Bob Dermer(I)

Bob Dermer was born in 1946 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His mother, who had given birth to him at the late age of forty-six, opposed his wish to act, but despite this, at eight years old he was taken off to theater school and studied there until he was thirteen. He had a happy childhood in a happy city, save for the occasional nuclear alert. He had a happy adolescence, too, and did the school concert every year. In Thirteenth Grade he found an opportunity to audition for a television series called 'Milk and Honey' for CGOH in Ottawa. The part was for an old Russian man, and though Dermer was just a teenager, he had intruded on the audition anyway. "You're not playing the old Russian guy", said the director, "but we do have a part for a seventeen year old kid." Thus Dermer was cast in the series, and did two hundred episodes. After graduating, he had ten years' acting experience and did dance classes. Noreen Young discovered Dermer and hired him for the Union meeting, where he would be doing puppeteering. Dermer had never done puppeteering in his life and three months later he did a live puppet show for television. From 1967 to 1977 he did a series called "Pencil Box", working as a puppeteer. Young got Dermer onto TV Ontario, an educational series for children. On the show he met his fiancée, Nina Keogh, who was a fellow puppeteer. In 1980 he was cast as Ralph Raccoon, everyman, straight man and aviation geek, in Kevin Gillis' animated TV special 'The Christmas Raccoons', and went on to voice Ralph for the rest of the franchise. In 1985, the same year the 'Raccoons' TV series started, Dermer voiced Grumpy Bear in 'The Care Bears Movie' and through the years he voiced him in subsequent Care Bears films and series.