Schadenfreude: It's what for dinner!

[theweaselking]

The "actress" who does the voice of Bart Simpson is a scientologist, and she's recorded a promotional phonespam robocall as Bart.

Fox, whose owners hate *Catholics* and *Mormons* as insufficiently Real True Christian, are not terribly amused at their property being used to promote a rival cult.

Lawsuit! Lawsuit! Fox versus The Church Of Scientology! Go! I've got popcorn!

Comments

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, I wanna watch.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Whoever wins, we...win! I'm not used to this!

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Exactly! And hell, if we're REALLY lucky, they'll take each other out in a blaze of glory!

[hakerh.livejournal.com]

Damn... I need a bigger popcorn maker.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Why the quotation marks around "actress"?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Because I have an extremely low opinion of her body of work and consider the allegation of her having talent to be entirely unproven.

Basically, she's so damn bad at it that I don't think she deserves the title.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Her version of Bart is quite satisfying.

[harald387.livejournal.com]

TWK tends to equate 'I don't like their work' with 'their work is bad and has no value'. It's one of his more endearing foibles.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

There are things I don't like that have value.

The Simpsons is not one of those things.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I'd mock you, but it's not your fault you're Canadian, i suppose.

[anktastic.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's possible to like good cinema and not like The Simpsons.

In my experience, people who profess to be in that category
1. are knee-jerk reacting, or
2. are too up to their neck in BS and/or too presumptuous to be honest about what they enjoy (I have heard stuff like "I don't like animation"), or
3. have never seen a good, classic Simpsons episode with lots of references to classic movies.

Which one is you?

[anivair.livejournal.com]

in all fairness, while she is a fine voice actress, I've neer thought she could act on screen. See: Herman's Head.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Oh come now, you didn't think her performance as Ethel in The Twilight Zone was Oscar worthy? Oddly enough, banished to Cartoon Land is pretty much what happened to her...has she done any non voice work since then?

[anivair.livejournal.com]

No, but in fairness to my own post, I was wrong. it was Yeardly Smith and not Nancy Cartwright that was in Herman's Head.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Fox's lawyers are going to have a field day with this. The image and likeness of Bart (including voice) are their property.

[jdarkwulf.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, the CoS purportedly has more money than God, what with all the rich people willing to empty their bank accounts into their coffers, and have proven that rationality and common sense don't even cross their radar when they get to "defending their interests".

Either outcome could be quite interesting.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Copyright law is amazingly straightforward in this sort of thing, though.

Nancy Cartwright is, of course, allowed to proselytize for the Church of Scientology. She may even say that she is the voice of Bart Simpson in such things, because that is a matter of fact. But the actual voice itself, the sound that is associated with the character of Bart Simpson is owned by Fox. It doesn't matter that the voice, the sound, the 'uniqueness' of it comes from Nancy Cartwright. What matters is that she performs that voice as a work for hire.

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

very clear, she used the name as well as dropping into the voice of the character on several occasions. Hopefully they'll sue the Church and not just her...

[scixual.livejournal.com]

To rip of an old Letterman joke:

Q: Who would win in a battle between Fox and the Church if Scientology?

A: The American viewing audience.

[jagash.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I'm glad I have a huge thing of popcorn.

[snap-wilson.livejournal.com]

This'll be interesting. Listening to the actual recording, she didn't actually record the robocall as Bart. She opened as Bart, said "ha ha, just kidding, this is Nancy Cartwright" and recorded it as herself with a few Bart-isms thrown in. It's not like she actually claimed Bart Simpson was endorsing Scientology.