Superman: The Animated Series Accidentally Cast A Real-Life Couple As Ma And Pa Kent
As the old saying goes, "It's a small world after all." You can travel halfway across the country and still find a former neighbor or someone that attended the same classes as you in college. You might even end up on the other side of the globe one day and run into an old friend that you haven't thought of in years.
Applying this saying to the entertainment industry, there are hundreds, if not thousands of productions going on at one time. Performers will audition for countless jobs, so the people in the waiting rooms start to look familiar after a while. But how often does it happen where you actually end up working with those you really know and are close with, without one party at least putting a good word in for the other?
One instance where this happened was during the casting of "Superman: The Animated Series." Separately, Mike Farrell and Shelley Fabares each auditioned for the roles of the Man of Steel's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. Ultimately, they landed the roles of Clark Kent's beloved mother and father. And interestingly enough, the onscreen husband and wife turned out to be life partners offscreen as well. Some may call it fate, a coincidence, an accident, or simply serendipity. But no matter what you call it, it's still a cute story.
Back home on the farm
In a 2021 interview with Comics Beat, legendary voice director Andrea Romano recounted her time on the animated Superman series for its 25th anniversary. During the conversation, she recalled how Farrell and Fabares auditioned individually, then separately landed the gigs. But when it turned out that they had a real-life relationship, she was excited about the authentic chemistry that they would bring to Ma and Pa Kent on their show. Here's what she said:
"I don't think anybody ever told us they were married. I don't think they were represented by the same agent. I think we just auditioned both these talented actors to play these roles. I could be remembering this inaccurately but when the decision came down to who we were going to cast for those roles, they were the two top people. Then I remember going, 'They're a married couple!' And then thinking, 'How perfect is that?! We're casting a married couple to play a married couple!' Because there's a comfort that two actors who know each other so well have playing kind of themselves. They were just so naturally good and I have to attribute some of that to the fact that they are actually married and comfortable with each other."
Following the three-season run of the fan-favorite DC Animated Universe show, the couple would reprise their roles as the Kents in two more projects: "Justice League" and "Superman: Brainiac Attacks." With their tenures being a part of Bruce Timm's mythology that spanned "Batman: The Animated Series" from 1992 to 2006's "Justice League Unlimited," a whole generation grew up with these actors as the definitive versions of these characters. Call me a sap, but it's nice that these two characters remain a monument to the love shared by their voice actors.