Oh, yeah! Voiceover Pat Duke wins the voice of icon Kool-Aid Man over New York’s best actors

Chicago voiceover veteran Pat Duke bested more than 100 New York actors to win the role of one of advertising’s oldest and most famous icons: The “Kool-Aid Man,” who famous breaks through walls shouting, “Oh, yeah!” whenever summoned by thirsty children.

Duke’s “Oh yeah!” will resound on four TV spots from Ogilvy & Mather, New York, bowing in February.

Duke is thrilled with his latest assignment. “This is a big deal,” he says Duke, speaking from New York where he spent the month auditioning and recording. “The Kool-Aid man is an icon, right up there with Tony the Tiger.”

The two words Duke will voice belong to a large, frosty pitcher filled with Kool-Aid and marked with a finger-painted smiley face on it that appears in Kool-Aid advertising.

Duke was called by his New York Innovative agent, Allan Duncan, for the Kool-Aid audition in early January. He says he knew he nailed the job, but being superstitious, he put in the back of his mind. “If you think you’re going to win, you don’t,” he says. And then he wore a big smiley face when his agent called with the good news.