History Main / MauriceChevalierAccent

Nowadays the Maurice Chevalier Accent will be used to voice every French character. In comedy and animation this can be amusing, but in serious stories it becomes JustAStupidAccent and can really take you out of the story, because it literally becomes ridiculous PoirotSpeak. In fact, whenever a comedic accent is needed you can rest assured that it will usually be French. It gets to the point of overkill. Sometimes, like in the movie ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'' (where the British character RobinHood [[UnexplainedAccent inexplicably speaks English with a French accent]]), people are depicted as being French for no apparent reason other than evoking laughs while using the accent.

->''"We do not even have a language! {{Just a stupid accent}}!"\\
"She's right! We all talk like Creator/MauriceChevalier!"''

** The French dub of the movie rolls with this by keeping Lumière's accent but having everyone else use modern intonations.

** Lumière in ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast''. Also note that that the entire story takes place in France and yet he's the only one speaking in this heavy French accent.

* Ride/DisneyThemeParks: Pierre the French parrot briefly imitates Chevalier in ''The Enchanted Tiki Room''.

!!Examples

[[folder:Film]]

* Averted by Captain Jean-Luc Picard in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. The producers originally wanted the Captain to sound French but Creator/PatrickStewart's attempts at a French accent came off as this. The producers then decided that a Captain's voice based on a comic actor was unsuitable for their series, and told Stewart to just use his trained RP accent (Stewart naturally - being a Yorkshireman - then had an OopNorth accent).

[[folder:Pinball]]

[[folder: Puppet Shows]]
* Jacques le Roach, the French cockroach chef on ''The Animal Show'', talked like this.

[[folder: Radio]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* Randie's friend Jacques in ''Webcomic/SquidRow'' combines this with FunetikAksent.

[[folder:Web Originals]]
* In the first videos of the Italian Webseries ''Insopportabilmente donna'' Creator/TessMasazza’s French accent is quite prominent. Over time her Italian has quite improved.

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]
* In the WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse cartoon "Mickey's Gala Premier" (1933) Maurice Chevalier is one of the celebrities who welcomes Mickey by singing in his signature accent.

** The earliest Chevalier impressions can be found in the Merrie Melodies cartoons "Buddy's Show Boat" (1933) and "Shuffle Off To Buffalo" (1933).
* Creator/{{Disney}}
** Pierre the French parrot briefly imitates Chevalier in ''[[Ride/DisneyThemeParks The Enchanted Tiki Room]]''.
** Louis the cook in ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid''.
** Lumière in ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast''. Also note that that the entire story takes place in France and yet he's the only one speaking in this heavy French accent.
** Prince Naveen in ''Disney/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'', even though he's supposed to be from a fictional European country, and the few native words he uses sound closer to Italian than to French.
** The Genie in ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}'' plays a French waiter and typical Frenchmen near a romantic dinner, while using the accent.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSwanPrincess'': Again, the frog speaks French for no particular reason. Except that he is voiced by John Cleese, who seems to enjoy voicing French characters. (And it could be a StealthPun, as "frog" has long been a slang word for the French.)
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'': Robin Hood, despite being an English folklore character, speaks with a French accent.

** Jacques the bowling instructor in the episode ''"Life in the Fast Lane"''.
** The clumsy waiter in the episode ''"The Boy Who Knew Too Much"''.
** Jacques and Ugolin in ''"The Crepes of Wrath"''.
** In the ''"Treehouse of Horror VIII"'' segment, the French militaries who bomb Springfield all speak with a Maurice Chevalier accent and even conclude with a ''"hon hon hon"'' laugh.
** The French cook in ''"Guess Who's Coming To Criticize Dinner?"''.
** The French military officer in ''"The Trouble With Trillions"''.

* Jacques, male member of the ice dancing team from "WesternAnimation/TotalDramaPresents:TheRidonculousRace" has this although he's French-Canadian

* In ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTailFievelGoesWest'' the French Cat in Cat R. Waul's gang speaks with an incredibly thick Chevalier accent.

[[folder:RealLife]]
* In some TV documentaries and news broadcasts real life French people are often dubbed while using Maurice Chevalier accents. This often comes across as comical instead of being serious.

[[caption-width-right:FYI: "Avoir le cafard"[[note]]to have the cockroach[[/note]] is an idiom meaning "feeling depressed".]]

[[quoteright:263:[[Webcomic/SquidRow http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zee_blues.jpg]]]]

[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maurice_chevalier_accent_6411.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[-Possibly the earliest imitation of a Maurice Chevalier accent, in ''Mickey's Gala Premier'' (1933).-] ]]

[[/index]]

[[folder:Comicbooks]]

* Averted hard by Captain Jean-Luc Picard in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. The producers originally wanted the Captain to sound French but Creator/PatrickStewart's attempts at a French accent came off as this. The producers then decided that a Captain's voice based on a comic actor was unsuitable for their series, and told Stewart to just use his trained RP accent (Stewart naturally - being a Yorkshireman - then had an OopNorth accent).

* Averted hard by Captain Jean-Luc Picard in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. The producers originally wanted the Captain to sound French but Patrick Stewart's attempts at a French accent came off as this. The producers then decided that a Captain's voice based on a comic actor was unsuitable for their series, and told Stewart to just use his trained RP accent (Stewart naturally - being a Yorkshireman - then had an OopNorth accent).

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Creator/MelBlanc used this voice for many French (and even French-Canadian) characters, like the lumberjack in ''WesternAnimation/WetHare''. However, WesternAnimation/PepeLePew was based more on actor Charles Boyer's accent, although he does do a brief Chevalier imitation in "Scent-mental Romeo".

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* Randie's friend Jacques in ''Webcomic/SquidRow'' combines this with FunetikAksent.

* During the "Everyday French with Pierre Escargot" segments on ''AllThat'', Kenan Thompson would affect Maurice Chevalier's signature laugh. And that's pretty much the extent of the accent.

* John Cleese as the French Taunter in ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'', despite the film taking place in an anachronistic but pre-Norman medieval England. Even Lancelot asks him: "What are you doing in England?"

* In the WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse cartoon "Mickey's Gala Premier" (1932) Maurice Chevalier is one of the celebrities who welcomes Mickey by singing in his signature accent.

*** A fun theory about that is that actually he's american. Since without TranslationConvention he has an american accent when speaking french while the other characters speak french without accent, the american "dub" gives the frenchspeaking characters an american accent in english, and the french-with-an-american-accent-speaking Lumière an american-with-a-french-accent voice.

* During the "Everyday French with Pierre Escargot" segments on ''AllThat'', Kenan Thompson would affect Maurice Chevalier's signature laugh.

* During the "Everyday French with Pierre Escargot" segments on ''All That'', Kenan Thompson would affect Maurice Chevalier's signature laugh.

The Maurice Chevalier accent is a typical FunnyForeigner subtrope, especially whenever a story is set in France. All these French characters talk in the same way: ''"the"'' and ''"this"'' are pronounced ''"zee"'' and ''"zis"''. The ''"w"'' is pronounced ''"ooweee"''. Some GratuitousFrench words ''"mais oui", "sacre bleu", "zut alors", "mon ami"'' or ''"mon chéri"'' are used non-stop. There's often a grotesque emphasis on the final syllable of the last word in a sentence, for instance: ''"Zis is veiry importààààààànt!"'' Chevalier's iconic ''"hon hon hon"'' SignatureLaugh has also become the standard way Frenchmen laugh in English-speaking fiction.