Ghostbusters Cast Spotlight - Frank Welker in The Informant! (2009)

Welcome to another entry in Spook Central's ongoing "Ghostbusters Cast Spotlight" feature. Each entry in this series showcases a cast member from the Ghostbusters universe (film, television, and video games) in a role that you may not be familiar with. Maybe it will be from a long-forgotten movie, a television appearance before they were a Buster, or some really weird bit part that I'm sure they no longer include on their resume! There is a SPOILER WARNING if you read this article, as I am likely to go into plot details. With that in mind, let's continue...

Frank Welker is best known to us Ghostheads as the voices of Ray Stantz and Slimer in The Real Ghostbusters, and for a guest appearance as Ray in the series finale of Extreme Ghostbusters. He's also a veteran voice artist dating back to the late 1960s and is, quite frankly, the voice of many people's childhoods. While he does most of his work behind a microphone, he is no stranger to appearing in front of a camera. This is especially true back in the 1970s when he made numerous appearances, such as in films starring Elvis Presley (The Trouble with Girls [1969]) and young Kurt Russell (The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes [1969] and Now You See Him, Now You Don't [1972]). For a particularly fun live-action Frank appearance, check out the Don Knotts' film How to Frame a Figg (1971).

Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, Frank's live-action roles and appearances were far and few between. That's why when the late, great Doreen Mulman broke the news in mid-2009 that Frank was to appear, in the flesh, in Steven Soderbergh's new film, The Informant!, it was super exciting. As I noted in a Spook Central blog post on August 28, 2009, this was Frank's first live-action movie role in 37 YEARS! As far as I can see, as of 2026, it is also his most current live-action movie role and may, one day, be his last.

In The Informant!, Frank plays Mr. Whitacre, the father of lead character Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon). Late in the film, in a scene lasting under a minute, Frank appears opposite Candy Clark, as his wife. Ironically, for a guy who has made a career out of doing voices, he has almost no lines of dialog. (The video below, which is his entire appearance, includes optional English subtitles pulled from the official Blu-ray. The original Blu-ray rip of the scene, with embedded English subtitles and movie and commentary audio tracks, is available on the Spook Central Patreon page.)


There isn't much to the scene, so there isn't much to grab images of. All of the images below can be clicked on for the full 1920x1080 Blu-ray frames.







Frank is mentioned in the Blu-ray commentary by director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns.


The Informant! (2009) is available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD. The Blu-ray and 4K releases have the commentary track and "Additional Scenes" as extras, while the DVD loses out on the commentary. Just avoid the movie-only "Rental" DVD, unless you don't care about extras.