Los Simpson is the Latin American Spanish dub of The Simpsons.
The series debuted on Canal 5 in Mexico on Christmas Day of 1990, and has since been broadcasted on several channels throughout Latin America, most notably Fox.
Dubbing History[]
As mentioned previously, the first time the series was broadcast in Latin America fully dubbed, was on December 25, 1990 on Canal 5 in Mexico. It was Televisa themselves who produced and bought the dubbing rights to the series in 1990, despite its rival broadcaster, Imevisión (later known as TV Azteca) acquiring the rights to broadcast the series.
Auditions for the roles of the characters were extensive, overseen by both Televisa and Fox representatives in Mexico. For the main character, Homer Simpson, several actors were tested, but Humberto Vélez was later picked, and would soon be known as the voice actor for Homer Simpson in Latin America. Despite the promotion, many people had low expectations of the series and thought it would preform poorly, including Humberto Vélez and Nancy MacKenzie, who even thought at first to reject voicing Homer and Marge Simpson.
The series was first dubbed by Audiomaster 3000, with a characteristically Mexican adaptation, including idioms and several references to Mexican culture, while also trying to include a few words from other Latin American countries. In addition, voice effects were frequently added to the characters, whereas the English version didn't add include any. Other contributions of Mexican dubbing include the accents of origin inserted in various characters, as well as imitations of other Spanish-speaking accents (such as the inclusion of Spanish accents in the episode "Day of the Jackanapes" from season 12). After the change of voices and direction of the series, the Mexican and Latin American idioms were entirely scrapped from future scripts, becoming more neutral and attached to the original English scripts. As Marina Huerta said in an interview, it was the decision of the New Art studio to stop using idioms in the series. Despite this, some characters retained their accents originating in Mexico, which were inserted from the beginning of the series, an example are the cases of Otto and Lou, who speak with a marked Mexican suburban accent, although their dialogues themselves lack idioms.
Since the beginning of the series, the dub has tried to censor a few aspects, mainly sexual or religious references, making it more suitable for all audiences, although in more recent seasons these censorships have practically disappeared since the series has become much more open to those issues than it was in its beginnings, so censoring it would be practically impossible.
Controversy[]
In late 2004, a conflict occurred between New Art and most of their actors, who belonged to the National Actors Association. This was due to how the dubbing actors wanted the studio not to withdraw a clause from the contract that indicated that only actors belonging to the National Actors Association could work in the studio; however, the studio wanted to change that clause in order to allow independent actors to work in the studio. The company intended to hire 75% of ANDA actors and 25% of independent voice actors, but the actors who until then had done the dubbing considered that this meant losing part of their benefits, and that was why they did not agree and eventually the conflict led to the actors carrying out a strike against the studio that began in January 2005. The conflict was not resolved in time for the dubbing of season 16, so Fox had ordered that it would be dubbed by other actors, technically firing most of the original voice actors.
This also affected other Fox series that were dubbed in the same studio, such as Futurama, Malcolm in the Middle and King of the Hill.
When the cast change occurred at the beginning of season 16, one of the most noticeable differences was the drastic cutback in the series' cast. During the first fifteen seasons the series had a large cast of actors to dub many of them, including the six who voiced the main characters and many of those who voiced the supporting characters dubbing only one character, at most two and occasionally doing episodic characters, even after the closure of Audiomaster 3000. But at the beginning of season 16 and with the cast change, the number of actors reduced to half, with one actor giving voice to four major characters at a time. Even the actors who voice the main characters had to dub other secondary characters.
In Season 32, thanks to the intervention of Disney Character Voices International, showrunner Al Jean and series fan Alex Ortega, many of the original voice actors reprised their roles.
Cast[]
- This section is incomplete. You can help The Dubbing Database by finishing it.
| Character | Actor[1] | ||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Homer Simpson
|
Humberto Vélez (seasons 1-15, 32-) | |
| Francisco Reséndez (season 1, one sentence only) | |||
| Víctor Manuel Espinoza (seasons 16-31) | |||
|
Marge Simpson
|
Nancy MacKenzie (seasons 1-15) | |
| Marina Huerta (seasons 16-31) | |||
| Claudia Motta (seasons 32-) | |||
| Erika Mireles (episode 619, one sentence only) | |||
|
Bart Simpson
|
Marina Huerta (seasons 1-19, 16-31) | |
| Laura Torres (episode 97, one sentence only) | |||
| Claudia Motta (seasons 9-15, 30 (singing voice), 32-) | |||
| Diana Pérez (episode 250, one sentence only) | |||
|
Lisa Simpson
|
Patricia Acevedo (seasons 1-15, 32-) | |
| Ariadna Rivas (episode 2, one sentence only) | |||
| Norma Iturbe (episode 99, one sentence only) | |||
| Claudia Motta (episode 130) | |||
| Nallely Solís (seasons 16-31) | |||
|
Maggie Simpson
|
Patricia Acevedo (seasons 2-13, episodes 69 and 286) | |
| Eduardo Borja (episode 109) | |||
| Álvaro Tarcicio (episode 207) | |||
| Jorge Roldán (episode 440) | |||
| Nallely Solís (episode 598) | |||
|
Abuelo Abe Simpson
|
Carlos Petrel (seasons 1-8, 10-11) | |
| Juan Felipe Preciado (episodes 149, season 9) | |||
| Tito Reséndiz (season 12) | |||
| Humberto Vélez (seasons 13-14) | |||
| Sebastián Llapur (seasons 14-25, 32-) | |||
| Mauricio Pérez (season 25) | |||
| Tito Reséndiz (episode 107 and 152) | |||
| Daniel Abundis (episode 260) | |||
| Arturo Mercado (episodes 314-317) | |||
| Gerardo Vásquez (episodes 424 and 445-450) | |||
|
Charles Montgomery Burns
|
Gabriel Chávez (episodes 1-3 and 8, seasons 1-15, 32-) | |
| Miguel Ángel Botello (seasons 16-31) | |||
| Tito Reséndiz (episodes 70-77) | |||
| Orlando Rivas (episode 160) | |||
| Jorge Roig (episode 189) | |||
|
Waylon Smithers, Jr.
|
Octavio Rojas (seasons 1-14, 32-) | |
| Eduardo Fonseca (seasons 15-31) | |||
| Juan Felipe Preciado (episode 123) | |||
| Gerardo Vásquez (episode 156) | |||
| Octavio Rojas (episodes 324 and 325) | |||
|
Ned Flanders
|
Alfredo Lara (episodes 1-6) | |
| César Izaguirre (episode 7) | |||
| Alfredo Lara (season 2) | |||
| Agustín Sauret (seasons 2-12, 15) | |||
| José García (seasons 12-14) | |||
| Óscar Gómez (seasons 16-present) | |||
| José Luis Castañeda (episode 285) | |||
| Alfonso Mellado (episode 294) | |||
| Alfonso Ramírez (episodes 331 and 335) | |||
|
Krusty el Payaso
|
César Izaguirre (episode 8) | |
| Mario Sauret (episode 12) | |||
| Tito Reséndiz (most of seasons 2-15) | |||
| Sebastián Llapur (most of seasons 16-25; an episode in season 34) | |||
| Mauricio Pérez (seasons 25-31) | |||
| Ulises Maynardo Zavala (seasons 32-present) | |||
|
Moe Szyslak
|
Alejandro Villeli (season 1) | |
| César Izaguirre (seasons 2-4) | |||
| Jorge Ornelas (seasons 5-present) | |||
| Luis Alfonso Padilla (episode 117, season 8) | |||
|
Gina Vendetti
|
Gaby Ugarte | |
Errors[]
- In several episodes on Disney+, some of the noises (grunts, screams, laughs, etc...), dialogue, and songs were left undubbed due to occasional mixing errors, or because the studio didn't have enough time to dub them before release.
- This is noticeable with the current seasons of the show. For example, in the season 33 episode "Pixelated and Afraid", Marge and Homer's terrified screams as they saw a wolverine were left undubbed and were left with their original English voices.
Notes[]
- In 2020, the dubbing for the 32nd season was forced to stop after two episodes due to the COVID-19 pandemic before resuming afterwards.
- For season 31, Nicolás Frías left directing the dub of the series for personal reasons, replacing him in his position with Maggie Vera. However, in the middle of the season he returned to direct the dub.