I believe Matt (?) mentioned how the gift bags at the Oscars are no more. This is a little ray of hope.
After we watched Ice Age 2 the other night (Mom's decision), I got to thinking about an article I had read a while back. It consisted of interviews with various cartoon voice actors complaining about the recent wave of celebrity voices. Up until the Shrek era, it was quite uncommon for a Hollywood star to voice a character in an animated film. After all, the skills needed for each type of work are quite different.
Lately all of these 'original' voice talents have been getting no work due to Raymond, Eddie Murphy, Queen Latifah, etc. stealing it all. It seems these Hollywood types really get a kick out of not having to get all made up, and perhaps starring in something that their children can appreciate. It seems nowadays that even the minor characters are being voiced by celebrities. Watched the Ice Age 2 credits, it seemed only characters with 1 line were given to a 'pedestrian'. Personally, I'm not a big fan of this. Sometimes it's useful and appropriate to have a Mike Meyers as a Shrek character, but most of the time (re: Queen Latifah...) it just distracts. And now I feel bad for all these out-of-work voice actors who were probably not making much to begin with.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
As someone who watches a lot of animated shows (a lot) and listens to many many commentaries, I have heard this sentiment before. The voice actors get upset when a big name star comes in and replaces them and that star is a terrible voice-actor. It makes the other voice actors look bad. Truly great actors are great in animated movies. Look at Mike Myers in Shrek - he makes that movie. Tom Hanks in Toy Story, but one of the best examples is Billy Crystal and John Goodman in Monsters Inc. They have such chemistry in that film - without that it wouldn't be as good as it was.
On the other hand, some animated shows fall flat because of poor voice performance. I'm struggling to think of one off hand because generally I don't own any of those :) Could you imagine Paris Hilton in an animated show? It would not be good. I draw the parallel to bad actors: if you see a bad actor in a film, they are still and unnatural. Passable actors move beyond that. Great actors fit any situation like they were born to it. Some big stars are passable actors, so as voice talent they suck because they can't act that well.
Bottom line - studios pull in big-name stars as insurance in case a risky "animated" project doesn't do well. We know that this reasoning is flawed and can result in a bad movie. Big name stars attract big attention, especially if it flops. Studios don't like losing money so voice actors are hurt. QED.
We're certainly a long way from the heyday of Mel Blanc, Stan Freberg, June Foray and Daws Butler. TV seems to be the domain of the voice actor these days. Their names aren't quite as well-known, but several come immediately to mind nevertheless: Frank Welker, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Billy West... there are even some that didn't appear on Futurama. :)
There are still some great voice actors on the radio too, although you'd be hard-pressed to find any broadcasts off of the CBC (or on it, for that matter). For some reason you don't see the Drew Barrymores and Eddie Murphys lining up to get on the wireless... odd, that.
Post a Comment