Simpsons creator Matt Groening is finally appearing as a guest for the first time on this Sunday's show:
- Although Groening's image has appeared on "The Simpsons," including a framed photo on the wall of Comic Book Guy's store, this will be his first speaking role on the animated series, Fox said Wednesday.
In the episode, titled "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," Principal Skinner gets cold feet before his pending nuptials and his fiancee, Edna Krabappel, calls off the wedding. Skinner asks Homer to help him win her back, while Marge convinces Edna she can do better.
Edna rebounds into the arms of Comic Book Guy, who whisks her off to a sci-fi convention. While at the convention, they run into Groening - guest-starring as himself - who is signing autographs for his fans. [AP]
Meanwhile, Groening may end up as the only voice available for the show if the voice actors can't be appeased in a pay dispute:
- Mr. Simpson and his family of subversives have, by the estimate of accountants employed by the actors who supply their voices, earned Fox upward of $2.5 billion as the stars of one of the longest-running prime-time series in television history.
Now those actors are demanding their share of the wealth. Insisting that "The Simpsons" would not be the same without them, the professionals behind the voices of Homer, Bart, Marge and the show's other animated characters are holding out for the kind of financial rewards earned by actors on hit sitcoms like "Friends" and "Frasier."
Hollywood executives say that the actors' insistence on not just a near tripling of their salaries - to $8 million a season - but also on a share of the show's profits is a first for an animated series, a genre that studios and networks have counted on for predictable costs and peaceable casts.
....The fall season for "The Simpsons," normally 22 episodes, will be cut short because of the contract impasse, the Fox executive said. "We can't saddle the show with costs that make it uneconomical to produce," he added.
But money is not the only issue. At stake in the negotiations over "The Simpsons" is a potential precedent that could color the broadcast networks' competition with cable networks, which increasingly schedule cutting-edge animated shows aimed as much at adults as at children.
....Animation might play a much smaller role on television if voice performers were to be paid as much as actors who appear in the flesh.
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
Since the lead time on the series is about eight months, the two things don't really go together. But you forgot the first clip special where Groening was portrayed as a crazy old fascist with an eye-patch.
Wasn't there a voice walk-out (I think it's known as a "shushing" in the trade) a couple of years ago?
2 - Eric Olsen
Yes, the two stories appearing at the same time is purely coincidental - I make small joke.
Whether he has appeared before, they claim not, but that's all I know.
3 - jadester
More to the point, why would such a dispute change the way other comedy cartoon series work? The Simpsons is rather unique in the lenght of time it has been running for - far longer than most animated series. It's also rather large as far as brand names go. Why shouldn't the talented voice actors get a share of the profits?
4 - TDavid
I am guessing that FOX can get impressionists at a fraction of the cost and (most) viewers will not know the difference and that this is the reason for the FOX holdout.
Let's not kid ourselves that voice acting is not the same as character (with voice) acting. They should be paid fairly and I think $125,000 an episode (for each or all of them?) is a job that they'll have highly skilled voice impressionists lined up a mile long to apply for.
I wonder if Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams have gotten paid the same kind of money for voice acting as they have for the character acting? In the case of some of Eddie Murphy's recent flops, he should be glad he has the voice acting talent.
The writing and animation makes The Simpsons what it is, and is the reason that it has lasted so long. They should pay those folks the most, IMO.
There is no other 30 minute show that has the amount of comedy and takes such wild shots -- and gets away with it -- at stereotypes in TV history. It pokes fun at pretty much everything, of which the writers have a neverending supply of content.
Couple that with the fact that the "actors" never will get old and the voices ability to be replaced and you have a recipe for a show that may go 20+ years if Matt Groening wants to take it that far.
Unrelated but did anybody see that piece about Yeardley Smith (?) having an eating disorder? Yikes, that was nasty!
5 - Jim Carruthers
Eric, ifa you make-a the liddle joke, you should add a liddle meat-a ball.
Hey, Guseppi, get the kid some-a red sauce!
6 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
One of my fave simpsons jokes - and one of the bitterest, has Homer watching animated shows on telly. "Networks love animated shows because you can keep changing the actors and no one will notice" At this point Ned flanders walks past the window and says hiddily ho, in a gruff, very deep baritone. Priceless. As for fans not noticing if Impressionists were used, Hey, go back to season 1 and tell me you dont notice Homers voice is all the wrong in the world. And that was the same guy! Come to think of it, maybe season 1 got it right, and ever since its sucked cause he sounds nothing like that. Who the hell knows?
7 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
argh, i meant impersonators. What the hell would impressionists be doing on the simpsons? "No, Monet, Homer is yellow, damn you, not whispy green!"
8 - Al Barger
Fox could not get away with replacing this set of voice actors. Probably most animated shows could, but this set is uniquely famous.
The studio TRIED to do this several years ago during a similar contract dispute, but in fact most of the major voice talent apparently wanted NOTHING to do with destroying this show.
Some argue that the actors are already making a couple of million dollars a year for their voice work, and that this is already a great deal of money. This is true enough.
However, SOMEBODY is making BILLIONS of dollars on this show over decades from bunches of directions, the network broadcast, syndication, merchandising, advertising.
No, most likely the studio has to make a deal with these actors, or just call it a day. However, I doubt the actors want to shut it down any more than the network does. This show is the central achievement of the lives of every person involved, and they fully well know it.
9 - TDavid
Al, I disagree that the actors couldn't be replaced. Voice talent is just not as valuable. What if one of the "voices" had died? You are suggesting that they wouldn't have replaced that person and that the series would have suffered somehow, some way?
If so, then I totally disgree. Hate to say it but the voice talent is pretty much expendable.
Wait until they can computerize the speech and make it more human-like and the computer actors will be completely cut out of the loop in animated series. Perhaps not in our lifetime, but someday.
As for somebody making billions of dollars? So what, that's what they call capitalism. The networks gamble financially on projects all the time and if the gamble is good they make the bank, as is the converse (lose the bank). I have no problem with Matt Groening and company as well as Fox getting wealthy off The Simpson's enterprise.
As I said before, give a raise to the hardworking animators which include the hand done cell shading and writers, but the voice talent? They deserve to be paid commisserate to their talent and involvement which I think at the quoted $125,000 an episode is fair.
If they want to get greedy and expect to be paid for more than their fair sure of involvement in the show (come on, Al, they are reading from a script what to say), then I'd cut them loose and do a season with scabs.
It might be funny to watch The Simpson's Scab season. They have been known to poke fun at themselves and this would be a prime opportunity to do so.
Now if they are doing more than just the voice acting like offering script suggestions and dealing with the writing aspect of the show then naturally I would agree that more money was due them.
But cut the voice of Homer into the profits of the entire show just for being the talented guy who has read Homer for all these years?
Sorry, don't think so.
10 - Jim Carruthers
I really only have two words: "Mel Blanc".
11 - Mr Parsons
yes i would rather enjoy different voice talent for a spell, like the missing episodes of Colin Baker era Doctor Who, i was, for a while feeling that the simpsons were fading but recently my joy and satisfaction at this show has reached new heights. long may it continue, giving those crazy kids something else to aspire to, as writers not chip put-togetherers. long may my caommand of th eenglish language continue.
12 - Bill Sherman
The amount the voice actors (most of which do more than one regular voice on the series: while Hank Azario and Harry Shearer are best known for doing a variety of characters, Dan "Homer" Castellaneta, for instance, also does the voice of Krusty, Barney and Grampa Simpson) are asking for is still pretty minuscule compared to the bucks Fox is making. My guess is that actors and network'll reach an agreement: it's still way cheaper than what the cast of Friends is making now.
The show has had a regular cast member die: Phil Hartman, who played actor Troy McClure and lawyer Lionel Hutz. Once he was gone, the series basically retired his characters - a pretty classy act.
13 - bhw
Kermit the Frog and Ernie are just not the same since Jim Henson died.
Seriously, the voices are similar, but different, and it's noticeable to those of us who remember the original. Just as noticeable as the new Darren [or whatever his name was] on "Bewitched."
The voice actors have created those voices for those characters -- the voices are part of the characters and not a separate entity from them. Anyone who replaces them as a scab would be copying, if not stealing, the creative work of someone else, in my opinion.
I doubt that the voice actors "own" those voices, but they should. It's probably work for hire, though.
14 - Shark
I hate to say it, but The Simpsons has been jumping the shark the last few weeks, and this could be a nail in their coffin.
15 - Eric Olsen
The Mel Blanc and Muppets examples are instructive: the replacement voices for each have watered down the franchises irreparably. Voices can be as distinctive and irreplaceable as live action characters and surely that has become the case with The Simpsons. In a show that revels in nuance and inside jokes, replacement voices would be utter disaster. The producers and talent need each other - if they don't meet somewhere in he middle they are all fools.
And quality-wise, I have thought on numerous occasions over the years that the show was waning, but it never has and I don't think it is now either. Besides, there's nothing like it.
16 - jadester
one thought that popped into my head when i first heard about this was:
maybe, just maybe, the voice actors involved are thinknig along the lines of "if they don't give us what we're asking for, let's call it a day"
I haven't seen any indication of this, but it's not impossible that they may share the views of a significant portion of the fans, who believe the show has only deteoriated in the past year or so.
17 - TDavid
The costs cannot be discounted in this discussion, which it seems that so far they have been. I doubt Fox has taken home 40% of the overall Simpson's franchise take (which would be over 1 billion dollars).
You can't pay someone more than what their contribution is worth. I am not suggesting the voice actors aren't talented and important, but I am questioning whether they should make money from the sale of a coffee cup with the character where they provide the voice.
I've put the rest in the trackback.
18 - SWE
come on give tem the money. $360 g's is nothing. them friends niggas is making like $2 million an episode, seinfeld was offered $5 million an episode for a 10th season. fox makes like $1 million per minute in advertising and their is like atlast 10 minutes in advertising per episode. plus the simpsons is what made fox hot, now they have american idol and other shows, but before the simpsons their was nothing. thats undervalued at $360,000 an episode, they should be making more.