Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 24, 2019
D’Oh Canada! Canadian journalist voicing Trudeau on The Simpsons
Canadian journalist Lucas Meyer is putting the hours he’s spent listening to politicians to good use, lending his imitation of Justin Trudeau to The Simpsons.
March 24, 2017
Sunday’s upcoming episode, “D’Oh Canada,” will feature a subplot involving Lisa being granted asylum in Canada during a family trip to Niagara Falls.
Meyer, a lifelong fan of the show, said he was thrilled and a bit stunned to receive an email from a Simpsons producer last September. He auditioned a few hours later and found out he got the part the next day.
“I just couldn’t believe it, I sent it to my wife and she was losing her mind,” he said.
“A, it was unexpected. B, it’s not just a show it’s The Simpsons, one that I grew up with. And C, it’s not just a guest voice. It’s guest-voicing the prime minister.”
Meyer, who grew up in Montreal and Antigonish, N.S., has been honing his impersonation skills for years. He said Trudeau is one of his favourites to mimic, along with Don Cherry, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and his mother-in-law, Esther.
August 15, 1997
While working as a reporter in Calgary in 2017, Meyer relented to urgings from friends and posted a compilation of his impressions on YouTube. The video has garnered about 32,000 views and caught the attention of The Simpsons producers.
Meyer kept the news secret for more than six months and finally shared it Monday on social media.
“I never would have anticipated this,” he told CBC News with a laugh.
Tim Long, a Canadian-born consulting producer on The Simpsons, hinted the episode featuring Trudeau would touch on a “current scandal,” perhaps the SNC-Lavalin controversy.
“That may be one of those things that nobody in America is going to get,” Long, who was born in Brandon, Man., and grew up in Exeter, Ont., said in a recent phone interview with The Canadian Press.
“It’s funny, though, because of course America got used to the idea that, ‘Well, Trudeau is great’ — at least the liberal part of America has sort of got it in their head that, ‘Oh, he’s amazing and Canadians must love him’ — and I think they’re shocked to learn that he’s in a little bit of trouble right now.”
Meyer currently works as a reporter with Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and has had his own professional dealings with Trudeau on the scandal. (Source: CBC)
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