Spanish fans of futurama received two of those “Good News!” that Professor Farnsworth, the mad scientist of the series, likes to give every time he bursts onto the scene. The first, that, after its outcome in 2012, the animated comedy created by Matt Groening would have a new season. And the second, that, as confirmed by the trailer released at the end of last June, The usual cast of voices would return, including Javier Franquelo (Málaga, 89 years old), the voice of Farnsworth. The initial chapter of this eleventh season can be seen from this Monday the 24th on Disney+.
Franquelo has returned despite finding himself “a ruin”, as he responds by default, and with a half smile, every time he is asked how he is doing. There are not a few who do it: walking through his neighborhood, in the vicinity of the Mercado de San Fernando in Madrid, he is greeted with affection by both neighbors and workers in the area. “So EL PAÍS has to come to get you out of the house. What are you going to talk about? ”, Asks his friend Mari Carmen. “Of the immortality of the crab,” she announces. It is inevitable to listen to the man from Malaga without getting glimpses of the most famous characters on whom he has left his mark in his five-decade career. In addition to Farnsworth, he has been playing Mr. Burns from The Simpson longer than his predecessor (the late Pedro Sempson), he has regularly voiced Patrick Stewart and has also voiced Cookie Monster; from which he, just by citing it, he gives away a priceless “Cookies!” with rear clutter sound included. Before the meeting, he announces by phone “I’m going to be a little late, sorry, I haven’t showered” and one feels like accessing an unusual folksy record by Charles Xavier of the X Men.
He walks carefully with the help of a crutch – “Slowly, like Luis Fonsi”, he even says – but his humor is plenty. After all, hardly one is part of the iconic Spanish dubbing team of futurama and The Simpson, so celebrated for its brilliant adaptations, personality and own tag lines, if you don’t have a particular comic vision. So much so that it is hard to know if it is a slip or a joke when, with a serious and convinced countenance, Franquelo claims to be ten years younger but, calculating from his year of birth (1934) to 2023, he himself discovers with fright that he is around ninety. “Well, what I tell you, made a ruin”, he settles after the disastrous calculation.
A lot of people are excited for his return to futurama. Did you also want to be Professor Farnsworth again? Yes, because he is a beautiful character, very funny. The new chapters are fun, although I admit that I’m not very cartoony. With The Simpson I have also always enjoyed a lot. And of futurama It’s been a long time since there were new chapters!
Due to the characters he has dubbed, he is linked to the nostalgia of several generations of viewers. Do you notice that appreciation and recognition? It happens to me every two for three that, listening to me, someone tells me “Go! You are…”. If I am. What I have done seems good to me, but come on, as if I had given myself up to football and had been a good footballer. I am not an important person. I’m not saying it to take away my credit, really, it seems good to be recognized, but it’s not something that worries me either. It is a job like any other. No one recognizes the pharmacist, but surely he also does his job very well.
How is it that you are still working at almost 90 years of age? I don’t work as much as before, far from it, what happens is that futurama They call me because I have always done it. There was a time when there was a lot of work. When I started, it was only dubbed in Madrid and Barcelona. Then there was a boom and it started to bend everywhere. Now the truth is that I don’t know much about the scene, I just do my thing. Although if it weren’t for these characters I wouldn’t do anything.
Doesn’t he withdraw completely out of attachment to them? I am still active and without thinking about retiring. If I retire I don’t get paid, and if I don’t get paid I don’t eat. As long as they call me, have coconut and can do it, I do it. If I don’t, it will be because the pot has gone and I can’t. But no one calls me except to Futurama.
So, at your age, you work out of necessity? It’s also a bit of a hobby, because for me it’s good to get out of the house and meet colleagues who are my friends. From dubbing I have lived very well. Not to get excited either, just not that I’m someone who’s ever wanted a Jaguar. I have had my apartment for years and a house in the mountains, in Cercedilla, all my life. But when I started we were one hundredth of what we are now. And it’s not done like before.
Don’t like the current dubbing? I think there is less professionalism and they are of lower quality. I know I sound like Grandpa Onion saying that the old was better, but he doesn’t care so much anymore. Dubbing involves creative work, acting, going with the character, and in Spain it has always been done very well and has been very well regarded internationally. However, a lot of people have entered who think it’s an easy profession, without being good actors. You have to be a good actor to play well. Some are caught because they say they have beautiful voices, the boyfriend, the cousin, the son… Look, in life there are beautiful voices and ugly voices, there has to be everything. What they should do is act well. I can have a good voice, but I don’t like to sing, because I don’t know how to sing.
I have read in a database that his first film was Bruce Lee, the king of kung fu, from 1975. Do you remember? For the time it fits, but no idea! Could be. Although dubbing has always existed, in my time it was not done so much. A friend told me that his father, Manolo Arias, who was an actor like me, was going to give a dubbing course. I signed up, did the course and several of us left from there. I don’t remember well, it’s been a long time, don’t ask me those things!
Was he a theater or film actor…? I played roles in classic comedies at the Spanish Theater, although more than half of the people I worked with are already dead. He was a good friend of Carlos Ballesteros [fallecido en 2011]Guillermo Marin [en 1988]Francisco Pierra [en 1975]… I also shot a few loose films, but nothing more. I liked the phrase.
Did you also do radio? He acted on the old Intercontinental Radio doing what is now called serials. The protagonist was María Elena Domenech, a very beautiful woman and also a very good actress. I don’t know what happened to her [falleció en 2020, a los 90 años]They paid a tribute to him several years ago, he remembered me and dedicated a few words to me, for everything we had done together. When I was young, I thought the world was going to eat me, but the world ended up eating me.
But you have an enormous trajectory and in the neighborhood it shows that they know and love you very much. I don’t really see almost anyone, more than the people I meet or when I hang out with Mari Carmen, who is not an actress or anything, she is my neighbor and friend.
Live alone? My nephew Fernando and his wife Begoña came to live with me, with the girls, to take care of me. And they take care of me and make me great meals. I’m in heaven. Although they have put air conditioning and I think that has screwed up my throat a bit [ríe]. I have not been married nor have I had children. Only nephews and great-nephews. I had a girlfriend named Pilar, like my mother. Not that it has anything to do with their having the same name, that was all! And she was very pretty. But nothing else. Now I’m not going to get into trouble at this point!
Mention air conditioning. Due to your profession, have you had to follow special care for your voice? I have smoked like a carter, until one fine day I decided to quit, five or six years ago. Before, I also drank Cubatas de Larios from time to time, now I haven’t tried alcohol for a long time. I have not had to follow any procedure with the voice. It just happened that today I have my voice taken.
Did it mean a lot to you meet Patrick Stewart when they were introduced to The anthill? He looked excited. I was very excited, man, of course. He is a gentleman through and through, a lovely chap. A piece of actor and person. It was very gratifying to talk to him. I pronounced his last name as “estíwar”, but he taught me that it is “estúar”.
What would you say is the character you feel most attached to? My favorite dubbing was that of a series from many years ago, in real image, called Up and down [1971, estrenada en España en 1981]. It was English, very good, it took place in the twenties. If you haven’t seen them, I recommend it.
Do you like to listen to your own dubbings again? I already have a good ear! If I like the movie I watch it, but if not, no. I put on TV a lot, although I barely watch movies or series anymore. What entertains me are contests, like Now I fall!, For example. I don’t go to the movies or the theater, not because I don’t like what’s there, I don’t know if it will be good or bad, but because I don’t feel like it.
There are more and more people used to watching movies or series in the original version with subtitles, and some believe that dubbing is something almost vulgar. What would you answer them? Let them do and say what they want, there they are. If I start reading I don’t see the image. I am interested in faces, seeing what happens, the emotions that the actor reflects. But if they prefer to read, then read. Subtitled I do not see anything.
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