Joe 90 - Voice Cast

Voice Cast

In comparison to Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90 features a smaller cast, voicing just five regular characters. Like Captain Scarlet, the series has been viewed as more "English-sounding", the Andersons abandoning their stipulation dating from the production of Thunderbirds that the puppet cast be American and thus dispensing with the established format of their series' principal character being a "square-jawed, fair-skinned male with a Mid-Atlantic accent". Instead, in a manner similar to the Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 focuses on the strong American supporting characters of Sam Loover and Shane Weston.

• Len Jones as Joe McClaine, a nine-year-old adoptee who balances schoolwork with missions as a spy for the World Intelligence Network (WIN), using the aid of knowledge and experience captured by a brilliant invention, the Brain Impulse Galvanoscope Record And Transfer (BIG RAT). For realism, Joe is voiced by child actor Jones rather than an actress as had usually been the case for the representation of younger characters on earlier Supermarionation series. On the subject of female casting, Gerry Anderson recalled, "... it always sounded rather odd to me. It never sounded like a real little boy ... With Joe 90, I suggested finding a British kid and making him repeat the lines parrot fashion. That's what we did with Len Jones. His performance was only adequate, but at least it sounded authentic."
• Rupert Davies as Professor Ian "Mac" McClaine, Joe's adoptive father and inventor of the BIG RAT. At the time of production, Davies was well known for acting the leading role in the 1960s TV adaptation of the Maigret novels, and was the most distinguished actor yet to contribute to an Anderson series. Experiencing typecasting as a result of his earlier role as the fictional French detective, voice acting provided Davies with the opportunity to broaden the horizons of his career. In Gerry Anderson's biography, What Made Thunderbirds Go!, Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn credit Mac's "warm yet distinguished" English tones as a "perfect counterpoint" to the American voices of the characters of Sam Loover and Shane Weston.
• Keith Alexander as Sam Loover, a long-time friend of Mac and Deputy Head of WIN's London offices, whom Joe affectionately calls "Uncle Sam". Australian actor Alexander had provided voices for the second Thunderbirds film, Thunderbird 6, as a replacement for actor Ray Barrett. During the 1960s, he provided the voice for another puppet character, Topo Gigio, on The Ed Sullivan Show in the United States.
• David Healy as Shane Weston, the commander-in-chief of WIN's London Headquarters and Deputy Head of the international organisation, who has a penchant for feeble jokes. Healy, an American actor resident in the United Kingdom, had voiced supporting characters in Captain Scarlet, and was often contracted to play transatlantic characters in British television.
• Sylvia Anderson as Mrs (Ada) Harris, the McClaines' long-suffering housekeeper, who is unaware that Mac and Joe are members of an intelligence organisation. Anderson, whose voice had first featured in the 1961 series Supercar, was best known for voicing the character of Lady Penelope in Thunderbirds and its two feature films.

Supporting characters were voiced by Alexander, Healy and Anderson as well as earlier Anderson contributors Gary Files, Martin King, Jeremy Wilkin, Shane Rimmer and (for one episode, "Viva Cordova") Liz Morgan. Rimmer and Morgan, however, are not credited in the closing titles. Files recalls that he felt honoured to be asked to rejoin the Andersons for another production following Captain Scarlet, and that he was "tickled pink" to be performing with Davies, adding, "I hated the way that so many so-called producers wouldn't meet his eye. He was Maigret forever, you see, in their eyes." Morgan, meanwhile, explains how she was contracted for her single voice role in Joe 90: "They needed a voice, they called around and everyone else was out shopping. So they called me in."