Harry Shearer steps down as voice of Black Simpsons character Dr Julius Hibbert

Voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson will take over the role of Dr Hibbert in future episodes

Harry Shearer will stop voicing Dr Julius Hibbert, a Black character on The Simpsons. His final episode as Dr Hibbert was Sunday's (21 February) episode, “DairyQueen”.

Starting on 28 February, in the upcoming episode “Wad Goals”, voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson will take over as Dr Hibbert.

Richardson has previously worked on more than 70 Simpsons episodes. He has also been featured on Family Guy, American Dad, and F is for Family.

Back in June 2020, Simpsons producers made a statement that they would "no longer have white actors voice non-white characters” on the long running animated programme.

Other animated shows have been going in this direction, with Netflix's Big Mouth recasting its biracial character Missy, who is now played by Ayo Edebiri (Jenny Slate had previously voiced the character).

Apple's Central Park has also recast BIPOC characters with actors of colour, as has Family Guy, where actor Mike Henry stepped down from voicing Black character Cleveland Brown.

“It’s been an honour to play Cleveland on Family Guy for 20 years. I love this character, but persons of colour should play characters of colour. Therefore, I will be stepping down from the role,” Henry said on Twitter last June.

Last year, actor Hank Azaria stepped down from voicing South-Asian Simpsons character Apu. The move followed a 2017 documentary by Hari Kondabolu called The Problem with Apu, which frames the Kwik-E-Mart clerk as a racist depiction of Indian Americans.

“Once I realized that this was the way this character was thought of, I just didn't want to participate in it anymore, Azaria told The New York Times. "It just didn't feel right.”