as his first car.
[edit] Buster
[edit] Marvel Comics
As originally designed, the youthful Buster Witwicky was to fill the role played by Spike in the animated series for the Marvel comic book series. As a result, Buster was also seen filling Spike's role in children's books published by Marvel and other publishers.
While at a drive-in movie with his girlfriend Jessie and best friend "O", Buster suddenly found his life in danger when the parking lot became a battleground in the first major Earth-based clash between the Autobots and Decepticons. Coming across the wounded vehicle-mode Bumblebee, he brought the car back to his father's workshop, and attempted to fix it, until his father stepped in and completed the job. Before long, however, Buster had a much more pivotal role to play in the war, when the powerful Decepticon, Shockwave defeated and deactivated all the Autobots, save medical officer Ratchet, and planned to create new troops using the power of the Creation Matrix within Optimus Prime's mind. Sneaking into the Ark, Buster discovered Prime's decapitated head, and Prime transferred the Matrix into Buster's mind, keeping it from Shockwave. Buster soon found that the Matrix gave him the ability to manipulate metal and circuitry, and he used it to disassemble, rebuild and reprogram Shockwave's lifeless drone, Jetfire, and employed him to rescue Optimus Prime, who took the Matrix back into his own body.
In the UK comics, the boy appeared in some further stories starting with Robot Buster, where - worried about the danger he kept being in - Wheeljack and Ratchet built a robot battle-suit for him. Optimus ordered it scrapped and Buster stole it to prove he could handle himself in battle, only to be nearly killed in battle against Frenzy and pursued relentlessly by Shockwave, who later sent the Constructicons out to murder the boy. The stress of these events combined with residual Matrix energy caused Buster to have visions of a strange new generation of Transformers. In order to decipher these visions and cure Buster of them, he and Optimus mind-linked (with the Decepticons spying) and the visions were revealed to be details for producing new "Special Teams" of combiners, which would lead to the development of the Aerialbots and Protectobots.
Angered and afraid for his safety, Sparkplug forbade Buster from seeing the Autobots any further. Outside of helping Jetfire through some morale issues on Christmas Eve, the boy was not seen again for some time, until Sparkplug himself fell victim to a trap laid by Decepticon local commander, Ratbat, which Buster foiled by breaking the hypnotic trace he and the other human victims had been placed under. After a fracas involving the Intelligence and Information Institute and the Predacons, Buster and Goldbug (a recreated version of Bumblebee), whose mind was trapped in a toy car, headed for the Ark, only to find that it had blasted off. At the abandoned site, Buster was attacked by a vengeful Ratbat and whisked away to the Decepticons' island base where he was initially used as a hostage to deter the United States navy from attacking. Buster was employed as part of an overly complex plan to acquire important data - appointing Buster "king" of the island to publicly dissaude human investigation, the Decepticons operated under the cover of a faux holiday resort while they searched for a sunken pirate vessel, which contained two stasis-locked Autobot messengers sent to Earth thousands of years before, containing information on the coming of the almighty Cybertronian databank, the Underbase. Starscream proceeded to turn the tables on everyone by releasing Buster into the Arctic tundra, where he was forced to summon the Autobots or perish - an action which in turn resulted in the arriving Autobots being overwhelmed by the combined forces of Ratbat and Scorponok's Decepticons, while Starscream used the distraction to steal the power of the Underbase for himself. Buster's last appearance was in US #51, finally back home with his family.
Buster made no further appearances in the comic book series, but it is interesting to note that in several children's storybook and coloring/activity books, he also appeared to fill the role of Spike. In one particular instance, he was referred to by the name "Butch." Buster was also featured in the Find Your Fate line of books published by Ballantine Books.
[edit] Dreamwave Comics
Buster did not make any clearly defined appearances in Dreamwave Productions' re-imagined G1 universe, but he did exist, and was referred to as having taken the death of his father particularly badly, turning to alcohol and running up particularly large gambling debts. Straightening out his act, Buster was said to have joined the military; a high-ranking official with the surname of Witwicky was later seen addressing Marissa Faireborn, and although it was not stated, it can safely be assumed this was intended to be Buster. However, Dreamwave's bankruptcy and subsequent closure left the story untold.
[edit] Sparkplug
Patriarch of the Witwicky family, Sparkplug was vastly unlike his two sons, in that he was portrayed in startlingly different ways across the two main fictions. The Transformers: Classics Mirage toy sports an advertisement for Witwickey Sparkplugs, a reference to this character,
[edit] Animated Series
In addition to being a highly skilled automotive mechanic and engineer, "Sparkplug" Witwicky (for whom no real name was offered in the cartoon) had, in his lifetime, also worked in the crystal mines of Burma, and was working on an oilrig with his son, Spike, in 1984 when a Decepticon attack brought the Transformers into his life. Rescued from drowning by Optimus Prime, Sparkplug became a friend and ally to the Autobots, mainly excited at the prospect of encountering and learning about strange new alien machines and technology he could work on. A frequent mechanical assistant to Ratchet and Wheeljack, Sparkplug could easily be classified as a simple man - skilled in physical, practical arts, but lacking knowledge about his son's esoteric tastes, such as types of music, and dinosaurs. Sparkplug owns an automotive garage in New York, which the Autobots refitted to serve as a secondary command base while they were far from their main headquarters.
Aside from helping Bumblebee to plant a bomb that disrupted the Decepticons' crystal-mining operations in Burma, Sparkplug's biggest role in any Transformer adventure was when he was captured by the Decepticons and became the first subject of Doctor Arkeville's mind-controlling hypno-chip. Under Decepticon control, Sparkplug sabotaged many of the Autobots under the preface of repairing their systems, and was later taken to Cybertron to toil there under Shockwave's command, until Wheeljack successfully created a device to undo the hypno-chip's effects.
Sparkplug was never seen or referred to again after the second season of the original Transformers cartoon series, and it is possible that he died at some point between the second season and Transformers: The Movie, which took place 20 years later.
Sparkplug was vocalized by Chris Latta.
[edit] Marvel Comics
Although Sparkplug started out as being quite similar to his animated counterpart in the comic book universe, aiding in the repair of Bumblebee when his son, Buster, brought the injured robot to his garage, his personality took a sharp turn after he was kidnapped by the Decepticons. Instructed by Megatron to develop a process that would convert Earthen gasoline into fuel they could consume, Sparkplug drew on his memories of his time as a mechanic in the Korean War, recalling an instance where he had sabotaged the enemy vehicles' fuel and brake lines, and did the same to the Decepticons, poisoning their fuel and allowing the Autobots to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. However, before this heroic act could come to light, many of the Autobots believed that Sparkplug had betrayed them, and an over-reactive Jazz let loose with his flamethrower, causing Sparkplug to have a heart attack. Thankfully, he soon recovered, but his opinion of the Transformers had changed with that action, and he forbade Buster from interacting with them again.
Ironically, Sparkplug would also come to fall prey to a hypnotic Decepticon device in the comic book continuity as well, drawn in by Ratbat's "Wash and Roll" car wash scheme, which mesmerised humans into giving up their gasoline to the Decepticons in a complex-yet-effective plan. Buster was able to break the hypnotic effect with a splash of water, and Ratbat's plan was foiled, but Sparkplug was given even more cause to hate the Transformers and their involvement in his life when the Predacons destroyed his garage and a vengeful Ratbat captured Buster. Even worse for Sparkplug, when his older son, Spike, returned from college, he took up with the Autobots and was binary-bonded to Fortress Maximus, becoming a mechanical freak in his father's eyes. Spike subsequently saved Buster from the Decepticons, and his father was overjoyed to have his two sons back, although Spike's bond with Fotress Maximus kept him returning to the Transformer war and eventually resulted in his death in battle against Megatron.
Sparkplug's real first name was given as William in issue #3, but was later contradicted in #31 when he gives his first name as Irving. It's possible one of these is "really" his middle name, but this is entirely conjectural.
[edit] Dreamwave Comics
Sparkplug made no appearances in Dreamwave Productions' version of the G1 universe, insteading playing a part in its newly-sculpted backstory. After the successful defeat of the Decepticons through a joint Autobot/human operation, Sparkplug was one of the "Magnificent Seven" - a crew of seven humans who would accompany the Autobots and their Decepticon prisoners on the Ark II back to Cybertron, which also including Americans mechanical engineer Mark Marsh and sociologist Linda Richards, Japanese biologist Akira Yashimura, German chemist Rolf Meyer, Russian architect Rudolph Vesic, and British Oxford Professor, Henry Lanson. Sadly, shortly after the Ark II departed Earth's atmosphere, it exploded as part of a plan by Shockwave, taking the lives of Sparkplug and the Magnificent Seven and thrusting the Transformers into stasis.
[edit] 2007 Film
Sparkplug will appear in the upcoming live-action film Transformers and will be played by Kevin Dunn.
[edit] Carly
A character unique to the animated series, sixteen-year-old Carly (maiden name unrevealed) first met Spike Witwicky in 1985 when he and Bumblebee were at a video game arcade. Spike was immediately smitten with the attractive girl, but left in a huff when she showed more interest in Bumblebee. Carly proceeded to follow the two to the testing ground of Wheeljack's newest invention, the Immobilizer, catching the attention of Ironhide and drawing him away from his security detail, enabling the Decepticons to attack. Ironhide quit his position over the incident, and, wracked with guilt, Carly pentrated the Decepticons' base in hopes of destroying it as some kind of penance, but instead achieved atonement by saving the Autobots when the Decepticons turned the Immobilizer on them, reversing its effects and winning the day.
Carly's other most prominent role in a Transformer adventure was when she and Spike travelled to Cybertron on a solo mission to recover the mineral Cybertonium to save the Autobots' lives from system degeneration caused by lack of the mineral. Escaping Shockwave and braving traps with the aid of the Dinobot, Swoop, Carly and Spike grew closer, and were awarded the rank of Honorary Autobot for the success of their mission.
Carly participated in a few more adventures, and the attraction between her and Spike blossomed into full-grown romance. The two were wed as they entered their twenties, and in 1993, Carly gave birth to their first son, Daniel. By 2006, Spike was functioning as Earth's ambassador to Cybertron, and Carly made several public appearances with him during important events such as the Galactic Olympics and an intergalactic peace conference. She was among the small group who travelled to the sorcerous other-dimensional realm of Menonina to track down Daniel and Grimlock, who had vanished there.
Carly was voiced throughout her various stages of life by Arlene Banas. She also continued to make brief token appearances in the Japanese Headmasters animated series. In the infamous Headmasters English dub, her name was warped into "Carrie."
[edit] Daniel
Another character conceived for the animated universe, Daniel Witwicky is the son of Carly and Spike, born in 1993. (Note that Daniel's age is not given in the series, but the script for the movie describes him as being 12 years old by the year 2005.) Living in Autobot City on Earth, Daniel was friends with the young Autobot, Hot Rod, as they broke the rules and had fun together in various ways.
In 2005, when Daniel was particularly feeling the absence of his father (stationed on one of Cybertron's moons), events soon escalated to epic proportions as a Decepticon attack on the city foreshadowed the coming of the planet-eater, Unicron. Watched over by the female Autobot Arcee for the majority of the adventure, Daniel was given his father's old transforming "Exo-Suit" battle armor when the Autobots' shuttle crashed on the Planet of Junk, and he used its powers to escape attacks by the Decepticons and Junkions, and to aid Springer in battle against Wreck-Gar. Arriving on Cybertron, the Autobots' craft was piloted directly into Unicron's massive body, where Daniel was separated from the Autobots, but discovered his father and several of Unicron's other victims and saved them from meeting a nasty end in an acid vat.
Subsequently, with Hot Rod now in the form of Rodimus Prime and consumed with the duties of leadership, Daniel made a new best friend in the form of new Autobot recruit Wheelie, and they got up to their fair share of trouble when they set out on their own to discover Ultra Magnus's birthday, and stumbled into the clutches of the Decepticons, necessitating rescue by the subject of their search. It was not the last time Daniel wound up in trouble, however, as he and Grimlock sound found their way to the sorcerous dimension of Menonia, where Daniel was imprisoned by the tyrannical Red Wizard. Not long after his return to Cybertron, he was kidnapped by the Quintessons, who sought to harness the unpredictable nature of humans against the Autobots by bringing Daniel's nightmares to life. Daniel was also able to aid the Autobots at times, acting as part of a plan to steal Trypticon's transformation cog.
In 2007, during a friendly race against Blurr, Daniel and Hot Rod worked together to achieve victory, proving one of the theories created by Autobot scientist Brainstorm - that Transformers and humans functioned better together than separately. Soon after, Daniel was among the Autobots and humans who were blasted to the planet Nebulos by the energies of the Plasma Energy Chamber. There, after the Decepticons followed them to the planet and attacked, Daniel attempted to defend Arcee and was mauled by Snapdragon, leaving him fatally wounded. Only the life-support equipment of the Nebulan rebels the Autobots had taken up with was able to keep him alive long enough for the incredible change that was to come. Brainstorm's idea of co-operation was taken to its ultimate extreme when idea Spike performed a procedure to bond some of the rebels and Autobots together as Headmasters to pool their abilities against the Decepticons and Nebulos's evil ruling "Hive." Additionally, to save Daniel's life, Arcee offered herself up as his Headmaster partner, and Daniel and she became bonded, Arcee's head transforming into a duplicate of the Exo-Suit Daniel had previously worn (though in one unusual animation error, when Daniel is seen inside her head, he is still wearing the exo-suit). In the resultant battles against the Decepticons, who duplicated the process, Arcee and Daniel were able to reacquire the stolen key to the Plasma Energy Chamber, but were captured by the Decepticon super-robot, Scorponok, and Daniel was tortured, forcing Arcee to give up the key. Spike - now a Headmaster himself - rescued his son and stopped the Decepticons' plan.
Daniel was voiced by David Mendenhall.
[edit] Headmasters
With the removal of "The Rebirth" from Japanese continuity, replaced with the Transformers: Headmasters series, Daniel never became a Headmaster on the other side of the Pacific - instead, he acted as the primary supporting human character of the series, appearing in almost every episode and regularly playing integral roles alongside Wheelie. Although by all rights supposedly older than he was in his American cartoon appearances, the Japanese interpretation of Daniel regresses his personality to a much more petulant, immature child who often bursts into tears; in that regard, much of the Headmasters series is actually about Daniel growing up and maturing.
After Fortress and his Headmasters joined up with the Cybertronian Autobots, Daniel and Wheelie snuck aboard their battleship so that they could see other planets, and although they were discovered, Fortress allowed them to accompany them on their missiont to Planet Beast. Daniel subsequently performing the remarkable act of saving Cybertron by planting the explosives that destroyed a gravity-warping metor that Galvatron had set on course with the planet. Daniel's tales of Earth ninjas helped expose the deception wrought by Sixshot, and when captured by Decepticons on Mars, he activated the homing signal that brought the Autobots to the planet.
When Spike attempted to hold a peace conference with Galvatron, the Decepticon leader demanded that he leave Daniel on Earth as a show of his good faith. Spike was willing to comply, until the peace conference was revealed as a distraction that allowed the Decepticons to get a heard start on pillaging other planets for energy. Daniel and Wheelie were then permitted by Spike to travel with Fortress and his crew when they set off in pursuit of the Decepticons across the galaxy, so that he might see more planets and grow through his experiences - sadly, it was mostly violence that Daniel saw, although such experiences helped harden him to the realities of war. He was offered one peaceful respite, however, when he met the beautiful young girl, Papika, on the planet of Paradise.
As the Autobots were chasing the Decepticons back to Earth, Daniel foolishly disobeyed orders and snuck into one of Battleship Maximus's weapons turrets, only for it to be damaged in battle and disconnected from the craft, sending Daniel plummeting to the deserted planet Diamond. Sixshot had also been caught in the storm that dragged him to Diamond, and he rescued the boy from the wreckage, much to Daniel's surprise. Sixshot explained that he might be a Decepticon, but he didn't kill children. In the subsequent adventure they had together, battling Diamond's dangerous native rock creatures, Daniel came to believe that Sixshot was an honorable warrior, and consequently attempted to stop the duel that ensued between him and Chromedome.
Back on Earth, natural disasters caused by Scorponok's plan to destroy the planet began to cause chaos, and Daniel proved to his father how much he had grown by rescuing his mother from the bottom of a cliff. Soon after, during the final battle at the North Pole, Daniel was defended against Decepticon attacks by Sixshot, and as Fortress Maximus was locked in combat with Scorponok, Daniel hit upon the idea of combining all the Transformers' and his energies with the Headmasters' Head Formation, channelling all their power into Fortress Maximus, who destroyed Scorponok's Transtector and won the battle. Daniel was then forced to say his tearful goodbyes as the Autobots left Earth to pursue the Decepticons into space.
In Headmasters, and the previous dubbed versions of the English cartoon series, Daniel was voiced by Tomiko Suzuki.
