It has to be weird being one of the main voice actors on The Simpsons. Since the characters started in a mini-feature on The Tracey Ullman Show they've been at this for 38 years. The actresses who play the kids weren't really kids, of course, but they were young adults.
These people have all gotten ridiculously wealthy from doing the show, so it's not like they're going to grouse in public. But it probably hasn't escaped their attention that it's gone from a vital show to a pleasant show in extra innings to background noise. I'm sure they thought they'd all be on to other things by now.
2 comments:
The Simpsons has been around for so long I'd actually forgotten it began on the Tracey Ullman Show - in fact, I'd forgotten about Tracey too. Ah well, you're right that it started off with commentary about society that was surprisingly hilarious at the time and it stayed relevant for a good long while. By the time we decided to give up cable tv the only shows we watched regularly were baseball games and The Simpsons.
I imagine the voice actors for the family are looking forward to long, relaxing retirements by now. Do you suppose there's a group of depressed understudies who never had careers at all?
Not only did they start on The Tracey Ullman Show but Matt Groening wasn't even the only then-indie comics artist working on that show. M.K. Brown had a cartoon segment called Dr. N!Godatu. Turns out the Simpsons were a lot more accessible for most of the audience. In its heyday you could tell the people who made it were really enjoying their work. That, I'm sure, made it a lot more attractive.
That Fox still keeps it on speaks more to superstition than inspiration at this point. Yeah, they can all bask by the pool, or however they prefer to pass their time soon. It's not really the kind of thing where you have understudies, but there could well be disappointed auditioners.
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