LOS ANGELES — He may provide the voice of greedy
tyrant Monty Burns on “The Simpsons,” but off screen Harry Shearer says
it is the company behind Fox’s cartoon hit that is being a bully.
Shearer,
the first cast member of “The Simpsons” to speak publicly about the
contract dispute between the actors who do the voices for the cartoon
characters and production company 20th Century Fox Television, said the
cast is being ripped off.
While acknowledging that
he’s hardly a pauper, Shearer said the salaries in the cast “pale in
comparison to what the show’s profit participants have been taking
home.” Profit participants are typically the creators and key writers
and producers.
The studio has said it “cannot
produce future seasons under its current financial model.” Shearer and
the other primary cast members have been asked to take pay cuts of 45
percent. Currently, the key cast members make $440,000 per episode,
according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Shearer
said he will take an even bigger cut if he can get a “tiny share of the
billions of dollars in profits that the show has earned.” The idea of
giving the cast a piece of what’s known in the industry as the back end
is a non-starter for the studio.
Though “The
Simpsons” has been a cash cow for 20th Century Fox Television and its
parent News Corp. for two decades, the Fox network loses money on the
show. Its ratings have dropped over the last five years while the cost
to the network to air the show has gone up.
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