Longtime 'Pokémon’ Voice Actor James Carter Cathcart Is Retiring Due To Cancer
The actor also served as script adapter starting late in the Johto era
The departure of Ash Ketchum from the Pokémon anime also marked the end for most if not all of his supporting cast. Fans eagerly awaited how the voice cast, especially of an English dub that had been through a complete overhaul in 2006, would be shuffled and reassigned to the new characters of Horizons. Unfortunately, word has come down that one of those actors, James Carter Cathcart, will not be along for the ride.
Cathcart, whose pseudonyms have included Jimmy Zoppi and Billy Beach, is retiring from the anime after 25 years due to a throat cancer considered very advanced. He has been with the anime since the very first episode “Pokémon, I Choose You!”, as he was the voice of Gary Oak, Ash’s rival. He would also voice other recurrers such as Todd Snap, Team Rocket scientist Dr. Namba, and President of the League Competition Committee Charles Goodshow, Azalea Town’s Poké Ball crafter Kurt, and memorable one-off characters like the Metapod-owning nameless Samurai (the show’s first one-off character), director Cleavon Schpielbunk, Tommy the Tarzan-esque Kanghaskhan-raised kid, elder twins Hagatha and Nagatha, and Jack Pollockson. As this was a 4Kids production for the first 8 seasons and 400+ episodes (as was the Chronicles spinoff), Cathcart did voice work for the company’s other shows, most notably as insect enthusiast duelist Weevil Underwood on Yu-Gi-Oh! and Vector the Crocodile on Sonic X, which he got to reprise for the Shadow the Hedgehog video game. During Pokémon: Master Quest, the fifth dub season, Cathcart became script adapter, a role which he would continue to hold.
When The Pokémon Company International took over the dub starting with season 9 and the dub underwent a major recast, Cathcart was not only retained, but his duties increased. He would voice main characters! That being Team Rocket’s James and Meowth, as well as Professor Oak, now voicing both grandfather and grandson. He succeeded Eric Stuart, Maddie Blaustein, and Stan Hart respectively, teaming him with Michele Knotz, who took over as Jessie. He also voiced a lot of Pokémon species, it’d be a lot to list.
As for the cancer that has brought an end to his journey, it’s been chronicled on CaringBridge, a website that acts as a personal journal for families of the ill to communicate health updates with people online. Cathcart’s page began in January, written by his wife Martha. She revealed the advanced cancer started in his tongue and spread into his neck. The cancer was treatable, and thus Cathcart was receiving chemotherapy treatments to do so and shrink the tumor. However, on an entry from Monday, April 17 they learned it “didn’t respond to the induction chemotherapy”. Doctors advised they would need a more aggressive chemotherapy method. This round is scheduled to start around May 1, with a regimen “seven weeks of five-day per week radiation therapy [and] simultaneous chemotherapy” every three weeks after the first.
The intensity of the treatments, and the direct impact on the throat, which is never great for a voice actor, led them to the decision to retire, finding it timely with Horizons’s wholly new characters and storylines. They “remain eternally grateful for your love, thoughts, comments, ‘hearts,’ prayers, and well-wishes”. Get well soon James, and thank you for your work, your dedication and your kindness.
