The stars of the long running hit The Simpsons got a big pay raise last week when the ensemble cast inked a deal worth $250,000 per episode. Dan Castellaneta, Nancy Cartwright, Julie Kavner and Yeardley Smith, the voice over actors behind Matt Groening’s dysfunctional family of Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa and the rest of the cast now make as much for their efforts as most live action stars of hit sitcoms for a much easier workload.

They live mostly paparazzi free lives, walk anonymously amongst us (until they open their mouth in character), never have to go through car chase scenes, pretend to be scared witless by a monster placed directly beside them in post-production CGI while they flail in front of a green screen, hang off the edges of cliffs, buildings, moving vehicles and earn their living safely and far-removed from hot lights. They even avoid steamy love scenes with fellow halitosis suffering actors or bizarre personalities. They work alone, sealed off in a sound proof room, listening to direction through ear phones, laying down vocal track after vocal track for the long running hit series.

Voice over actors have steadily increased work above “union scale” so this is a new watershed. Every “A” list star from Tom Hanks and Jerry Seinfeld pines to star in a Disney’s animation unit Pixar films or Dreamworks SKG produced strings of animated CG hits such as “Toy Story” and “Bee Movie.” They all have one pioneering man to thank for their good fortune, legendary cartoon voice Mel Blanc.

During a lecture series at university 30-years ago, Mr. Blanc came to Boston College to deliver a lecture. Sitting 20 feet away, the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Tweety Bird washed over an appreciative audience because for the first time, we saw the man delivering them and our mind’s eye remembered every Saturday cartoon with great precision. It was equal parts exhilaration and disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, it was an honour to sit in that lecture hall and hear from a true legend. It was also a tad wistful because all of those voices had other faces attached than this elderly gentleman before me.

It’s like when the first Hobbit animated cartoon movies came out (not the widely acclaimed three year live-action shoot version of the trilogy). I’d devoured each book and could not get enough of them. Now someone was playing with my imagination and view of wha a Hobbit looked like and how he acted.

I’m not sure how I would react seeing a speech by Bart Simpson’s alter ego (mostly because a grown woman plays a 10-year old boy) and yet I am certain there would be a similar reverence to the talent required to bring this character to life.

So “good on ya” folks. Well done that you have broken through the barriers that kept voice over actors from reaping the large paydays of others. You work just as hard at your craft, please remain anonymous and hidden. I don’t want to spoil the fun of imagination for my own kids.