Celebrities should stay away from cartoon voices

The stutter of Porky Pig, the infectious laugh of Bugs Bunny, the French flirtations of Pepé Le… The stutter of Porky Pig, the infectious laugh of Bugs Bunny, the French flirtations of Pepé Le Pew — they’re all classic cartoon sounds and they all have one thing in common — Mel Blanc, the artist who voiced them.

But when these “Looney Tunes” classics are mentioned, it is their animated appearance and not the smiling face of the voice artist that comes to mind. Their voice creator, like so many others in the field, is not a famous face.

But this is changing. The powerful vocal chords of talents like Mel Blanc appear to be cast by the wayside in a new trend: casting celebrities as cartoon characters. Perhaps it boosts box office marketability, but it detracts from the art form.

Take “The Lion King” for example: The film boasted Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Whoopi Goldberg and, of course, the gravelly, soothing bass of James Earl Jones. But the problem is, it’s impossible to forget their faces even when Goldberg’s vocals whine from the mouth of a hungry hyena — though maybe that isn’t enough of a stretch.

Making famous actors into cartoons became en vogue in the ’90s. Before that, the top-grossing animated films almost always used casts of unknowns. It’s very obvious when checking out CNBC’s list of top-grossing films of all time that those before 1990 hardly used celebrities, while every film after 1990 had at least three notables.

Animated features used to provide an opportunity to create outside the realm of the fanciful. Characters were goofy and their voices were ridiculous to match — they seemed to take on lives of their own.

Now, these creatures are caricatures of the celebrities playing them. Po of “Kung Fu Panda” wasn’t just a lovable lummox, he was Jack Black, the goofy, comic oaf, and DreamWorks made sure everyone knew — even spanning his name across the top of the movie poster.

The same goes for the titular character of Paramount’s “Rango,” who the studio touted — just a bit too loudly — as being played by Johnny Depp.

In fact, Depp’s own career speaks to exactly why the trend of fame-pandering is bad for the animated art. The same way the actor never looks the same twice — Edward Scissorhands, Jack Sparrow, etc. — a voice actor’s sound is constantly changing. For both, crafting a well-rounded character is more important than recognition. Animated films would do well to follow suit, creating a fantastical world with rounded characters, not productions that are flat and riddled with celebrities.

Though TV also utilizes celebrity voices, the phenomenon is different in this arena. Shows like “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” have regular casts and whether they’re celebrities or not, the nature of consistency allows them to create identities. When they do utilize famous people, those people usually play themselves in cartoon form. Take for instance, Seth Green or Mila Kunis’ roles in “Family Guy” — they’ve been doing it long enough that they’re easy to forget.

And for every loss of a carefully formed character to celebrity, a voice artist loses an opportunity for work. Somewhere out there is a lost, normal-looking person with an intense set of vocals chords.

Veteran voice artist Billy West — of “Futurama” and “Ren & Stimpy” — spoke candidly to the Guardian about his distaste for using stars instead of unknown voice actors.

“The bottom line is, I only care about it because I don’t want to see the loss of a beautiful form of art,” he said, going on to talk about how kids going into the field aren’t generally hungry for fame, but want to do the work.

And that’s the biggest reason why animation creators should think twice about casting known faces. Celebrities might bring along a big following, but those dedicated to voice acting can make cinematic magic happen with a tweak of their pitch or a hysterical laugh.

In the immortal words of Porky Pig: “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks.”