It is not unsuccessful. It was picked up for a second season and I believe did quite well in the first season. His character was written to be killed off in the pilot but has been around for multiple flashbacks. I’m sure his time on the show isn’t done.
Most of the voice actors from the Simpsons were mined from live action Fox shows of the time. Tracy Ullman (where it started) and Herman’s Head mostly.
Comedian Lewis Black has done several live action roles but most of his acting work has been on cartoons.
The thing that gets me about Clancy Brown - as least as far as his “image” as a bad guy vs real life - is this:
In 1999, he spearheaded a charity campaign to raise funds for J. Madison Wright, the young girl who played his screen daughter in the television series Earth 2 (1994). Madison, then aged 15, had developed cardiomyopathy and was in dire need of a heart transplant, a very costly operation which exceeded her family’s lifetime health insurance policy. Clancy offered to assist the Wrights in their plight. He also bought young Madison a laptop computer for Christmas in 1999. Tragically, Madison died seven years later, in July 2006, of a heart attack.
My own contribution to this thread has to be Tara Strong. I’ve only seen her in one live-action role, but her voice-over work in cartoons and video games is almost unparalleled.
Yes, but when Herman’s head debuted in 1991, The Simpsons already had been on the air for a couple of seasons. Smith and Azaria were already known as Simpsons actors.
Tim Matheson was another actor who did voice work as a child (he was the voice of Jonny Quest and Jace on Space Ghost) and then did live action work as an adult (probably best known as Otter on Animal House or Vice President John Hoynes on The West Wing).
