@LightningAce:
Simpsons has never recast voices ( i think Helen lovejoy being 1 of them but she's not a major character ), least of all for major characters like Flanders, Mr Burns, Smithers, Skinner etc…
Its also never had one of the leads leave before. They'll recast if they need to, but I imagine they'll mostly just dodge the characters for a while. And again, huge cast, its easier than you think. Those characters have been minimized for years.
@LightningAce:
he is those voices and i will never accept anyone else doing them, those are the voices i've grown up with for the past 20 something years now….
yeah, but you aren't watching the show and they won't be ingrained to anyone that starts watching the show now and for the next 10 years.
And you'd be surprised, you can get used to a new voice on an old character pretty quick.
Sazae-san in Japan has run longer and weekly in Japan for 40 years… and they rotated out their entire voice cast at once point. Lupin the third just refreshed its cast.
Long runners need refreshing ocassionally. It happens. And its easier if most of the cast is still intact to ease the transition.
@taboo:
i think those two things are related some how…. bUT HOW
People grew up on the show, attached fondness to the first several years, got tired during the slump years, and then tuned out to never really watch it again and always say instead "Thats still on? It stopped being good at season 11."
Then they ocassionally tune in randomly once every 5 years with the expectation that it be as good or better than their most fondly remembered and quoted favorite episode from 20 years ago, and of course it doesn't hold up to that standard, and they continue to think "oh its crap still|" and don't check it out again.
The exact same thing happened when Futurama came back from hiatus, everyone hated the first bunch of episodes but after time passed and they became part of the familiar instead of the brand new, they were seen to be at the same quality as the rest of the series generally… and with some of the series' biggest high notes as well.
No, SImpsons isn't as good as it was. But its not as bad as its casually dismissed to be by anyone that watched it 20 years ago when they were little kids.
Audiences wear out on any given show after about 100 episodes. Once you know the characters and bits well you get tired of them eventually. If the show doesn't mix up the cast and change ocassionally, of course it gets stale to those that have been watching it... but it doesn't automatically mean its terrible just because you've grown bored with it.n