Jason Ritter Surprised by Hearing His Late Dad John’s Voice on Animated Show (Exclusive)

Jason Ritter is forever impressed by all the work his late father John Ritter has done. 

Speaking to PEOPLE recently at the Poker Face Hollywood premiere on May 1, the 45-year-old actor says his dad’s presence is felt often thanks to his decades-long career. 

“There have been a couple of times” when he has been watching television and all of a sudden be surprised to see or hear his father on the screen, Jason said.

The Matlock actor tells PEOPLE, “There was a time where I was in a trailer and I was trying to get this TV to work, and it was all kind of fuzzy, and the only channel that worked was playing a King of the Hill episode, and it was my dad’s voice, and I hadn’t known that he had done that.” 

“And all of a sudden it was weird to hear his voice coming from this character. So I watched it,” Jason says. 

John is credited as playing a character named Eugene Grandy, a music teacher at Tom Landry Middle School on the animated sitcom.

“From The Waltons to Mary Tyler Moore, he was bouncing all over. Hawaii Five-O. M.A.S.H. — he has a great episode on that. It’s fun to see,” Jason tells PEOPLE.

His father became famous for his role as Jack Tripper on the ABC sitcom Three’s Company in the late 1970s. Additional credits include 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter and 1996’s Oscar-winning Sling Blade.

The Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning star died suddenly in September 2003 at 54. 

His death was due to a “dissection of the aorta,” a previously undetected flaw in the main artery from the heart, his publicists said at the time. John’s family later sued two doctors for more than $67 million in damages in a wrongful death trial that began in 2008; however, the doctors were cleared.

In a 2023 interview with SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show, Jason joked that his first-ever acting gig was tied to his father, flaunting his nepo baby status. 

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“As a little kid, when I was maybe 6 or something like that, my dad was doing this cartoon called The Real Story of O Christmas Tree,” he said. “I will say, without any hesitation, this was like a full-on nepotism hire. I will admit that. He for sure got me the job. I did try to stay away from that later.”

Looking back on the animated special, Jason said, “I got to play Little Acorn in The Real Story of O Christmas Tree, and he played my Uncle Piney. It was funny because, as I grew up and I found that recording again, I went, ‘Oh, they must have sped up my voice to make it that high.’ Both my mom and dad were like, ‘No, no. That was, yeah… It was pretty high. Jason, that was your voice.”