Some long-running animated cartoon properties can get along without using the same voice actors forever. This is why Scooby-Doo can periodically find new generations of voice actors before their current ones die out, Nancy Cartwright joined Tress MacNeille in the cast of Rugrats after Christine Cavanaugh retired in 2001, and Peanuts, Arthur and Paw Patrol always find new generations of kids to play their characters every three years, but for three decades, The Simpsons has always used the same four primary voice actors for the Simpson family for the cast's entire lifetime. That being said, the other four primary voice actors who play many of the non-Simpson characters - Hank Azaria, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, and Harry Shearer - in 2020, they have been recast with new actors for characters of color and have even retired a few other characters along the way. Still, they keep chugging on with other regular characters they still have to play after Bart's Birthday almost ended The Simpsons, and I will be happy if all eight of them stay alive long enough for The Simpsons to complete its 1,010-episode run.

While The Simpsons has kept the same 8 voice actors for generations of animators, producers, directors and writers since 1990, multiple things happened in the 2010s and the 2020s that were a real wake-up call that The Simpsons needed a bigger variety of voice actors to divide the work of their characters. 1. Karl Wiedergott retired from acting in 2010, and Chris Edgerly was his replacement voice for Legs and male character voices that the rest of the regular cast does not play. 2. The Problem With Apu from 2017 taught the writers of The Simpsons that they needed to do better things with Apu's character, and they stopped giving Apu and his family any plot lines or speaking lines until they can solve this problem with Apu and find a new trio of Indian actors to play Apu, Manjula and Sanjay. 3. Russi Taylor, while featured less than Pamela Hayden and Tress MacNeille, was still a secondary voice actress who plays some of the kids and got recast after she died on July 26, 2019, between Season 30 and Season 31. Grey DeLisle became the new voice for Sherri & Terri Mackleberry, Martin Prince and Uter Zorker ever since. 4. June 24, 2020 marked the biggest turning point for any animated properties making new seasons at that time. Voice actors of color deserve more good job opportunities to play animated characters with their skin color. All eight primary actors of The Simpsons are predominantly white, and Hank Azaria, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille and Harry Shearer do not need to hog up most of the supporting cast, so when half of their roster consists of characters of color, I know recasting them is fair to make the secondary cast more diverse behind the scenes. Once Bonita Pietila found new black voice actors, Hank Azaria became Alex Desert, Pamela Hayden became Kimberly Brooks, Tress MacNeille became Dawnn Lewis, and Harry Shearer became Kevin Michael Richardson. Other POC re-castings are listed below. 5. Uncut Femmes marked a new turning point for three tertiary characters. Dawnn Lewis (A Different World and Futurama) replaced Tress MacNeille as Bernice Hibbert's new voice, Megan Mullally (Bob's Burgers and The Great North) replaced Pamela Hayden as Sarah Wiggum's new voice, and Tony Rodriguez (Eastsiders and Ultramechatron Team Go!) replaced Hank Azaria as Julio Franco's new voice. 6. You Won't Believe What This Episode Is About - Act Three Will Shock You! marked another turning point with Jay Pharaoh (Legends of Chamberlain Heights and White Famous) replacing Hank Azaria as Drederick Tatum's new voice, when I thought it would be Alex Desert since he already does Carl Carlson and Lou's voices. 7. After several episodes of guest voices for substitute teachers replacing Edna Krabappel following Marcia Wallace's passing during Season 25, and Ned Flanders taking on her job as Bart's new teacher in Season 29, Kerry Washington was introduced as Rayshelle Payton, who came forth as Bart's next new fourth grade teacher in Season 33 in An Octopus and a Teacher. 8. Pamela Hayden revealed her retirement from The Simpsons on November 21, 2024, wanting to make her own films since working on her documentary From Jailhouse to Milhouse. Ending the 35th production cycle in the middle of Season 36, Oh Come On All Ye Faithful was her last time playing Jimbo Jones, Milhouse Van Houten and Rod Flanders. The rest of Season 36 worked around her retirement by not writing any stories where Milhouse would play a big part while Scott Muller and Nick DeConti looks for a younger actress with the same type of voices to cast in her place. They eventually cast Kelly MacLeod at the end of Season 36. 9. P.S. I Hate You marked two firsts for The Simpsons's current voice cast. It is the next time Jon Lovitz played Artie Ziff in five years, and in a new season with the diverse secondary voice cast. It is also the first time a Pamela Hayden character was officially recast, with Mo Collins playing Jimbo Jones. Will she also play Allison Taylor, Becky Shorter, Richard, Rod Flanders and Wendell Borton? Maybe Mo Collins and Kelly MacLeod can audition for joint cast custody and each play half of the kids who used to be Pamela Hayden's voices. 10. The Season 37 premiere adds two new recurring kid characters with younger voice actors; Cole Escola for Devin and Stephanie Hsu for Vidalia. They both have November 25 birthdays four years apart, and I do appreciate The Simpsons casting a younger generation for these new roles, especially since they have the hip, youthful energy needed to play trendy fashion club kids. I am tempted to add Matthew Friend, Karen Gillian, Ike Barinholtz, Cole Escola and Stephanie Hsu to this user list, but I need to be patient for when Season 37 or 38 finishes airing.   So in conclusion, even long-running episodic series need new voice actors and characters to shake up the status quo just a bit, because new characters and new voice actors in a new decade add more variety to current storylines. All original eight voice actors will be listed first, and the rest of the regular actors will be listed in order of appearance after Season 31. I will surprise you with loose ends of other forgotten recurring characters whom I think can be brought back with new actors, which have not happened yet. If any of these voice actors were already in other episodes before Season 32, they will now be listed in order of their name's first appearance after Season 31. Any actor who has or will have a minimum of ten episodes before 2030 qualifies for this user list, as long as they act in at least one new episode script in the 2020s. At the end of Season 41, I will delete names I predicted wrong who have less than ten episodes. Given that FOX has renewed The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad and Bob's Burgers for four more seasons on April 2, 2025, I have a hunch that Rachel Bloom, Rosalie Chiang, Will Forte, Jonathan Lipow, Eric Lopez, Megan Mullally, Jay Pharaoh, and Kerry Washington can pass 10 episodes before Season 40 ends. I know some of them will.

Zooey Deschanel as Mary Spuckler and Michael York as Lionel Budgie are newer characters voiced by recurring guests whom I would also like to hear again three more times after Season 31. When will The Simpsons bring back Akira Kurosawa and Cookie Kwan with new Asian-American voices to play them? When will The Simpsons bring back the Nahasapeemapetilon family and cast new Indian actors to play them? Akira was last heard in What Animated Women Want, Sanjay was last heard in Much Apu About Something, Cookie was last heard in The Caper Chase, Apu was last heard in Dogtown and The Serfsons, and Manjula was last heard in Much Apu About Something and Frink Gets Testy.

The new regular cast of The Simpsons in the 2020s

There are more movies and TV starring a female protagonist now than you think, but there are still not enough female writers or directors. Men are in most positions of power in the Hollywood industry which do the hiring for creators of TV shows and movies. Unless you are Stephen Colbert, it seems safe to say that they sadly turned down most women to hold such a big job as the show runner, or casting agents filtered out people of color. That might be why Brave and Inside Out are the only Pixar movies before 2020 that have a female leading character. At least the male creators are not all white, because for every white male cartoon creator/star like Seth MacFarlane and Alex Hirsch, we also have colored male creators like Ian Jones-Quartey and Matt Braly. We also have women in both categories, like Amy Poehler and Mindy Kaling. While I am happy to support Amy Poehler's cause to break metaphorical glass ceilings in the Parks and Recreation episode Boys' Club, I do not condone breaking glass bottles to do that, because broken glass on the ground is just a foot injury waiting to happen.

There are still some women who create good mainstream movies, TV and cartoons, and if the women on this list can create something successful, then more women can create something new in the future. I met Tabitha Saint Germain in 2018 and Cathy Weseluck in 2019, and they both dream of being writers. I will not include Julia Vickerman for obvious reasons. For this list, I can include female creators who have a male co-creator, as well as singular female creators, because I will take what I can get for any female who makes it as a series creator or a movie writer/director. Even if we close the wage gap for good, we still need to have more female creators, writers and directors running film and television projects because - a women's writing perspective could be different from a man's writing perspective, or it could even be the same for all we know, but we will never know if we don't go. Of course lots of men have created good memorable programming, but I want to know if women can produce as much variety of entertainment as the men.

There are tons of great men and women who have created watchable media that was not mostly only for their race or their gender. You can encourage other women or POC to write a blockbuster superhero film, or ask them if they wanted to write or direct but got held back, but not everyone is inclined to be a writer, so you can't force every woman into being a writer for Hollywood for sole inclusion purposes. You also should not be like Noelle Stevenson of She-Ra and say that women never got to be a show runner in the past, because it is insulting to women like Joy Batchelor and Jamie Tarses who actually broke those barriers before you. In recent years, many writers of both genders have been able to create content starring the opposite gender. While I always long for Lisa Vischer, Cydney Trent and Megan Murphy to write and direct their own VeggieTales Tales like Phil Vischer, Mike Nawrocki and Tim Hodge have done, I never ever got upset about Sweetpea Beauty, T'was the Night Before Easter, The Princess and the Popstar or The Penniless Princess being written by men, because Mark Steele and Mike Nawrocki did a pretty good job writing the female lead characters of those stories.

Bob Carroll, Jr. & Madelyn Pugh-Davis, writers of "I Love Lucy"

Even though a few of these actors have voice acted for animated characters before Scott Pilgrim versus the World in 2010, and other people from this cast started voice acting after Scott Pilgrim, half of them never did voice acting before Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, because either they were too famous as a live actor to take on other voice roles before Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, or they only had short-term animated film roles in the past, and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was their first time voice acting for a long-term animated series. The reason why these 18 people signed up to return in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was because they were all on an email chain with Edgar Wright, and they had so much fun making the movie that they were willing to return to reprise their characters' voices in animation. Did you know all of them were born in the 1980s?

If some of them were too expensive or famous to do a mini-series, I am sure Edgar Wright could negotiate them to take a pay-cut for him because all but one of them get a main cast billing for the whole show, so it would be fairer and more cost-efficient to pay all 15 voice actors the same salary for an entire season since only 3 of them appear in all 8 episodes. The biggest surprises to me were Chris Evans and Brie Larson, because you might think they were too famous for voice acting like this after all the other movies they made in the 2010s, and they did not even reprise the voices of their Marvel superheroes Captain America and Captain Marvel in What If. Some of the less famous names in Scott Pilgrim's returning cast may have taken on the longer time commitment of a live-action television series, but not have tried out for roles in animated films or series before Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. Despite Scott Pilgrim taking place in Canada and being filmed on locations there, half of these people are American voice actors in other cartoons, while Michael Cera and Allison Pill (Scott Pilgrim and Kim Pine) share the special connection of being co-stars from What Katy Did who were Canadian voice actors in a few other cartoon shows when they were kids, but also got more famous in the United States since 2003 with Arrested Development and Pieces of April. Ellen Wong (Knives Chau) also did this since 2013 with The Carrie Diaries. Michael and Allison have voice acted again for newer films and shows in the United States, and sometimes they act in other films located in Canada like Juno, Goon, Miss Sloan and Molly's Game, but I wish they could make time to voice act in newer Canadian films and shows if they are not out of Corus Entertainment's budget after Scott Pilgrim vs. the World + Takes Off.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off voice actors from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Michael Cera at an event for The Immigrant (2013)

Some TV shows earn their viewers' interest and longevity because they have a special type of plot that they do every season at a different point in time - and not just ordinary holiday things like The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horrors and Regular Show's Terror Tales of the Park, or every full season of Bob's Burgers having an episode for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day. Codename: Kids Next Door has episodes about sharing the Delightful Children's birthday cake with everyone they refuse to share. Brooklyn Nine-Nine has Halloween Heists and run-ins with Doug Judy. Rick and Morty does Interdimensional Cable sketches, or another series of vignettes where Interdimensional Cable is mentioned. Any TV shows that complete 2 full seasons or more are fair game for this list.

Clancy Brown, Lori Alan, Rodger Bumpass, Mary Jo Catlett, Bill Fagerbakke, Tom Kenny, Carolyn Lawrence, Mr. Lawrence, and Jill Talley in SpongeBob SquarePants (1999)

Idris Elba at an event for Les Misérables (2012)

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Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future (1985)

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Craig T. Nelson in The Incredibles (2004)

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Tahmoh Penikett in Battlestar Galactica (2004)

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Tom Hanks at an event for Larry Crowne (2011)

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The Most Wonderful Hollywood Actress Aged 55+ Part II

The Most Wonderful Hollywood Actress Aged 55+

The Most Wonderful Hollywood Actor Aged 55+

Stephanie Beatriz in Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013)

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Penny Jewkes, Aleisha Allen, Kathryn Avery, Nick Balaban, Steve Burns, Jenna Marie Castle, Traci Paige Johnson, Spencer Kayden, Kelly Nigh, Michael Rubin, Donovan Patton, Cody Ross Pitts, Jonathan Press, Marshall Claffy, Stephen Schmidt, Julia Wetherell, and Corrine Hoffman in Blue's Clues (1996)

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Heath Ledger at an event for Candy (2006)

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Dan Castellaneta and Harry Shearer in The Simpsons (1989)

La Famiglia Guy is filled with easy, lazy jokes that are either super telegraphed or oversaturated Italian stereotypes.

Cutawayland was Family Guy's most interesting experiment yet.

One of the worst ideas for a Gumball episode ever - which says a lot considering stupider things I have seen from this show.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Michelle Yeoh, James Hong, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Nancy Cartwright and Yeardley Smith in Thrifty Ways to Thieve Your Mother (2025)

Michael Croner and Kimiko Glenn in Kiff (2023)

Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Harry Shearer, and Yeardley Smith in The Simpsons (1989)

Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Pamela Hayden, and Yeardley Smith in The Simpsons (1989)

Tyler James Williams, Quinta Brunson, and Janelle James in Abbott Elementary (2021)

Will Forte, Nick Offerman, Paul Rust, Jenny Slate, Dulcé Sloan, and Aparna Nancherla in The Great North (2021)

Julie Kavner and Dan Castellaneta in The Simpsons (1989)

Wil Wheaton, Patrick Stewart, and Seth MacFarlane in Family Guy (1999)

Seth Green, Mila Kunis, Alex Borstein, and Seth MacFarlane in Family Guy (1999)

Seth Green and Seth MacFarlane in Family Guy (1999)

Callum Blue and Ellen Muth in Dead Like Me: Life After Death (2009)

Carrie Fisher and Alex Borstein in Family Guy (1999)

Tara Strong, Tabitha St. Germain, Andrea Libman, and Ashleigh Ball in My Little Pony: Pony Life (2020)

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S19.E5La Famiglia Guy

La Famiglia Guy is filled with easy, lazy jokes that are either super telegraphed or oversaturated Italian stereotypes.

S19.E4CutawayLand

Cutawayland was Family Guy's most interesting experiment yet.

S4.E22The Girlfriend

One of the worst ideas for a Gumball episode ever - which says a lot considering stupider things I have seen from this show.

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