Posted on 02/23/2021 6:43:42 AM PST by Red Badger
Kevin Michael Richardson will take over the role of Dr. Julius Hibbert in future episodes of the show. The Simpsons is making another move to diversify its voice cast.
Harry Shearer, a member of the long-running Fox animated series' core cast, will stop voicing Dr. Julius Hibbert, who is Black, on the show. Sunday's episode, "DiaryQueen," featured Shearer providing the character's voice for the final time.
Starting with the Feb. 28 episode, "Wad Goals," Kevin Michael Richardson will take over as Dr. Hibbert. Richardson is a prolific voice actor who has worked on more than 70 Simpsons episodes in the past; his credits also include Family Guy, American Dad and F Is for Family.
Richardson's casting follows that of Alex Désert as Homer's (Dan Castellaneta) co-worker Carl Carlson (previously played by Hank Azaria) and Jenny Yokobori as Kumiko Albertson (previously voiced by Tress MacNeille), the wife of Comic Book Guy.
It also further makes good on a statement Simpsons producers made in June 2020, when they said that "Moving forward, The Simpsons will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters."
That statement came as the animation industry faced a reckoning over its record of inclusivity in the face of widespread social and racial justice protests last summer. Animated series including Netflix's Big Mouth and Apple's Central Park also made moves to recast BIPOC characters with actors of color, and Family Guy regular Mike Henry said he would no longer voice the character of Cleveland Brown, who's Black, on the show.
It also represented a major shift for The Simpsons, which for years had faced calls for a South Asian actor take over the role of Apu from Azaria (the character is the subject of The Problem With Apu, a 2017 documentary by comedian Hari Kondabolu). Azaria has since stopped voicing Apu but continued to do voices for Carl and Springfield police officer Lou, who are Black, and Hispanic character Bumblebee Man. Shearer, meanwhile, had played Dr. Hibbert, who's Black, for the show's entire run. MacNeille has also voiced several non-white characters, including Apu's wife, Manjula.
Vulture first reported the news.
I didn’t know that show was still on. I haven’t watched it since about 2004, or something.
The last episode I watched was the Halloween episode, where Homer hits Flanders with his car and pokes his eye with a stick to see if he was dead. I realized at the moment, they had run out of ideas.
Offend the easily offended!
Wear dreadlocks while erecting a statue of some whit guy.
Episode 700 airs in a month.
Good lord!
Homer is yellow and speaks with an American-English accent with a “folksy dialect”.
Why fire the white guy?
Just turn his character blue with a American-Black accent.
He’s old, he’s rich, he’s liberal.
Why bother continuing at the risk of taking heat?
I think they are just keeping it going so they can get episode 1,000.
Not good enough. Every episode of The Simpsons featuring a character being voiced by a person of another race should be scrubbed.
Boy are we in trouble when the space aliens come.
But it’s perfectly okiley dokiley to have a woman do the voice of Bart.
Amos and Andy were white guys. You won’t see them on retro TV.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’d forgotten about that. Absolutely not. Those episodes should be scrubbed too.
White liberals will need to be fired, it's only fair.
Only on radio. On the 50’s TV series, the cast was all black....................
Next they will take “Amos ‘n’ Andy” off the radio. It has white guys saying the lines of black guys.
Is that show still on?
Have they done a highlight reel episode yet?
Added a new baby or nephew?
Who voices these character in foreign language versions?
Shearer should donate his salary to the Black Reparations Fund. Hiring this one black guy obviously improves the lives of every other dark-hued person in America.
Only blacks can play/voice blacks.
Only Asians can play/voice Asians.
Only gays can play/voice gays.
Leftists smile.
Only men can play in sports.
Only women can play women in sports.
Leftists go beserk.....................
Only men can play men in sports.............
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