# Why have celebrities do impersonations? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 14, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151 "2010-12-14T19:24:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/21 "2010-12-15T19:22:06Z")
> [@singular1](#): > > That’s one of the things I admire about Pixar. They advertise the animation, not the voice talent. You don’t think Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, John Ratzenberger, Kelsey Grammer, and Don Rickles are well known actors? And that’s just from one movie. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/22 "2010-12-15T19:40:33Z")
> [@](#): > > Used to be that the natural way to go was to use professional (though largely unknown) voice actors- which was fine because the visual animated character was what was meant to sell the movie, not the voice performer. > > Seems the rise of the celebrity voice performance occurred in the mid to late 90s. I don’t know about the “rise”, but they started doing it long before that. The feature cartoon **Gay Purr-ee** from 1962 used the voices of Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, Red Buttons, and and Hermione Gingold, and wasn’t shy about promoting this. They sang their own songs, too. Besides that, Jack Benny and the cast of his show did their voices in a 1950s Warner Brothers cartoon based on that show. And Rankin-Bass used lots of celebrity voices in their TV specials and theatrical movies – Boris Karloff, Fred Astaire, Jackie Vernon, Jimmy Durante. Boris Karloff did Chuck Jones’ **How the Grinch Stole Christmas** , too, and that was promoted as well. Disney had been using star voices, too, at least since the 1970s, in their animated features. There are lots of other examples from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/23 "2010-12-15T20:09:20Z")
I have no problem with Jack Benny doing the voice of Jack the Mouse. But if they had hired Benny to do the voice of Bugs Bunny and told him to do it like Mel Blanc did it, I’d question that decision. Why hire Jack Benny to impersonate Mel Blanc? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/24 "2010-12-15T20:28:52Z")
The Friday edition of the New York Times often reviews 15-20 movies. How many of those have you heard of? Possibly three. Why have you heard of them? Because they are marketed. Those other movies often are animated. Yet they remain under the radar. Because they aren’t well-made? No, because the voice actors in them aren’t appearing in the media: tv, newspapers, billboards, magazines, web sites. Movie studios don’t ask whether a known star guarantees a profit. They ask what the odds are of making money by being able to market a known name versus an unknown faceless voice. Those odds are obviously extremely good. Conversely, what does a studio gain from using an anonymous voice? Some are undoubtedly very good. But is the difference in quality so tremendous that it outweighs the marketing possibilities? Highly doubtful. Stars usually have a bit of talent themselves. You can’t compare a studio hiring a versatile voice actor to do an endless series of short cartoons with the short-term need for a star to spend a few days on a single project. You want Bugs Bunny to sound like Bugs Bunny if you’re making 20 cartoons a year. If you can use the same actor to do almost all the other voices as well, it’s obviously a real money-saver. But that’s not in any way comparable to a feature film. Can you give me a cost-benefit analysis for the use of anonymous voices in feature-length animated movies? I’d like to see your reasoning for continuing to advocate this. ETA: Why would a spell checker pass over “pf” as a mistake? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/25 "2010-12-15T20:45:45Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > The technical term is [stunt casting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunt_casting), though it’s not just trivia roles. Some shows will put any name in there to sell tickets. > > Yes, Chicago and Beauty & the Beast, I’m talking about you. The Times had an article on the problems of the historical shows now on Broadway. Their sales are not great, partially due to the lack of big names. So, it seems to work. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/26 "2010-12-15T20:49:01Z")
> [@Recliner](#): > > Professional voice actors share your beef. The bottom line is quite simple: > > They do it because it makes money. > > Thats it, period, end of discussion. The movie producers – who are already working in animation, and thus can’t feature famous LOL actors OMG – want to feature famous actors. Because people really do spend their movie buck based on “yo i know that person!”. I suspect it begins sooner than that - they do it because having a name in the package makes it easier for the movie to be greenlighted. It is hard to do a movie with any sort of budget without a name. I know nothing about the history of this movie, but maybe it was put together by a packager who also manages the stars of it. It’s happened before. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/27 "2010-12-15T21:01:48Z")
> [@](#): > > I have no problem with Jack Benny doing the voice of Jack the Mouse. But if they had hired Benny to do the voice of Bugs Bunny and told him to do it like Mel Blanc did it, I’d question that decision. Why hire Jack Benny to impersonate Mel Blanc? True, but that’s not the point I was disputing. **bienville** was implying that using “name” voices in cartoons was a much more recent development than it really was. And this using celebrity voices to match existing ones isn’t exactly new, either. as was shown above, they got Bill Murray to do Garfield’s voice. I don’t know if they asked him to copy Lorenzo Music, but surely they hired him because the voices were similar. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/28 "2010-12-15T21:26:35Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The feature cartoon **Gay Purr-ee** from 1962 used the voices of Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, Red Buttons, and and Hermione Gingold, and wasn’t shy about promoting this. They sang their own songs, too. Well, of course something called _Gay Purr-ee_ is going to want Judy Garland. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/29 "2010-12-15T21:30:20Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > You don’t think Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, John Ratzenberger, Kelsey Grammer, and Don Rickles are well known actors? > > And that’s just from one movie. On the other hand, Ratatouille had the voices of Brad Garrett, Janeane Garfalo, and Patton Oswalt. I’m sure their names did not carry the publicity for that movie, yet it was Disney-Pixar’s fifth highest grossing film. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/30 "2010-12-15T21:46:10Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > On the other hand, Ratatouille had the voices of Brad Garrett, Janeane Garfalo, and Patton Oswalt. I’m sure their names did not carry the publicity for that movie, yet it was Disney-Pixar’s fifth highest grossing film. All of whom are regulars on every late-night talk show. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/31 "2010-12-15T21:47:02Z")
Pixar uses celebrities, but it’s not what I’d call stunt casting. They don’t rely on the celebrities to carry the films. As I recall, they seldom (if ever) call attention the celebrity names in their trailers. Unless you pay very close attention to the publicity, you might not even know that they were using TV and movie stars for the voice work. So why do they use celebrity voice actors? In part, it’s because they choose these folks very well. That’s why I don’t think of it as stunt casting. Stunt casting, to my mind, requires picking someone for their celebrity status first and foremost. Pixar doesn’t do that. I’m sure that their bean counters figured that having a few well-known celebs surely wouldn’t hurt. At the same time though, they have a habit of picking celebs who are not big-name draws – sometimes folks who are well past the prime of their fame. Honestly, do you think that anyone would have gone to see _A Bug’s Life_ because Jonathan Harris was doing one of the voices? ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/32 "2010-12-15T23:18:52Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > On the other hand, Ratatouille had the voices of Brad Garrett, Janeane Garfalo, and Patton Oswalt. I’m sure their names did not carry the publicity for that movie, yet it was Disney-Pixar’s fifth highest grossing film. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > All of whom are regulars on every late-night talk show. Yet, not mega-stars with the box office appeal of Robin Williams, Tom Hanks, or Tim Allen. People saw Ratatoullie because it was Pixar and not because Spencer from the King of Queens or Robert from Everybody Loves Raymond was in it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/33 "2010-12-15T23:30:21Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Yet, not mega-stars with the box office appeal of Robin Williams, Tom Hanks, or Tim Allen. People saw Ratatoullie because it was Pixar and not because Spencer from the King of Queens or Robert from Everybody Loves Raymond was in it. Ratatouille is also the lowest-grossing Pixar film of the 21th century. It ranks ninth of the 11 films the studio has made. Maybe it would have done even better with bigger name voice talent. I don’t get what your point is. Do you think names are irrelevant? That only the biggest names make a difference? What do you think the relationship is? ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/34 "2010-12-15T23:55:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Ratatouille is also the lowest-grossing Pixar film of the 21th century. It ranks ninth of the 11 films the studio has made. Maybe it would have done even better with bigger name voice talent. > > I don’t get what your point is. Do you think names are irrelevant? That only the biggest names make a difference? What do you think the relationship is? I was actually posting in support of **singular1’s** post, though I may have not made that come across too well. > [@singular1](#): > > That’s one of the things I admire about Pixar. They advertise the animation, not the voice talent. And Ratatoullie did open poorly in the U.S., but actually is Pixar’s [fifth highest grossing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratatouille_(film)#Box_office) film worldwide. According to Wikipedia, it has grossed nearly $625 million, behind only Toy Story 3, Finding Nemo, Up, and The Incredibles. I think big names do sell more tickets to a film, but Ratatouille indicates that there can be exceptions to this case. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/35 "2010-12-16T01:44:47Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The Friday edition of the New York Times often reviews 15-20 movies. How many of those have you heard of? Possibly three. Why have you heard of them? Because they are marketed. > > Those other movies often are animated. Yet they remain under the radar. Because they aren’t well-made? No, because the voice actors in them aren’t appearing in the media: tv, newspapers, billboards, magazines, web sites. You’re missing an 800 pound gorilla - in this country “animated feature” is virtually synomymous with “kid’s movie”. The target demographic doesn’t watch Oprah or Letterman or read _Entertainment Weekly_ or _Maxim_. But settle in for an afternoon of watching Cartoon Network or Disney Channel or Nickleodeon - you’ll see these movies get marketed within an inch of their life. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/36 "2010-12-16T03:17:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I have no problem with Jack Benny doing the voice of Jack the Mouse. But if they had hired Benny to do the voice of Bugs Bunny and told him to do it like Mel Blanc did it, I’d question that decision. Why hire Jack Benny to impersonate Mel Blanc? You’re missing the point. Mel Blanc is probably the most famous voice actor in history. Mel Blanc could have done the voice of Jack the Mouse better than Jack Benny. But Mel Blanc couldn’t open a movie. If he could, \*Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters \*would have had a higher gross in 1988 than _Oliver and Company_. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/37 "2010-12-16T04:53:30Z")
And you feel that a ten year old cares that Dan Aykroyd is in a movie? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/38 "2010-12-16T05:04:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And you feel that a ten year old cares that Dan Aykroyd is in a movie? Who takes them to the movie? I don’t understand your argument. If you’re saying that names aren’t important and that marketing is equal, then what is your explanation for the fantastically large differential in grosses among these films? Can you honestly be claiming that they are based solely on worthiness? If not, then what are the factors that affect movie grosses? And what is Hollywood’s method for getting the most money back on their investments? ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151/39 "2010-12-16T06:19:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And you feel that a ten year old cares that Dan Aykroyd is in a movie? I know- well, not know exactly, he’s my boyfriend’s nephew and lives half a country over- a four year old boy who would go to see a movie if he was told one of the voice actors was a Ghostbuster. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-celebrities-do-impersonations/564151.md?page=1)