Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2023 June 14

= June 14 =

fictional cartoon adventures of real people
Yellow Submarine is a cartoon about fictional adventures of the Beatles, voiced by actors. A few years later there was a Saturday morning cartoon, Harlem Globetrotters, about fictional adventures of the Harlem Globetrotters, likewise voiced by actors (hm, two of whose names I recognize). Both of those productions presumably had the consent of the people portrayed.

I can't think of another fictional animated production in which the main characters represent real living people; can you? —Tamfang (talk) 16:06, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I’m particularly confused as to why they couldn’t use the voices of the real people instead of weirdo actors? Pablothepenguin (talk) 16:12, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * For one thing the "real people" were rather busy with their day jobs; for another, they would have been expensive voice actors. 136.54.99.98 (talk) 16:18, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I guess they’re just greedy bastards then? Pablothepenguin (talk) 16:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps for an acting job it's most efficient to hire actors. —Tamfang (talk) 23:34, 18 June 2023 (UTC)


 * There was The Beatles (TV series), which might have been before your time. And in the 1930s and 1940s, at least, there were often animated versions of real people. W. C. Fields was frequently caricatured that way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:14, 14 June 2023 (UTC)


 * The Gorillaz spring to mind. They were (are?) fully committed to being cartoons. Card Zero  (talk) 17:16, 14 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Another that immediately springs to mind is the excellent My Old School (2022 film), in which scenes from 14 years previously are animations of the former pupils at a school, who are also interviewed live "today". Shantavira|feed me 17:18, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, here we go: Category:Animation based on real people. Shantavira|feed me 17:27, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * There's so many! Mr Bean, of course. Some of them are tenuous. I guess Mr. Peabody & Sherman is in there because it's about history and thus contains animated historical figures - but many cartoons would qualify that way. For instance I remember the Venture Bros featured an animated David Bowie at one point (semi-fictionalized into a supervillain, with his long-term companda Li-Li as a sidekick). Card Zero  (talk) 17:36, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't see that Mr Bean, being a fictional character portrayed by a real actor - as distinct from a real person himself - belongs in that category. The blurb at the top says "... Richard Nixon's occasional appearance in Futurama as a head in a jar does not count. Nor do characters or personas commonly portrayed "live" by real people." Or is Mr Bean an actual, real historical human bean? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:43, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Good point, I didn't read the blurb. I see it was written in 2017, and Mr Bean wasn't added to the category until 11 May 2022. It's a pity there's no way to highlight all the articles added to the category since 2017, or see what was in it back then. It could probably be extensively pruned. Card Zero  (talk) 05:35, 15 June 2023 (UTC)


 * A good answer requires a very concrete definition of what you mean by "represent real people." The characters in the Beatles and Globetrotters animations are very loosely based on the real people and represent them no more than Fat Albert represents Albert Robertson. The scriptwriter has stock characters to build a story around. The animators create that story using the character images. The voice actors try to mimic what the characters should sound like. In the end, you are not supposed to think that the animated characters truly represent the real people. I can find no indication that Lucy Liu has a perversion towards alcoholic robots, even if it was clearly documented in Futurama. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 17:47, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The Jackson 5ive (TV series). There was also The Osmonds (TV series), but they used the voices of the real Osmonds. --Amble (talk) 19:47, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * McLaren Tooned. A while back (2012) McLaren produced a series of humorous cartoons in which (presumably fictional or composite) senior engineer Professor M, with McLaren for many years, has the team's current drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton test various new experimental ideas and devices with "no racing today, chaps" – of course the drivers take every opportunity to race each other. The driver characters are voiced by the actual drivers. A follow-up series Tooned 50 also portrays Hamilton's replacement Sergio Perez and various past McLaren drivers, with several being voiced by themselves and two (deceased) by their respective son and nephew.
 * There's also the ongoing OfficialMinis cartoon series depicting highlights of F1, Formula E and MotoGP races, with (mostly) fictitious humorous dialogue. (Yes, the redlinks are deliberate.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 46.65.228.117 (talk) 05:05, 15 June 2023 (UTC)