The Sword and Laser discussion

According to this article on Reactor (view spoiler)[ https://reactormag.com/seth-macfarlan... (hide spoiler)] the screen rights for DCC have been purchased by Universal and Fuzzy Door (Seth McFarlane's company) and Christ Yost has been attached as screenwriter (he's worked on Thor:Ragnarok and The Mandalorian). We don't have any more details than that (or not that I can find anyway).

What would we like to see from Carl on TV? I note that the Dungeon Crawler Carl subreddit is heavily in favour of it being an animated show and I'm inclined to agree, although I normally prefer live action. The setting is complex and totally bonkers, the violence is cartoonishly OTT (there's one sequence in the third book I just listened to today where there's literally (view spoiler)[ blood and guts and still-alive body parts knee-deep inside the train as they plough their way through thousands of ghouls using a cow catcher made of Katya's extruded body (hide spoiler)], and nearly all the major characters apart from Carl himself are some sort of alien, monster, or a cat wearing a tiara so they'd need to be CGI'ed anyway. Also, animation would mean you could just hire Jeff Hays (or Patrick Warburton) to do Carl's voice rather than worrying about casting someone with the right look.

What do you all think? Would you prefer to see animation, or live action? If live action, who would be your favourite to play Carl? Whose voices would you like to hear for Princess Donut and the other characters?

I think animation would be perfect for this. The issue for animation is the long production. It takes a long time and a healthy budget to put out a quality animated series.

I'm terrible at casting but Warburton would be great as Carl. And maybe Kristen Wigg as Donut?

Kristen Wiig is cool. I see Donut as kind of the cat version of Cher from Clueless, so maybe Alicia Silverstone would be a good choice.

When I read, I hear Donut with a New England patrician accent, like she doesn't quite say the 'r' in Carl. More Cawhl. Does anyone have an accent besides American in the audiobook?

I guess Katherine Hepburn is out of the question, but I bet Kristen Wiig could put that accent on.

Cher from Clueless is a great comp so Silverstone would work. Or an Elle Woods type (Reese Witherspoon from Legally Blonde).

Seth wrote: "When I read, I hear Donut with a New England patrician accent, like she doesn't quite say the 'r' in Carl. More Cawhl. Does anyone have an accent besides American in the audiobook?

I guess Katheri..."

In the audiobook the way Donut says some words sounds kind of British to me. The way she says ‘Carl’ sounds normal but then my non-rhotic accent is so hard-wired in my brain that I am literally unable to perceive rhotic pronunciations so I’ll just have to take it on trust that she’s not saying the ‘r’. In any case that would be another British accent thing. She overall sounds kind of like an American trying to sound like an upper-class Brit. She doesn’t sound New England to me, but then a Katherine Hepburn style accent would fit her character.

Various supporting characters have other Earth accents, eg the Asian siblings we meet on the Maestro’s show. There’s also an Icelandic character who is introduced in Book 2.

Ruth wrote: "but then my non-rhotic accent is so hard-wired in my brain that I am literally unable to perceive rhotic pronunciations so I’ll just have to take it on trust that she’s not saying the ‘r’"

Heh. I hear you. Almost literally. My dad was born and raised in Brooklyn, NYC, and despite living 600 miles away in Ohio for 60+ years never really lost his accent with all of its non-rhotic-ness.

I always mentally translated his Noo Yawk accent into Midwesternese and occasionally got caught out when there was a translation error. He would say “yutes” instead of “youths” for instance, or “troot” instead of “truth”, so when he mentioned a town named Van Wert I mentally corrected it to “Van Worth”. Imagine my surprise when I saw that it actually *is* Van Wert.

The weird thing is that the R was sometimes there and sometimes not. My New York cousins and some of my New Hampshire neighbors do this, too, so it must be a rule. “Car park” becomes “cah pock” but “car interior” is “car interiah”. “Wicked dark” is “wicked dock” but “wicked dark out” is just that, R preserved. (Except for my friend from Hingham. No Rs anywhere. I don’t think he can even pronounce the letter. “Say ‘arr’.” “Aahh.” “Arr.” “Ahh.” “P, Q, R.” “P, Q, aahh.” 😂)

But then “idea” becomes “idear”, so…

Yes, it's strange that the stereotypically lower-class accents of New York and Boston drop the r's in the same was as the rich, boarding school folk from the same region used to. People in Cary Grant movies never manage to pronounce their r's. I'm glad Donut doesn't - she seems like she should sound too upper crust to bother with them.

I would really love Felicia Day as Donut. I think both her nerd cred and voice acting skill would make a perfect fit.