Every single computer animated feature released these days comes complete with a cast of celebrity voices. Who started this trend and when did become popular. Was it Disney?
My best guess would be it started before computer animation. Angela Lansbury in Beauty and the Beast (1991) must have been something of a hit with audiences. Then the following year with Robin Williams in Aladdin stealing the show it looked like they were on to something.
The All-Star cast of Toy Story (1995) really seemed to set the trend.
Were there earlier examples of celebrities lending their voices to animation?
Did it start before computer animation? Hell yes Disney’s Jungle Book 1967 The guys I know were famous at the time were Phil Harris (Baloo the bear) and Louis Prima (King Louis - king of the swingers :)) Possibly others in the cast were too but IANAOTCB*
The first examples that come to my mind are Eva Gabor in The Aristocats (1970), and Peggy Lee in Lady and the Tramp (1955).
You also find other people of the time (who were often known for non-animated work) providing voices as well: Sterling Holloway, Scatman Crothers, Paul Winchell, Stan Freberg…
The voice cast of Jungle Book were probably the first celebrities (and Sebastian Cabot (Bagheera) and George Sanders (Shere Khan) were in there, as well). But they were all non-hip oldsters, wrt to the audience.
Robin Williams probably gets the nod as the first “good get” animated voice. Before he did Aladdin, he was in Ferngully.
Whoever did it needs to be shot- it is singlehandedly ruining animated films. Maybe they are more popular than ever, but at the sake of artisitic integrity.
The problem is not having famous people doing voices. The problem is having people do voices solely becuase they are celebrities.
Compare Pixar movies to basically all other animated movies and you’ll see what I mean. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen may be big names, but they are fantastic as Woody and what’s-his-face.
The 1960s???
Come on, Jack Benny and the other members of his show all contributed voices to the 1959 Warner Brothers cartoon The Mouse that Jack Built based on their TV show.
But before that, Edger Bergen and his characters provided voices for Disney’s 1947 Fun and Fancy Free, as did Dinah Shore. They weren’t doing character voices, but the fact that these were Bergen and Shore’s voices on the soundtrack surekly contributed to its commercial draw.
The 12934 Betty Boop cartoon Poor Cinderella has a Rudy Vallee caricattre singing, but I don’t know who did the voice (maybe they just used a record of Vallee. IMDB ain’t saying, and neither is anybody else):
Actually, it’s possible the first famous voice chosden for an animation character might have been Cliff Edwards, who sang as “Ukulele Ike” (a name Dopers should be familiar with), and had a brief speaking part in Gone With the Wind as a wounded rebel soldier in the hospital, before he got chosen as the voice of Jiminy Cricket for Disney’s Pinocchio. I have no idea how popular Edwards was, though, and whether he was well-known before this role or not.
In my own lifetime, the voiceovers for animation that were previously Big Names were
Frankie Avalon for Alakazam the Great (The Japanese movie Saiyu-ki ) Ain't that Ducky (Short 1945) - IMDb
Arguably Dwaybne Hickman, Kathryn Grant, Herschel Bernardi and Jim Backus in the Mr. Magoo feature cartoon from 1959 1001 Arabian Nights
And, definitely a case of pushing the celebrities, 1962’s Chuck Jones-produced Gay Purr-ee, with the speaking and singing voices of Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, Red Buttons, and Hermione Gingold (besides the stands caroon voices of June Foray, Mel Blanc, and others, and the underappreciated Paul Frees singingf and speaking:
Well, I don’t know about singlehandedly but I do wish they would stop, or at least not play it up in the “Come see this movie because we got xxx for it, not, y’know, because it’s a great movie” sense. Every big animation company except Pixar does it (well, Dreamworks and that other one), and subsequently I respect Pixar much more, disregarding the fact that I think they’re better animators anyway. They really seem to focus on the movie product itself.
I think it depends on whether or not the actors are playing “themselves as animated characters” or are creating original voices for the “characters”. Whoopi Goldberg in the Lion King was Whoopi-Goldberg-as-a-hyena. :rolleyes:
But Jerry Orbach as the French-accented Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast was brilliant and unrecognizable from his stint as Lenny on “Law & Order” and his theatre days playing roles like Billy Flynn in Chicago. Great character voice!
Backus was Magoo long before he became known as an movie/TV actor, and Bernardi was not a name actor in 1959 (he never really was in films or TV – Broadway was his metier, and even that came after Magoo). Kathryn Grant was successful, but hardly a name to draw in audiences. Hickman had just become a successful TV star when the film was released, but he was also an unknown when it was filmed. So this was a case where the stars became better known after the movie; the casting was not designed to capitalize on their names.
Of course it’s a marketing ploy, being able to put De Niro and Will Smith on the poster. But I think another reason is the talk show circuit. Selling the movie, providing stuff for DVD extras, sitting in a flashy hotel room and doing 50 exclusive interviews in an afternoon - it’s all part of the actor’s job and chances of journalists giving a damn increases if it’s Will Smith, the hip rapper/actor, and not Bill Smith, talanted but unknown voice actor
He was, but by the time this was made, he’d been a known movie actor as well, being in Rebel Without a Cause and others. Hickman had just started as Dobie Gillis, but was known. He was known from the Bob Cummings show before that, but I wasn’t around at the time, so I’m not sure how well known. Anyway, thios was was filled with “ifs”, whicvh is why I put the “arguably” in there.
Just want to add my 2¢ and agree that using name actors for voiceovers is detrimental to these films. It’s too distracting, hearing that familiar voice with an unfamiliar visual. And I think it encourages a lack of imagination in the movie makers (“Who needs a good script? We’ve got Will Smith voicing the lead character?”). Find someone who can play the part, not look good on the marquee.
But the point is that they weren’t chosen in order to promote the animated film. Backus had been Magoo since 1949 (it’s his third credit), so of course he was going to play the role. Hickman was just another minor actor when hired; it just happened that Dobie Gillis was a hit, but that hit after the movie. In both cases, they were bit players prior to Mr. Magoo (Backus didn’t become a recognizable star until “Gilligan’s Island.”)
They were hardly celebrity voices as indicated in the OP, just actors who took a voice acting gig. No one was cashing in on their names (maybe they mentioned Backus, but only because he was the voice of Magoo long before anyone knew his face.)
About the only one who you could make a case for as being a recognizable star was Hans Conreid (who did play the the title character in The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T and the lead in The Twonky, but, then, both films were flops), and he, too, was a very successful voice actor of the time.
It’s completely different from using Robin Williams in Aladdin – a recognizable big name star.
Billy Gilbert as Sneezy was the only actual one who was recognizable from movies at the time (as a character actor), and Disney didn’t credit anyone, anyway.
I’d argue for Alice in Wonderland as an early example: Ed Wynn and Jerry Colonna both received screen credit, they were both highly recognizable at the time, and their shtick in the film is in many respects a carryover of the personas they had on radio (Colonna) and television (Wynn) at that time.
but I do wish they would stop, or at least not play it up in the “Come see this movie because we got xxx for it, not, y’know, because it’s a great movie” sense. Every big animation company except Pixar does it (well, Dreamworks and that other one), and subsequently I respect Pixar much more, disregarding the fact that I think they’re better animators anyway. They really seem to focus on the movie product itself.