It has been 37 years since a beloved sitcom premiered, and what people didn’t realize at the time was that it would produce two of animation’s most beloved voice actors. Coach was a sports comedy sitcom about a college football coach at a smaller university, and it followed his assistant coaches and family as they maneuvered through the wild and zany world of college athletics. Airing for nine seasons and 200 episodes on ABC, the series starred Craig T. Nelson as Coach Hayden Fox and featured a hilarious supporting cast who would all become stars in television and movies.
However, what few fans could have realized was that two of these Coach cast members would become massive fan favorites in the world of animation voice acting. Craig T. Nelson became the voice of Mr. Incredible in Pixar’s The Incredibles. Bill Fagerbakke portrayed his student assistant Dauber, and Fagerbakke later voiced Patrick Starfish on SpongeBob SquarePants.
Coach Debuted 37 Years Ago and Starred the Voices of Patrick Starfish & Mr. Incredible
Image Courtesy of ABC
On Coach, the main plot followed Craig T. Nelson’s character, Coach Hayden Fox, as he coached a fictional college football team called the Minnesota State University Screaming Eagles. His father, now a college freshman, enrolls at Minnesota State to be close to her dad, who struggles to get used to the fact that his “little girl” is growing up. The best part of the coaching part of the series follows his relationship with assistant head coach Luther Van Dam (Jerry Van Dyke) and his special teams coach, Michael “Dauber” Dybinski (Bill Fagerbakke). Dauber was a kind-hearted, dumb jock who still hadn’t graduated from college yet.
What is most impressive is the career that Fagerbakke had after leaving Coach. The sitcom ended in 1997, and two years later, he joined the voice cast of the new animated series, SpongeBob SquarePants. He voices Patrick Starfish, and alongside Tom Kenny as SpongeBob, he has one of the most iconic voices in all of animation.
Craig T. Nelson had an amazing career after Coach, in both movies (The Family Stone, Blades of Glory) and TV shows (The District, Parenthood). However, in animation, he left a lasting impression by voicing Mr. Incredible in the Pixar animated hit The Incredibles and its sequel. While not as iconic as Patrick Starfish, it was still an amazing role and showed the talent from this fantastic 90s sitcom.
In some fun trivia, Craig T. Nelson and Bill Fagerbakke actually reunited in person on the TV sitcom Young Sheldon. In the fifth season episode, “Pish Posh and a Secret Back Room,” Nelson (who was a recurring star in Young Sheldon) met with one of his police officer buddies after Annie Potts’ Connie opened a secret gambling room. Fagerbakke stars as this police officer, Jake.
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