The Hard, Cold Truth
Henry Corden, who has spent the last quarter century as the voice of Fred Flintstone, feels, "If they were doing a half-hour Flintstone show today, they'd still go with me. But for a motion picture, even an animated one, they'd go with a celebrity to play Fred, because they need to sell the picture. I hate it but I understand it."

Celebrity voices are now used in commercials as well to help sell the products. "Even if the audience can't tell it's Donald Sutherland, they know it's somebody famous selling them that car," says Corden. "I know a lot of guys who used to make a living doing commercial voice-over that are now out of work, and they resent it."

When asked, most full-time voice actors express dismay over the trend toward celebrities, and feel left out of a process they've devoted their creative lives to because animation has become too big a business with too much money at stake. Evanier concludes, "They feel threatened by this trend. It's got to be disconcerting to learn your craft and then to lose out, not because the other guy's better but because he was once on a sitcom. I don't see this trend being reversed any time soon...or perhaps ever."

If celebrities are here to stay, hopefully intelligent producers and creative casting personnel will mix and match voice-over only actors and celebrities to the part -- not the marketing scheme.

Joseph K. Bevilacqua, a protégé of Yogi Bear voice artist Daws Butler, is a veteran radio comedy writer, producer, and actor, as well as cartoonist. His programs have aired on public radio stations nationwide since 1980 and have been honored by The Museum of Television and Radio as part of their "Contemporary Radio Humor" exhibits. He is currently developing animation scripts with his wife and creative partner, Lorie B. Kellogg. Their comedy can be heard in RealAudio and seen in comic strips on their website, Joe & Lorie's Comedy-O-Rama.