As a labor dispute brews in Mexico over voice actors, the Spanish-language dub of “the Simpsons” is about to undergo a jarring change: all of the voice actors who dubbed the Simpsons voices in Spanish are being replaced.
“Los Simpson,” as the series is called in Spanish, has been a huge success throughout Latin America. The big question now is how viewers will react to an entirely new cast of voice actors for the coming season in July.
“I’m deeply disappointed because we did such quality work and now they’re using other people,” said Humberto Velez, who had been doing the voice of Homero Simpson for 15 years. “Every one of us has given personality to the characters and that’s because we loved what we were doing.”
The original cast, represented by Mexico’s National Actors Assn., or ANDA union, went on strike in February. But the labor feud dates back to September when Mexico City dubbing firm Grabaciones y Doblajes Internacionales started hiring “independents,” claimed Laura Torres, president of ANDA’s dubbing commission.
While this would mean nothing to most of the english-speaking audience that reads this, I imagine the show’s success in the US would come to a screeching halt if the dubbing cast we are familiar with were let go, and replaced with an entirely different group. “D’Oh!” just wouldn’t be the same.
(And conrary to popular belief, the English-language voice actors of the Simpsons have been the same ones for each character from the beginning… even Homer’s. Homer’s demeanor may have changed from the early abusive jerk to a stupid affable one, but the same actor voiced both.)