I hate it when they do a bad job of recasting voice talent.

The current voice of Ernie the Keebler elf sets my ears on edge every time I hear him. Worse, it’s been so long since I’ve heard the original guy, I’ve forgotten what he sounded like. But I still know it’s seriously off.

Not quite so bad but still annoyingly different from the original is the current Geico gecko. (It’s very bad in how different it is from the original — perhaps more so than Ernie — but it doesn’t grate on me as much.) Note to Warren Buffett: not all English accents are the same. The latest Geico switch is like going from Alistair Cooke to Dick Van Dyke’s Mary Poppins cock-eyed “cockney.”

And the second guy to do Fred Flintstone never sounded anything like Fred Flintstone to me. I could never stand to watch the newer cartoons.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Disney does a very good job of keeping the characters sounding the same despite many decades and many actors.

Not quite as good, but still laudable, are the casting directors of the Peanuts franchise. They’ve bungled it on the Geico gecko level a few times, but for the most part their ears have been surprisingly accurate, especially given that using real kids practically forces them to recast every time they make a new cartoon.

Posted: June 10th, 2008 under Entertainment.
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