yes, the actors do come and go (talking of Michelangelo), even on animation series. Something like Corpse Bride would have a lot of leeway, but even a medium-budget European animation series will have the actors coming back. They record the voices in batches of 3-5 episodes, but will have the actors record pick-up lines in subsequent recording sessions if stuff gets added in storyboarding.

Also, the animators/storyboarders don’t necessarily start out with the actual voices. A leica reel (a.k.a. animatic) often features layout dialogue, which is just temp dialogue recorded by other actors or non-professionals (the director, the storyboarders etc.).

It’s relatively rare, AFAIK, for a full improv performance such as Robin Williams as the genie to pretty much define the animation and the character.

Out of interest, John, to what extent were the actors able to ad lib on Corpse Bride?

Anyways, classic dear-to-my-heart Burton, Gorey and Searle’ish gothic stop-motion style (now with Grangel’s influence). However, I would like to see something a bit more grand epic happy, airy and light, yet still dark romantic. I am visualizing a stop-motion in the form of Steamboy, where 25 shades of black is not always the primary thrust. But glad Burton not following the Disney CGI trend, as the art and the handmade form becomes lost; it all becomes a churn commodity process. But Corpse Bride sure to be on the heavy-rotational Hot Topic t-shirt rack for the next 5 to 10 years. And perhaps, dating myself, but used to be to picking up treasured material such as this, meant a visit to ‘The Alley’ in Chicago or similar, now it’s in the malls, Tiffany-era Orange Julius ones no less. ;)

But I think you want it to stand alone and not harken back to the last one.