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Comments: 260 +- Entertainment: Futurama Voices Could Be Recast on Friday July 17, @07:15PM
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Svippy writes "According to reports surfacing on the Internet, Futurama may be recast. The animated series is due to return next year on Comedy Central, but may not be the same as we once knew it. 'As part of the announcement, the show's producers said stars including West, Sagal and DiMaggio had all signed on to return. Turns out that wasn't true. The stars had all expressed interest in returning. But with the budget for Futurama dramatically slashed, the salary offers came in well below what the thesps were asking.' Phil LaMarr posted 20th Century Fox's request for auditions on his Facebook page. However, some are skeptical about whether it's a real casting call or purely a stunt to reduce the salaries of the voice actors."
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ob (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ob (Score:5, Informative)
I love how the 'goodnewseveryone' tag is being negated - and replaced by 'badnewseveryone' - by people who obviously don't understand that the phrase is supposed to be ironic and prescient of bad news.
Hand your nerd cards in at the door, please. You know who you are.
Parent
Re:ob (Score:4, Insightful)
Take a look at the "tags" around here. Assume I could click on them to find more stories with those tags -- oh, I can't. I click on them and NOTHING HAPPENS.
But let's assume I could. Typical tags are "haha", "whocares", "ohno", or crap like "badidea", "goodidea", and so forth. Who the HELL actually says, "Gee, I want to read more stories on the subject of 'haha', I'll just click on that... there we go..."
Forget tags. They are useless in general, and slashdot's implentation of them is doubly useless.
Parent
Re:ob (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the tags here serve one useful purpose: they provide a quick indicator of most Slashdotters' opinions related to the article. After all, a time-honored tradition around here is not R'ing TFA. With tags, now you don't have to read the comments, either.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Are you sure that wasn't "Bad news, nobody"? Why even say anything and risk your nerd card?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
'Bad news, everyone' usually implied something that impacted Farnsworth himself, or news that the crew would not be sent on some suicidal task.
If it sucked for someone else, it was usually good news. :)
Re:ob (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what Slashdot is all about, two comic book store guys battling it out :D
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Idea (Score:2)
Re:Idea (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Very effective! They could probably cut the voicework for three really low-budget episodes out of that.
Other articles worthy of reading (Score:5, Informative)
I want to point people to the following articles as well:
Both making very compelling cases.
Re: (Score:2)
What I'm finding confusing is that when Futurama first appeared, certain corners of the net made a big deal about how unlike The Simpsons, Groening actually wholly owned Futurama.
Which makes me wonder why Fox are involved at all when it's on a different network.
Or perhaps TVLand is just a lot more complicated than I realise.
Comentary (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Comentary (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention that Billy West - especially - and John DiMaggio have mentioned in numerous interviews how much they care for that show. Billy West once stated it was "the best gig he ever had [tv.com]".
Would they really risk the entire show for some money, when they care so much for it? Of course not. I am personally beginning to suspect this is not a trade negotiation issue, but a publicity stunt to get Futurama on everyone's lips again.
It also puts a lot more real to Comic-Con 2009's Futurama description [comic-con.org]:
1:00-1:45 Futurama: Life or Death?!" Be a part of sci-fi history! Join executive producers Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, and stars Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, and Maurice LaMarche for high-stakes thrills as a top-ranking FOX executive decides live, on stage, whether Futurama will make yet another triumphant return or whether it is gone forever! The very fate of Futurama hangs in the balance! Paramedics will be standing by in case the intense excitement causes any panelists to collapse. Raucous celebration or abject despair to follow the news. Ballroom 20
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Re:Comentary (Score:5, Insightful)
Would they really risk the entire show for some money, when they care so much for it?
I've had some jobs I really enjoyed. The products were good, the people were great, and I loved my time there. If they called me right now and offered me less money than they used to pay me, I wouldn't go back.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
look at it this way, they got canned from one job they did very well and now the boss wants them back. It's obviously only going to be one season maybe two tops. While they get royalties, it's really just one paycheck, one time and it means moving across the country for several months only to not have a job when you're done, and possibly giving up other career-building NEW work. The studio gets to keep selling episodes and collecting ads for years to come.
Re:Comentary (Score:5, Informative)
With very rare exception, television shows are renewed in public and cancelled in private. Since this is a VERY public thing at Comic-Con, the conclusion is foregone. If the cast were fired live on stage, agents would be filing lawsuits on behalf of their humiliated clients within seconds and the executive would be lynched in the hallway. The audience, who would obviously be ticked off, would resent FOX. Why send an executive on a PR mission to intentionally piss off your viewers and draw the ire of the SAG?
So, here's the result: Everyone makes nice, and the show is renewed with the original cast. There might even be a movie deal to up the ante. If there was any doubt about this, there would be no Comic-Con thing at all.
Nothing to see here. Publicity Stunt. Move along.
Parent
Not watching without original cast. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Watch some anime; you'll get used to it.
NO I demmand the original japanese cast with subtitles!
Re: (Score:3)
Cowboy Bebop was much better in English.
That's becuase it's fairly old. It's only in the past 5 yeats or so that they've really mangled english speaking anime in the attempt to get it across the pond quicker.
Why not just make them sound the same? (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's hope they decide to bring in folks that sound the same (or very similar) if they do recast. Having different voices would be pretty lame.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny timing for this as I've introduced my kids to The Real Ghostbusters, a show where both Venkman and Janine's voices changed.
Venkman sounds like someone doing a very bad immitation of Lorenzo Music (which of course they are) whereas Janine's voice (the lovely Kath Soucie) is actually MUCH better as it's not as squeaky in the "channeling Annie Potts" way the former one was.
voices (Score:5, Funny)
In just about every anime, cartoon series, and live-action where they've tried to swap one actor's voice for another, the series usually tanks not long after the switch is made. The only thing worse for a series is to get someone pregnant, involve a baby, or suddenly tack on a female lead or support role when one previously wasn't present. Or a consult with Joss Whedon.
Re:voices (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, although it does seem that [Joss Whedon's] involvement, while not lowering quality imho, does seem to doom some shows. Why is that?
If you listen to what fans are saying about Dollhouse, a lot of people think the first few episodes were pretty mediocre - one fan said the first five episodes were like five different pilots. But then things started to improve, and by the end of the season the show was absolutely great. Alan Tudyk's performance in the last two episodes was brilliant.
Now look at the ratings. The first few episodes did pretty well, but then the numbers start going downhill, and the final episode got the worst ratings of the season.
If Joss' involvement dooms a show, it's not because he lowers the quality. It's because the majority of the audience would rather be watching Friends reruns.
Parent
Good news everybody! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, this isn't good news at all.
Seriously, the voice actors in Futurama gave their characters heart and soul. It's not just that the actors are good (they are, of course) but the characters have grown along with the actors, such that in my mind, and in the mind of many fans I am sure, the two are inseparable.
Without the original cast, I won't be watching, simple as that.
It's going to cost more money in the long run to produce an abject failure than to put more money into the show from the start and hoping the fanbase comes back.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Without the original cast, I won't be watching, simple as that.
That's what we said about Star Trek. And yet, we keep going...
Re:Good news everybody! (Score:4, Interesting)
It could even breath some life into the series, the last two DVD releases felt like the current story-lines were running out of gas (Leela-Fry relationship, Nibbler's true identity, etc). Bender's Game really seemed like the writers out of ideas.
Parent
Obviously... (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously the executives didn't take the Torgo's Executive Powder jokes all that well...
Good news everyone! (Score:5, Funny)
I've invented a device which makes you read this in your head, in my voice! [geekstir.com]
Which is a good thing because you won't actually be hearing my voice while you watch the show! Better turn subtitles on, mwa?
Re:Good news everyone! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Speech-to-text (Score:3, Insightful)
They have what, 100+ hours of speech recorded for Futurama, presumably the original masters as well? Probably 1,000 hours of speech for each character on The Simpsons on masters. Not to mention accurate closed captioning for the voicings. How hard would it be to write an algorithm to cut and paste the correct words (picking the correct word inflection based on word placement in the sentence/context - presumably there are angry, happy, elated, monotone versions of most words, and the sound files can be edited to convincingly make them sound in context) together? Sure, you'd have to hand-synthesize the occasional odd word or celebrity-head-in-a-jar's name, but we're probably not very far off from being able to fire the voice actors after the third season of a dialog-driven cartoon.
Re:Speech-to-text (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hello... Smithers... You're. quite. good. at. turning. me. on."
I'll give you a hint. If that were in any way possible, we'd be seeing it now. At least for some show like "Pokemon" where the dialog tend to be extremely simple.
We'll see truly convincing computer-generated people long before we'll be hearing them.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If that were in any way possible, we'd be seeing it now.
Actually in a limited scope is is possible to synthesize the speech of a real person. The only problem is that the researcher who came up with the system was DARPA funded and his project went black after it was initially reported on in the media. There was some footage of him with a recreation of Whoopi Goldberg's voice saying novel things. This is a technology that the spooks want exclusive control over for as long as they can.
Meep (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
At this point it's still cheaper to pay high quality voice actors than it is to replace them with software. We have the technology (heck we have software now that can decompile individual strings on a guitar (inside a chord, no less), voices and other instruments and retune the individual notes, remove, add or modify guitar riffs, choruses, bridges etc - google Melodyne or "direct note access" or just watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFCjv4_jqAY [youtube.com]), we just need a person and time to write the p
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Speech-to-text (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Speech-to-text (Score:4, Informative)
I believe it is Season 10, Episode 1 (The Return of Chef). http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/1001/ [southparkstudios.com]
This was after Isaac Hayes quit in a huff over SP's treatment of Scientology. The SP boys made a fairly nice "send-off" episode, but since Hayes had already quit, they used the library of his voice clips to do this episode. It is hilarious!
Parent
Casting notice (Score:5, Informative)
I work in the business and I saw a casting notice for this go out yesterday. Right now (if you're a member) you can see the notice on a site called Actor's Access here [actorsaccess.com] and the sides are up on Showfax [showfax.com].
Casting notices for shows like this almost never appear on a site like that (it's a step above Craigslist), so my best guess this is a negotiation tactic to convince the cast to accept contracts that pay less, in line with the reduced budget for the show.
Hmm (Score:3, Funny)
It just won't be right without Wakka as Bender :)
Zapp Brannigan! (Score:3, Funny)
They could replace ... the kids, the rasta dude, the japanese chick, etc.
They could find an even sexier Leelaaaah... Leeluuuhh... Lee-Laaa.
Severely-reduced pay (Score:3, Funny)
Tall Tell Sign (Score:3, Funny)
If they all have East Indian accents, then the question is answered.
So how are they going to explain the new voices (Score:5, Interesting)
on the show? The crew gets into a horrible accident that requires them to get voice box transplants, and Bender's voice gets erased and he is programmed with a different one.
This is almost as bad in a TV series when an actor or actress is replaced with a different one, and it usually happens to Soap Operas and really Cheesy TV shows. The only TV show to do this on a regular basis and still survive was Saturday Night Live, who kept reinventing themselves with new comedians.
Re:So how are they going to explain the new voices (Score:4, Informative)
Bewitched switched "Darrin Stephens" from Dick York (1964-1969) to Dick Sargent (1969-1972) and did well. Even spun off a few shows and cartoons.
Man, am I dating myself.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
on the show? The crew gets into a horrible accident that requires them to get voice box transplants, and Bender's voice gets erased and he is programmed with a different one.
What a nice idea. If this recasting turns out to be a bluff, I'd love to see them poke fun at it for the opening of the first new episode...get random people the mail room, HR, etc., to voice everybody for the first 5 minutes (or something similar).
Of course if they actually recast, I expect it will go down in flames...I just can't see it being the same.
Opportunity for improvement (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe this (or the more normal work schedule of a normal series rather than the "movies"), will get some of the voice actors to return to their original form.
I think that some of the actors (particuarly Phil LaMarr, interestingly) never quite got the hang of their old characters again.
Losing the old cast would still be a death blow to the show, though.
Re:if someone knows the amount (Score:4, Interesting)
20th Century Fox Television claims the voice actors wanted 75,000 dollars per episode. Which is apparently close to ten times as much as usual.
This seems extremely unlikely by these people, who love and worship the show, that they would risk its stability for their own greed.
My assumption is that 20th Century Fox Television is either making stuff up or playing some gag.
Parent
Re:if someone knows the amount (Score:5, Informative)
20th Century Fox Television claims the voice actors wanted 75,000 dollars per episode. Which is apparently close to ten times as much as usual.
According to whom? The Simpsons actors reportedly earn $400,000 per episode. [telegraph.co.uk] Sure, $75,000 might be ten times what a voice actor earns for an episode of an afternoon kids' cartoon, but we're talking about a prime time show.
Parent