For gamers of a certain vintage, Jon St John’s voice is instantly recognisable. His performance of Duke Nukem is iconic—he delivered lines as ridiculous as “Your face, your ass, what’s the difference?” and “Nobody steals our chicks… and lives” with a gravelly intensity that honestly they probably didn’t deserve.
So it tickled me to stumble upon Jon’s TikTok account today and discover that he’s taking requests. For a couple of days now he’s basically been reading out in the classic Duke voice any line a commenter asks for, like a sort of free and chaotic version of Cameo. It seems to just be the latest burst of activity in a long run of being Duke-y on the platform.
It’s a deluge of filth, of course, though that’s at least in keeping with Duke’s persona. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Mr Nukem say “This guy eats corn the long way”, “I’m straight jorken it” or “When the boss makes a million I make a buck, that’s why I crank my hog in the company truck”, then congratulations—and hey, if you head over and comment, he’ll probably read whatever nonsense you’ve just dreamed up too. Just please don’t make him talk about Skibidi Toilet.
I’d somehow also completely missed that Jon owns a Duke Nukem puppet (the “Duppet”) which he uses to voice even more one-liners. I’d be tempted to make a joke there about the man having a lot of time to kill after the series ended, but credit where it’s due—he’s actually still pretty busy in the world of games. In the last few years he’s appeared in Ion Fury, the This is the Police series, and (regrettably) taken on the lead role in Postal 4. It goes to show: there’ll always be a place in this industry for a man who can say literally anything with a straight face.
