Buck Ice Age: The One Eyed Weasel and His Voice Actor

Buck is a one eyed weasel who has lived for years among the dinosaurs of a hidden jungle under the ice, and Simon Pegg gives him his voice. He is a weasel, not a ferret, so that question has a plain answer.

He is introduced in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009), directed by Carlos Saldanha, as a daring adventurer who knows the lost jungle better than anyone. His look comes down to the missing eye and a swagger that suits a survivor of that jungle. The credits list him as Buck, with Pythagorus Buck and Robo Buck as extra credited names in Ice Age: Collision Course.

Buck is credited in four films: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012), Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) and Ice Age Buck Wild (2022). Pegg is billed fourth in Dawn of the Dinosaurs, eleventh in Collision Course and first in Buck Wild, while his Continental Drift credit sits further down the cast list. ABC7 reports that he has voiced Buck since the third film in the series. By the time of the Disney+ spin-off he was the only returning voice actor from the theatrical films, according to Wikipedia, since Manny, Sid, Diego and Ellie were recast there with Sean Kenin, Jake Green, Skyler Stone and Dominique Jennings.

If you are mapping the whole cast, the Ice Age cast page lists every voice, and the Ice Age characters index links the rest of the herd.

Buck appears in four films, and across the ones where he has a story he moves a little further from lone survivor toward working with the herd. In Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012), directed by Michael Thurmeier and Steve Martino, he is credited further down the cast list, while the main story follows Manny, Sid, Diego and Granny drifting out to sea on a slab of ice. His last choice before that film was to stay behind in the lost world.

Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009). Sid is dragged beneath the ice by the huge mother of the three Tyrannosaur eggs he adopted. Manny, Diego, Crash, Eddie and Ellie follow, and in the lost jungle they meet Buck, who has been locked in a feud with an albino dinosaur called Rudy. He guides the group toward Lava Falls, where Sid is held, while Ellie goes into labor during an attack. Once Sid is saved and Peaches is born, Buck is invited to join the herd. Rudy's roar shows the beast survived the fall off the cliff, so Buck stays below and seals off the lost world.

Collision Course (2016). Directed by Michael Thurmeier, this film brings Buck back when asteroids threaten the Earth. He finds an old stone pillar showing that past extinctions came from asteroids and that the next major impact will land near an ancient volcano. He then works out that the asteroids are electromagnetic, which gives the herd the idea of using crystals to pull the main one off course. Late in the story he persuades Gavin's family of flying dinosaurs to help instead of fleeing.

The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild (2022). Directed by John Donkin and released on Disney+ on January 28, 2022, this spin-off puts Buck first in the cast. Crash and Eddie wander into the Lost World after an avalanche, and Buck rescues them from raptors. He explains that Orson, a small Protoceratops, was banished for his ambitions and has returned with a pack of raptors. Buck is captured, Crash and Eddie team up with Zee and a Tyrannosaurus called Momma, and the herd joins the fight.

Buck's closest ties are with Crash and Eddie, with the wider herd as a second circle, and with Rudy and Orson as his enemies. In Dawn of the Dinosaurs he meets Manny, Diego, Ellie, Crash and Eddie when they come into the lost jungle looking for Sid, and he guides them toward Lava Falls, where Sid is being held.

The bond with the possum brothers is the one the later films build on. In Buck Wild he is the old friend who pulls Crash and Eddie out of danger, and the brothers eventually decide to live in the Lost World. Manny, Sid and Diego are the herd he joins forces with again in Collision Course, and Sid is the one the group is trying to reach when Buck guides them in his first film. Ellie and Peaches are linked to him through the birth that happens while he is guiding the group.

His rivals are Rudy, the huge albino dinosaur, and Orson, the banished Protoceratops who returns with raptors. In Collision Course, Gavin is a more complicated case: he starts as someone who wants to leave the rest of the world behind, and Buck talks him into helping.

Buck is alive at the end of every film he appears in, and his story so far closes with him still in the Lost World. At the end of Dawn of the Dinosaurs he chooses to stay below to keep Rudy in check and to block the way to the hidden world, while the herd returns to the surface.

Collision Course ends with the asteroid pushed away from Earth by the crystal fueled eruption, and the film closes at the wedding of Peaches and Julian. Buck Wild closes with Orson beaten and the Lost World safe again, and Crash and Eddie settling there while Manny, Sid, Diego and Ellie promise to visit often.

Ice Age: Boiling Point is set for a US theatrical release on February 5, 2027, according to TheWrap, and the film is in production. Buck's most recent appearance remains the end of Buck Wild.

In my opinion, Buck's best moment is his first one, because Dawn of the Dinosaurs gives him the job of turning a rescue into a jungle adventure. A one eyed weasel locked in a feud with an albino dinosaur is a bold way to enter a series about mammoths and sloths, and Simon Pegg gives him plenty of swagger.

My second pick is the stone pillar in Collision Course. It could be argued that this is the most useful thing Buck ever does, since his reading of the pillar and his idea about electromagnetic asteroids is what sets the herd's plan in motion. Persuading Gavin's family to join the effort is a smaller scene, but it shows a character who has learned to bring people in instead of keeping the lost world to himself.

Third, perhaps, is the rescue in Buck Wild. It is a neat reversal of his first film: this time the lost ones are Crash and Eddie, and he is the one who knows the territory. If you are new to him, start with Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs, then move to the Disney+ film. The Ice Age movies in order page shows where each sits.