She also did miscellaneous voices in World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. She voiced Catalina Thorn, the leader of the Cell in Crackdown 2. She voices Medusa in the game Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS. She was also the voice of Tandi in Fallout and First Citizen Lynette in Fallout 2, Tatjana in Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits, Lady Belgemine, Young Tidus and additional voice-overs in Final Fantasy X, Lenne/Calli in Final Fantasy X-2, Storm in Marvel Super Hero Squad, Cynder in The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, Magma in X-Men Legends, and the Inca Princess Micay in Pitfall: The Lost Expedition. She voiced Auriel in Diablo 3, and reprised the role for Heroes of the Storm. She performed voice over for the games Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Black, as well as Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. Summer is a frequent co-star of Canadian-American actress Tara Strong the two are childhood friends, both having grown up in Toronto, Ontario.
She later joined SpongeBob SquarePants spinoff The Patrick Star Show, where she voices Patrick Star's mother plus Squidward Tentacles' grandmother.
In December 2016, Summer reprised her role as Penny from Inspector Gadget in an episode of the web-series, Nostalgia Critic. She also played a role in Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated as Lady Marmalad in the episode "The Haunting". Summer has regarded the character of Kida as one of her favorite roles and even considers the character among the official Disney Princess line. She also voiced Princess 'Kida' Kidagakash for the franchise of Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Among her most famous roles was in Inspector Gadget (Season 1) as Penny (a role she reprised in the Robot Chicken episode "Adoption's an Option"), WB's Tiny Toon Adventures (1990) as Elmyra Duff (which she reprised for Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain) and Mary Melody, Aka Pella in WB's Histeria!, Susie Carmichael in Nickelodeon's Rugrats and its spin-off All Grown Up!, Cleo the Poodle in PBS Kids' Clifford the Big Red Dog, Miranda from Nickelodeon's As Told by Ginger, Foxxy Love in Drawn Together, Dulcy the Dragon in Sonic the Hedgehog, Valerie Gray in Nickelodeon's Danny Phantom, Numbuh 5 in Cartoon Network's Codename: Kids Next Door, Penelope in Barbie as Rapunzel, octogenarian villain Granny May on WordGirl, Tiff from Nickelodeon's My Life as a Teenage Robot, and Blackarachnia in Transformers: Animated. These have spanned video games, cartoon television series, animated films and commercials. Summer voiced over 101 animated characters between 19. In these lighter episodes, Cree voiced the sweet and helpful Chilly Cooper, the neighborhood ice-cream woman and innocent love interest of Slimer. Episodes had a lighter tone designed to be less serious and frightening. The show was changed to be more youthful.
Apart from guest appearances on other live-action television shows such as Living Single and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Summer's professional work since has been limited to voice acting.Īt the start of the third season of A Different World in 1988, the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters episodes were expanded from their original half-hour format to an hour. In the fall of that same year, Summer and her A Different World co-star Jenifer Lewis starred in the prime time drama Courthouse, which was cancelled two months after it premiered. She was cast in the short-lived television series Sweet Justice in 1994 until its cancellation in 1995. She remained a regular cast member of the show from 1988 through its end in 1993.ĭuring the run of A Different World, Summer continued working in voice acting. In 1988, Summer was cast as the freespirited Winifred "Freddie" Brooks in The Cosby Show spin-off A Different World.
Many of these were part of cult franchises, like The Care Bears Movie (1985) and Ewoks (1985, part of the Star Wars franchise). Her unique, throaty voice was instantly recognizable to viewers, as well as casting agents, who began frequently casting her in animated programs. Summer's acting career began in 1983 when she was cast as Penny in the first season of the original version of Inspector Gadget. Her brother, Rainbow Sun Francks, is an actor and a former MuchMusic VJ. She and her family also traveled and lived around British Columbia during her childhood, and she started public school at the age of nine in Toronto. Her parents are Don Francks, a Canadian actor and musician, and Lili Clark from North Richmond, California, an African-American adopted member of the Plains Cree First Nations. Summer was born in Los Angeles, California, on July 7, 1969, and grew up on the Red Pheasant Reserve in Saskatchewan.