D'oh! Discord in Springfield

From my silly/entertainment/etc. news box on Walmart Connect:

The people whose voices bring to life Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Moe, Apu, Mr. Burns, and the rest of the residents of Springfield have stopped work in a bid to force a settlement of lengthy contract renewal talks, report Daily Variety and Reuters. The six actors have not shown up for two script readings in the past few weeks, which has held up production on the upcoming 16th season of the "The Simpsons."


Daily Variety quoted insiders with the cast members' demands: Each is asking for about $360,000 an episode, up from the current $125,000 each now earns. That amounts to $8 million for the 22-episode season. The three-year contracts for Dan Castellaneta (Homer), Hank Azaria (Moe, Apu, Comic Book Guy), Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns and others), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Julie Kavner (Marge) and Nancy Cartwright (Bart) expired several months ago. Their representatives have tried to negotiate new ones with no success.



This has happened before. It was 1998. The actors were making $30,000 an episode, and they stopped work to get more money. The show's producer, Twentieth Century Fox TV, fought back by trying to replace them. Fox hired casting directors in five cities and found new actors who could replicate most of the voices before the two sides worked out a deal and resumed production.

 

And on a side note; Where are the new seasons of The Simpsons on DVD? I have had the first three seasons for awhile, but it seems that they have stopped there. Does anybody know when the next season will be released?

 

Replicate...yeah right. Bye bye Simpsons if the voices change.

 

Season 4 comes out on June 15, according to TVshowsonDVD.com. Rumor has it that Conan O'Brien and Jon Lovitz are among the commentators on the commentary tracks. It takes longer for the Simpsons sets because they are so filled with commentaries, and the principals are still working on the show (at least a lot of them are).

On the "strike," remember when the cast walked out a few years back, both sides worked things out. Replacement voices don't work (for example, Maude Flanders), I just wonder if this is a negotiating ploy for the upcoming feature film that has been much talked about ...

 

Speculation is that this is just the usual strong arm talk from both sides, and everybody expects a resolution shortly. Don't get too uptight about it yet.

 

I hope the actors get the raise they're asking for. It's too much money, but they're contributing to a show that is worth billions to Fox and they don't have any profit participation. I also hope that the writers are well-paid because they deserve as much credit as the actors.

 

They should just have some dounuts and chill
Peace-
Norm

 

Exactly....

Kermit's never sounded quite right since Jim Henson passed away

 

Remeber early episodes of the Simpsons? Homer and a few others had different voices, but now they sound alien in the re-runs.

 

I'm OK w/ them taking so long. The DVD's are packed w/ extras plus they have to concentrate on the curent season.
I wish people would stop complaining about or else we are going to get shoddy packages w/ little or no extras.

 

Agreed, but at least it was the same actors. This happens with all cartoons, I believe. The performance changes over time. Even shows with fairly short runs like Beavis & Butt-head had very different sounding voices from beginning to end, and that was all Mike Judge. Hearing the new Bugs Bunny (or Muppet characters), I find, is more disconcerting than the several variations of Mel Blanc's (or Henson's) voice. It's probably the reverse now for kids who saw Space Jam first.

 

I think Mr. Groening said it best in the commentary for either season 1 or 2 in relation to a character Phil Hartman had voiced. He said they decided to retire the characters when Phil passed away instead of trying to get anyone else to do them justice (that is not an exact quote). I feel exactly the same way about the rest of the characters voices and the actors that do them now. There is acting that goes on with these characters that is beyond just sounding the same and that really cant be substituted.

 

Dispute settled-

http://cnn.aimtoday.cnn.com/news/st...912607507.htm&sc=1401&photoid=20040414NYET118