Tom Bodett

Thomas Edward Bodett, born February 23, 1955, in Champaign, Illinois, is an American author, voice actor, woodworker, and radio personality. Raised in Sturgis, Michigan, he became closely associated with public radio, where his plainspoken voice found a natural home. As a host, correspondent, and panelist on programs aired by National Public Radio, he built a career around conversation, humor, and an ear for ordinary life.

Bodett is best known to many Americans as the voice of Motel 6. In 1986, while he was building houses in Homer, Alaska, and contributing to NPR’s All Things Considered, a creative director at the Richards Group ad agency heard him on the radio and hired him to record a Motel 6 commercial. During that recording, Bodett ad-libbed the line, “We’ll leave the light on for you,” which became the chain’s signature sign-off. He has been the Motel 6 spokesperson ever since, with his voice later used for wake-up calls, podcasts, and national advertising campaigns. In June 2025, he filed a $1.2 million lawsuit against Motel 6, claiming a missed annual payment under a contract due to end in November 2025.

His broadcast work reached well beyond advertising. Bodett hosted The End of the Road from 1988 to 1990 and Bodett & Company in 1993. In 1999, he began The Loose Leaf Book Company, a radio program built around author and book interviews, discussions, and dramatizations. He contributed to The Bob Edwards Show on XMPR and became part of the panelist group on NPR’s news quiz show Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!. On television, he hosted Travels on America’s Historic Trails in 1997, appeared in Animaniacs, had a brief cameo in Pinky and the Brain, and narrated Wakko’s Wish in 1999.

Bodett also wrote books for adults and younger readers. His published works include As Far As You Can Go Without a Passport, Small Comforts, The End of the Road, The Big Garage on Clear Shot, The Free Fall of Webster Cummings, America’s Historic Trails, Williwaw!, and Norman Tuttle on the Last Frontier. His first children’s book, Williwaw!, was published in 1999. The titles alone point to a writer drawn to roads, frontiers, homes, weather, and the comedy of daily living.

Place and practical work shaped much of Bodett’s public character. He lived and worked in Alaska before becoming a national advertising voice, later settling in Dummerston, Vermont, where, as of 2013, he was a member of the town’s board of selectmen. After moving to Vermont, he took up woodworking. In 2019, he co-founded HatchSpace, a nonprofit workshop in Brattleboro where residents can use tools and work with others. That mix of radio, writing, local service, and making things by hand helps explain the warmth people hear in his voice. His most familiar line lasts because it sounds less like a slogan than a human courtesy: “We’ll leave the light on for you.”