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Last night, Tess Hightower, wife of actor Richard "Dick" Gautier announced some sad news on her Facebook:

Dick quietly passed away tonight

He was 85.

Dick Gautier was best known to Transformers fans as the voice of Rodimus Prime (and Hot Rod) in the third and fourth seasons of the Generation 1 cartoon, as well as the voices of Apeface, Firebolt, and the Quintesson scientist from "The Killing Jar".

Outside of Transformers, Gautier was also the voices of Sepentor on the Sunbow version of the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon, Spike the dog in The Tom & Jerry Kids Show, Louis on Foofur, the Sogmaster in the Cap'n Crunch commercials, and more. He even once filled in for Adam West as Batman in a 1972 PSA commercial. His most famous live action roles were arguably Hymie the robot in the original 1965 Get Smart TV series, and Robin Hood in the 1975 TV mini-series When Things Were Rotten.

Rest In Peace Mr. Gautier. You provided great talent to our favorite shows. You shall be missed.

It's unfortunate that we have to report on news such as this. Tess Hightower, the wife of Richard Gautier has made a simple Facebook post to announce the passing of her husband at the age of 85.

Dick quietly passed away tonight

To many of us, Dick Gautier was the voice of Rodimus Prime/Hot Rod from the G1 cartoon as well as Apeface, Firebolt, and the Quintesson scientist from "The Killing Jar".

Some of you may even remember Mr Gautier as "Hymie", the KAOS built robot that eventually changed sides and became a part of CONTROL alongside Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 in Get Smart.

He had an extensive acting career both in front of the camera and behind the microphone and camera.

The staff of Seibertron.com pass on our condolences to Mr Gautiers wife and family.

Sad to see him gone. My condolences to his family and friends. I don't have much more to say about this.

Oh man, I loved Hymie when I watched Get Smart reruns when I was a kid. RIP.

I was so blown away back in the day when I found out that Hymie from Get Smart voiced Hot Rod/ Rodimus Prime for season 3/4 of the G1 cartoon. An amazing talent with a long and storied career.. Huge cauldron of win. RIP.

Last year my cable provider added the Buzzr network, which is all old game shows. My sister and I love watching it and was pleasantly surprised to find that Dick was a panelist on a few of them, notably a late 70's show that featured celebrity couples called Tattletales.

i liked the movie version of hotrod better. but he did a great rodimus on the show. rip

This is really sad. I've always loved the character and had hoped to meet him someday. My deepest condolences to his family.

I always thought the voice for Rodimus Prime was spot on for the character.

this is indeed sad news, but I was unaware of his age. Even when seeing him on the interview for the "Matrix" box set S!F put out in 2009 would have put him at 76-77, he certainly did not look his age at the time. It's also odd to think they chose an older actor, to represent a much younger character in Transformers. But I guess that's one of the wonderful things about animation. He will be missed definitely.

o.supreme wrote:It's also odd to think they chose an older actor, to represent a much younger character in Transformers.

As Hot Rod, yeah, but maybe they wanted Rodimus Prime to have a more grown up and matured feel to him.

Well considering Judd Nelson IRL is 28 years younger (even as he was Voicing Rodimus Prime), and no, I'm not suggesting they should have used Nelson in the series. I know the celebrity voices in TF:TM could not have continued on in the regular series, but as I said, that's the wonderful thing about animation; you aren't limited by your appearance, if you can project a voice that is believable, not matter your age, gender, ethnicity etc... you can "BE" that character. It is a talent I have come to admire considerably.

But I'm saying, since Rodimus is "older" than Hot Rod, maybe they wanted Rodimus to sound "older" and more grown up, and so cast the older Dick Gautier to voice him for possibly that reason.

Hot Rod's a young character, but Rodimus is all wrinkles in the face.

Sabrblade wrote:Rodimus is all wrinkles in the face.

Hey! HEY! HEY! Watch it, Know-It-All.

RIP Mr. Gautier, you gave voice to my favorite cartoon character.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Rodimus is all wrinkles in the face.

Hey! HEY! HEY! Watch it, Know-It-All.

Wha? Dat how he get all da ladies. Dem wrinkles o' his are manly.

Maybe all the ladies who have daddy issues...

still sad about his passing, I had hoped to meet him someday.

o.supreme wrote:this is indeed sad news, but I was unaware of his age. Even when seeing him on the interview for the "Matrix" box set S!F put out in 2009 would have put him at 76-77, he certainly did not look his age at the time. It's also odd to think they chose an older actor, to represent a much younger character in Transformers. But I guess that's one of the wonderful things about animation. He will be missed definitely.

I know this is a big bump, but I have the matrix dvd box set, and on the special features, it doesn't feature the interviews with the voice actors, even though it has all 16 discs.

PopCultureGeek2063 wrote:

o.supreme wrote:this is indeed sad news, but I was unaware of his age. Even when seeing him on the interview for the "Matrix" box set S!F put out in 2009 would have put him at 76-77, he certainly did not look his age at the time. It's also odd to think they chose an older actor, to represent a much younger character in Transformers. But I guess that's one of the wonderful things about animation. He will be missed definitely.

I know this is a big bump, but I have the matrix dvd box set, and on the special features, it doesn't feature the interviews with the voice actors, even though it has all 16 discs.

It's on Disc 11. It's a roundtable discussion with eight G1 voice actors titled "The Headmasters: Voicing the Robots in Disguise".

^ Definitely check that first. Alternatively, sadly, there have been bootleg versions of the Matrix set produced, which may not contain all the supplementary material. You can tell in that The Matrix Box is made of very shoddy material. It's sad because bootleg DVD's are becoming more and more prevalent and harder to decipher on sites like Amazon and eBay. Pirates are getting better at copying DVD's (not always the purple dvdr's anymore, they can actually press DVD), and they can make packaging similar to the genuine article.

The best advice I can give is that, if the price of something seems to good to be true, it probably is. I've watched a few sets of different TV shows on eBay recently. Before I bid, I inquire of the seller if these are genuine licensed dvd's. If I get no response, that pretty much is all I need to know.