Here’s a piece of perfect voice casting. Deadline says Paul Reubens, the man who made Pee-wee Herman, has been cast as Jokey Smurf in Sony’s live action/CGI combo The Smurfs. Already in the cast smurfing it up are Neil Patrick Harris, George Lopez, Quentin Tarantino, Katy Perry, Alan Cumming, Sofia Vergara, Hank Azaria, Jonathan Winters, and Michael Cera.
The assumption on this movie all along has pretty much been that it’s a terrible idea. But maybe it’s time to rethink that position. Take a good, long, look at that voice cast. That’s a lot of talent. More than that, these are talented people who don’t do just anything. Paul Reubens mostly does things that are good. Neil Patrick Harris makes even horrible movies awesome. Jonathan Winters is nine-hundred-years-old and in retirement. Would he really come back to work for voice work a throwaway cash-in? Maybe they know something we don’t.
Whether or not the movie’s any good, what’s certain is that Reubens is perfect voice casting. Compare his voice to that of the original Jokey Smurf below:
