While perhaps best known for portraying Lou Grant, on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series Lou Grant, Ed Asner will always be known to a generation as the voice for the loveable curmudgeon Carl Fredricksen in Disney•Pixar’s Up. Asner reprised his role of Carl for one of his final performances in Disney+’s Dug Days.
“Carl really is a role he was born to play,” according to “Dug Days” producer Kim Collins. “We are very
lucky to have cast Ed as he truly is, our Carl Fredricksen.” The team was able to capture Asner’s performance in a Toluca Lake recording studio in February 2020, one month prior to the studio’s shift to working at home.
Upon learning of Asner’s passing, Pixar responded with this tribute on Twitter:
Ed was our real life Carl Fredricksen: a veneer of grouch over an incredibly loving and kind human being. Russell, Dug, and all of us at Pixar will miss him terribly. pic.twitter.com/7jZJUbiHD9
— Pixar (@Pixar) August 29, 2021
You can hear Ed Asner’s performance in “Dug Days,” debuting on DIsney+ September 1, 2021.
Pixar Animation Studios’ “Dug Days” is a new collection of shorts that follows the humorous misadventures of Dug, the lovable dog from Disney and Pixar’s “Up.” Each short features everyday events that occur in and around Dug’s backyard, all through the exciting (and delightfully distorted) eyes of our favorite talking dog. Written and directed by Academy Award® nominee and Emmy® Award winner Bob Peterson and produced by Kim Collins, the shorts premiere exclusively on Disney+ on September 1, 2021.