Friday, November 3, 2023

Godspeed Richard Moll

Richard Moll, who played Bull Shannon on the classic sitcom Night Court and was the voice of Two-Face on Batman: The Animated Series, died on October 26 2023 at the age of 80.

Richard Moll was born on January 13 1943 in Pasadena, California. He majored in history and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated in 1964 and served as a deputy probation officer in Alameda County and later in a ladies hosiery store in San Francisco. He moved to Los Angeles in 1968 to pursue an acting career. He made his film debut in 1977 in Brigham. He made his television debut in a guest appearance on Welcome Back, Kotter in 1978. In the late Seventies he guest starred on the shows The Rockford Files, How the West Was Won, Happy Days, Bigfoot and Wildboy, B.J. and the Bear, The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Bad News Bears, and Nobody's Perfect. He appeared in the movie Cataclysm.

It was in 1984 that he began playing Bull on Night Court. He remained on the show for all of its nine seasons. He guest starred on the shows Best of the West, Here's Boomer, Laverne & Shirley, Code Red, Bret Maverick, Mork & Mindy, The Fall Guy, T.J. Hooker, Remington Steele, Fantasy Island, Alice, Just Our Luck, The Dukes of Hazzard, The A-Team, Santa Barbara, The Facts of Life, Sledge Hammer!, My Two Dads, Monsters, 227, The Munsters Today, and Out of This World. He provided a voice for the movie American Pop (1981). He appeared in the movies Caveman (1981), Liar's Moon (1981), Hard Country (1981), Evilspeak (1981), The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982), Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983), Under Arrest (1983), Ragewar (1984), Night Train to Terror (1985), House (1985), Survivor (1987), Pulse Pounders (1988), Wicked Stepmother (1989), and Think Big (1989).

In the early Nineties he continued to appear as Bull on Night Court. He provided the voice of Two-Face on Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, the voice of Norman on Mighty Max, and The Scorpion on Spider-Man. He provided additional voices for The Legend of Calamity Jane.  He was a regular on the shows Getting By and 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd. He guest starred on the shows Highlander; Martin; CBS Schoolbreak Special; Due South; Hercules: The Legendary Journeys; Babylon 5; Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman; Baywatch; Weird Science; Married with Children; 7th Heaven; Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and The Parent Hood. He was a guest voice on the animated shows Freakazoid!, Aaahhh!!! Real Monsters, Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child; Superman: The Animated Series; The Incredible Hulk; and Cow and Chicken. He appeared in the movies Driving Miss Crazy (1991), Let's Kill All Lawyers (1992), Sidekicks (1992), Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars (1992), Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), Storybook (1994), The Flintstones (1994), No Dessert, Dad, Till You Mow the Lawn (1994), Beanstalk (1994), Galaxis (1995), The Secret Agent Club (1996), The Glass Cage (1996), Jingle All the Way (1996), The Elevator (1996), Little Cobras: Operation Dalmatian (1997), Living in Peril (1997), Snide and Prejudice (1997), Me and the Gods (1997), The Survivor (1998), Monkey Business (1998), Foreign Correspondents (1998), But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), Shadow Hours (2000), Big Monster on Campus (2000), That Summer in L.A. (2000), and Flamingo Dreams (2000).

In the Naughts Richard Moll guest starred on the shows Smallville and Cold Case. He was a guest voice on the animated series The Zeta Project, Justice League, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. He appeared in the movies Dumb Luck (2001), Spiders II: Breeding Ground (2001), Evolution (2001), Scary Movie 2 (2001), Angel Blade (2002), No Place Like Home (2002), The Work and the Story (2003), Cats and Mice (2003), Uh Oh! (2004), The Biggest Fan (2005), Diamond Zero (2005), Angels with Angles (2005), Nightmare Man (2006), Headless Horsman (2007), Christmas Cottage (2008), and Love at First Hiccup (2009).

In the Teens he appeared in the movies Assassin's Code (2011), DisOrientation (2012), Sorority Party Massacre (2012), Hemingway (2012), Jurassic: Stone Age (2013), Bffs (2014), Kids vs. Monsters (2015), Razor (2016), DaZe: Vol. Too (sic) - NonSeNse (2016), Circus Kane (2017), and Slay Belles (2018). He guest starred on the shows Anger Management.

Richard Moll also provided voices for several video games, including The Adventures of Batman & Robin Activity Center, Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game, Outlaws, and The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.

It is safe to say Richard Moll will be best remembered as Bull on Night Court. He was perfect in the roll of the gentle giant who was very protective of Judge Harry Stone (Harry Anderson). As great as he was as Bull, it must be kept in mind that Mr. Moll played many other roles in his career. Aside from Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hammill as The Joker, he gave arguably the best performance on Batman: The Animated Series, portraying prosecutor Harvey Dent, who becomes the supervillain Two-Face. In the horror comedy movie House he played Big Ben, a soldier who died in Vietnam and returns from the dead. In The Sword and the Sorcerer he played the sorcerer Xusia. One of his best performances was in the comedy But I'm a Cheerleader, in which he played Larry Morgan-Gordon, a gay man who with his partner Lloyd (Wesley Mann) helps teenagers escape from a conversion therapy camp. Of course, he had a gift for voice acting, and he played a wide range of characters in animation, from Spider-Man's enemy The Scorpion to The Hulk's opponent The Abomination. Richard Boll was a wonderful actor who played wide array of roles throughout this role, and played all of them well.

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