John Ratzenberger is best known for playing mail carrier Cliff Clavin on the sitcom Cheers. He had read for the part of Norm Peterson, but after the audition, he could tell they weren’t going to give him the part. Sensing an opportunity, he asked if they had written a bar know-it-all, which the producers decided was a great idea. Cliff became known for his outlandish stories of plausible half-truths, irrelevant trivia, and ignorant misinformation, and was known for being an overall pretentious blowhard. Cliff and Norm, the primary customer characters, became iconic bar buddies. Ratzenberger provided the voice for an animated version of Cliff on The Simpsons 6th season episode “Fear of Flying”.
John has had a voice part in all of Pixar’s feature films made to date. His roles include:
•Hamm the Piggy Bank in Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010)
•P.T. Flea, the Circus Ring Leader in A Bug’s Life (1998)
•The Abominable Snowman in Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Monsters University (2013)
•School of Moonfish in Finding Nemo (2003)
•The Underminer in The Incredibles (2004)
•Mack the truck in Cars (2006) and Cars 2 (2011)
•Mustafa the Waiter in Ratatouille (2007)
•John in WALL-E (2008)
•Tom the construction worker in Up (2009)
•Gordon the Scottish Guard in Brave (2012)
He also voiced the bathhouse’s assistant manager, Ao-gaeru, in the English dub of Spirited Away, a film whose U.S. executive producer was Pixar’s John Lasseter. Ratzenberger had the chance to make fun of his tenure at Pixar during the end credits of Cars, where his character, Mack, watches car-themed versions of Pixar movies (“Toy Car Story”, “Monster Trucks, Inc.”, and “A Bug’s Life”), notes that all the characters Ratzenberger has played were excellent, until he realizes that they’re the same actor, at which point he remarks, “They’re just using the same actor over and over. What kind of cut-rate production is this?”
Ratzenberger’s favorite of his Pixar characters was P.T. Flea, because “in real life I always get a kick out of those kinds of characters, people who just go into a rage for [no] explicable reason. He was always on edge. His blood pressure was always way over the top, and everything that he did was done in a panicked state. So it was a lot of fun to play him.”
John produced and hosted “Made in America”, a show for the Travel Channel, which established a television precedent and led the way for a new series of shows including: “Dirty Jobs”; “Deadliest Catch”; “Ice Road Truckers”; and more. These shows celebrate the work ethic that built America to be its strength.
John co-authored We’ve Got it Made in America: A Common Man’s Salute to an Uncommon Country, which was published by Time Warner.
John is on the boards of Pepperdine and Sacred Heart Universities.
John also developed packaging alternatives made from biodegradable and non-toxic recycled paper as a safe alternative to Styrofoam “peanuts” and plastic bubble wrap.
John currently recurs on Legit on FX. He recently shot episodes for Bones on Fox, CSI on CBS, Drop Dead Diva on Lifetime, and Franklin and Bash on TNT.
Ratzenberger’s work for Pixar, as well as his parts in Superman and The Empire Strikes Back, makes him the 6th most successful actor of all time, as measured by a total box office of over $3,000,000,000.