Homer until he says “D’oh!”

Humberto Vélez remembers the time his voice nearly turned a joke into an airline disciplinary case. After a pilot learned that the actor who had voiced Homer Simpson for years was among his passengers, he invited Vélez into the cockpit to deliver the safety instructions as the yellow cartoon character.

“I said, ‘Fasten your seat belts, idiots, because we’re about to take off,’ but the airline heard it and fired him,” Vélez recalls. People told him the dismissal was his fault. His answer was that the pilot had asked him to do it.

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I said, ‘Fasten your seat belts, idiots, because we’re about to take off,’ but the airline heard it and fired him.

Vélez, 71, tells the story with a laugh, calling it a terrible anecdote before adding that these things happen. He is speaking from the cinema lobby of Videocine, which recently released Gungo and the Cavern Games, a Mexican production from Huevocartoon. In the film, he voices Narizok, the leader of a prehistoric tribe that banishes anyone who loses its strength-based competitions.

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They called me because they admired my work as Homer, but as professionals, they made me audition. Then they told me I would always be with them, and that is how it has been.

The role pleases him because Mexican productions remain a small part of his work. His relationship with the company began nearly 25 years ago, when Gabriel and Rodolfo Riva Palacio Alatriste invited him to join their animated egg franchise as the Chocolate Egg. They admired his Homer work, but still made him audition. “They called me because they admired my work as Homer, but as professionals, they made me audition,” he says. “Then they told me I would always be with them, and that is how it has been.”

Vélez has spent more than four decades behind the microphone, working in animation and live-action productions. He has voiced Lord Farquaad in Shrek and Winnie the Pooh, as well as characters played by Danny DeVito, Steve Buscemi, Al Pacino and Forest Whitaker. He still works in dubbing and appears at conventions, signing events, workshops and voice-acting classes. He jokes that he is not the greatest actor, but says he is a magician at public relations. Asked whether Homer has been a curse, he says he would rather be remembered for one character than forgotten.

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I would rather be remembered for that than forgotten.