Raised By Cobra Commander

From as early as I can recall Chris Latta (real name Christopher Charles Collins) has scared me into feverish nightmares with his raspy evil voice. Anyone who grew up in Atlantic Canada during the early 1980s will no doubt remember the Rompa Room-action cartoon combos that would start at 6:00 am and feature Hercules and Astro Boy to give the kids a little blast of violence before heading off to kindergarten. It was during these much loved morning cartoon sessions that I first saw G.I.Joe. Needless to say my mind was blown.

I would sit there with my sister eating our cereal, eyes glued to the non-stop action. We knew full well that the antics of Flint and Lady J would be far, far more interesting than anything the abusive teachers would try to beat into our heads that day. With all its colorful, wonderfully stereotypical characters G.I.Joe had only one character that mattered to me. A character who’s voice would be ringing in my head all morning in school, and fuel my impersonation of him during recess. Cobra Commander.

As a kid I only got to see a handful of G.I.Joe episodes before it was replaced by Astro Boy. The damage however was done. Cobra Commander’s personality and voice had a massive impact on my 8-year-old mind. Keep in mind that Cobra Commander was leader of a terrorist organization bent on the destruction of the U.S. and the enslavement of the world. I didn’t care, he was a hero to me, and I wanted to be a member of Cobra so bad I was making my own uniform. My lifelong obsession with the military and villains started in the early mornings on CTV. It started with Chris Latta.

Had Latta only played Cobra Commander it would have been enough for me to always remember and appreciate him, but as I would learn, he had a villainous role that predated G.I.Joe. I wouldn’t discover it until a year or two later watching the amazing new wonder “Cable TV” at my grandmum’s house. We were watching a really wild space cartoon called Space Battleship Yamato. “Japanese Animation” was being broadcast in Canada since the late 70’s but it was still so early that people didn’t really even use the term yet. At any rate while watching Yamato I noticed (to the point of running around the room in hysterics) that a villain on the show called Sgt. Knox had the same voice as Cobra Commander. It was the same wheezy, sinister, cackling voice. The giant magical world of TV got a tiny bit smaller that day.

In the late 1970s voice acting, and cartoon production were still relatively pure art forms. Thankfully this was before Flash animation, child psychologists and Tipper Gore ruined it for everyone. So if you were clever enough you could make a villain on a cartoon as diabolical as you wanted to. I remember my old man getting such a kick out of Cobra Commander and Zartan’s fits of pure rage and threats of violence against even their own allies. It was like Jonny Quest all over again for him. Cartoons of this time were written and acted by men and ladies who had little interference from the networks. The bottom line was they worked for the toy companies, and if you ask me that never should have changed.

Just as Chris Latta’s voice acting career got rolling in the early 80’s a bizarre and miraculous thing happened. Due to the recession in the U.S. at the time the government told the FCC to back off and let toy companies do there own thing in the hopes of making some money. This created a window of almost unlimited freedom for smart companies like Hasbro and Mattel that lasted for almost five years. During this crazy time some of the best action cartoons the world had seen since the 1960s were made. Chris Latta was at ground zero for the whole party.

Transformers got its first season off just before the axe fell. I was lucky enough as a kid to have seen all of season one and two of this unforgettable animated masterpiece. Transformers seemed to play over and over, year after year and I am so grateful it did. This is where Latta’s greatest and most loved character was created. Most kids I knew who watched the Transformers loved the Decepticons and the Dinobots most of all, but most kids admiration was for the evil, deceitful, backstabbing, plot scheming, leader of “the Jets”, Starscream. Chris Latta’s performance as Starscream was incredible. He used some of the methods he had used with Cobra Commander, but cooled the rage down a bit in favor of a controlled and tactical sarcastic hatred. Starscream was not the leader this time but his attempts to obtain it were as entertaining as they now are legendary. Instead of Cobra Commanders unrivaled leadership Starscream was second, or more arguably third in command after Megatron and Soundwave. We had the pleasure seeing Starscream not only plot the destruction of mankind and the Autobots, but of his own leader as well. Evil and ambition no more apt a pupil than Starscream.
I could watch those Jets come screaming down out of the sky wreaking havoc forever. Nothing in cartoons has given me more pleasure than watching Starscream kill innocent humans on Transformers. Unrivaled entertainment.

Hasbro started to make so much money the had to stop counting it and start weighing it to see just how rich they had gotten from brainwashing kids like me. Not that I’m complaining, I like the number Hasbro and Mattel did on my brain. All that cash got people really pissed off and once the recession ended so did the party. The whiny nerdy voices of the FCC, the networks and the “frothing at the mouth with anger” parents groups got louder and louder until everything even remotely evil, violent, or scary had to go. Chris Latta’s characters and Hasbro animation continued on, but it was painfully obvious that the shows had been castrated of all that was good about them. The ridiculous Emperor Serpentor replaced Cobra Commander as Cobra’s leader. The once great Commander was now held in check until comic relief was needed. The ultimate disgrace forced on us all though lay in wait within Transformers the movie. As any kid who went to see it can tell you it was on of the saddest most disturbing things a child of the 80’s could have witnessed. It was like watching the friends you grew up with die; no it WAS watching the friends you grew up with die. Starscream along with countless others did not survive the “changing of the guard”. It was a god dam terrible time for kids animation and its only gotten worse since then.

Besides being cast as the original voice of C. Montgomery Burns on The Simpson’s it was in the early 90s that Chris Latta’s live action career started to pick up speed. Chris was a big intimidating man who often played the thug, mugger or tough guy on sitcoms like Married With Children and Seinfeld. Star Trek TNG and Deep Space Nine also got Chris several rolls. Although much like how he hid behind animation in the 80s Chris Latta continued to hide behind inches of foam latex makeup for his parts on Star Trek. It seems only fitting that Chris was playing aliens in costume. He was trained in mime and theater as most costumed performers are and brought a lot of skill to each of his memorable Star Trek roles. As much as I love the 60’s Trek I have to admit not liking Star Trek TNG or Deep Space nine very much. I actually hate them. Upon learning of Chris Latta’s roles on the show I tracked down and watched those few episodes but hell I love the guy. I’d watch all his TV commercials too if I knew where to get them.

Chris Latta Passed away on June 12, 1994 from a lost battle with cancer. He was taken from us just as his career was starting take off in live action TV. He was, in my opinion, one of the greatest voice actors animation was ever lucky enough to have and has hade more of an impact on me than any other actor I can think of. What Chris Latta accomplished in his short career as a player of villainous roles has created for him a legacy that will live on in the hearts of 80s kids forever. There will never be another like him.

Written by Cory Laffin

See the full list of Chris Latta's voice acting credits here.