Wolfgang Draeger

Wolfgang Draeger bonds with Big Bird

Wolfgang Draeger (1928-2023) was a German actor and voice artist who dubbed Big Bird (Bibo) on Sesamstrasse. He stayed with the series for four decades, dubbing Big Bird in select specials recorded at Studio Hamburg and heard as other secondary characters as well (including half of The Two-Headed Monster). During the 1990s, he wrote script adaptations for sketches including "Colambo" installments and "The Adventures of Prairie Dawn: The Empty Box." Outside the show, Draeger dubbed Big Bird's clip in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial..

Draeger studied at the Berlin-Reinickendorf Conservatory for Music and Art. Beginning in 1953, he established himself as a familiar radio voice, and became the regular dubbing voice of such varied actors as Woody Allen, James Cagney, and Dudley Moore. He also dubbed Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Trans-American Express, Eric Idle as Sir Robin in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, George Harrison in The Beatles' films, Charles Grodin in Catch-22, Harry Dean Stanton in Repoman, Martin Landau in The Hallelujah Trail, and Roman Polanski in Chinatown. On TV, he dubbed Martin E. Brooks as Dr. Rudy Wells on The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, as well as Arte Johnson on Fantasy Island.

In animation, he voiced Inspector Gadget, the Clock King on Batman: The Animated Series, and Cheetah on Kimba the White Lion. He was a staple of German audiobooks and radio plays, often as comics characters (Popeye, the narrator in Asterix, and Prince Barin in Flash Gordon), or in mysteries (Chief Reynolds and others in the Alfred Hitchcock Three Investigators series, Horatio Mcintire in the Edgar Wallace series). His few on-camera credits include an episode of Direktion City and the TV movie Mein Gott, Willi! (with Dieter Hallervorden). His final Three Investigators recording was released in 2022.

External links

• Deutsche Synchronkartei - German dubbing credits
• Hoerspielland- Audio book discography