I’ve never quite jumped on The Simpsons bandwagon yet. Sometimes I travel in the sidecar…having purchased the first nine seasons of it on DVD, but not quite being done watching the first one. As a Disneyphile, I find the chintzy animation a little disconcerting – while being fully aware that the second-to-none writing more than makes up for it. I know one day I’ll really dive into them and then there will be no going back. In fact, I got into Matt Groening’s Life in Hell comic strips way back before anyone had ever heard of The Simpsons.
Anyhow, despite not being a true Simpsons buff, there was simply no question of whether I was going to get my photo taken with Dan Castellaneta if the opportunity presented itself on October 2, 2005. Castellaneta is of course the voice of Homer Simpson on the longest running sitcom in TV history. He also played the part of Ugarte in a special reading of Casablanca for the Actor’s Fund at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles and it was here that I had the chance to meet him.
I had to have Jimmy point him out to me as I wasn’t really familiar with what he actually looked like. The best I can say about our encounter was that he was nice enough to sign my program (seen here) and pose for a photo with me (and yes, that’s Thora Birch in the background). I didn’t bother to ask him to do his Homer Simpson voice…and he didn’t offer.
Incidentally, it has been verified by Castellaneta that his famous catchphrase “Doh!” was in fact stolen from frequent Laurel and Hardy co-star James Finalyson.
Continue with the stars I met at Casablanca…
I’m so jealous! Rob and I LOVE The Simpson’s. If we can’t find anything else to watch, we simply pick a random Simpson’s episode to watch. We have several games that feature the disfunctional family and the movie, to boot!
Amber
February 3rd, 2008
I enjoyed reading this. Just thought I’d mention that you accidentally printed the date as October 1995.
Juan10Soldier
February 3rd, 2008