Why does Magica have a russian(ish) accent?

[Ninormaal]

So I never really watched too much ducktales, but I have been reading duck comics for a long time, and played the original game, so I just started playing this (on the ps3, but I figured this would be a good place to ask). I got to the end of the transsylvania level and met magica de spell. However, it bugs me that she has some sort of russian or other east europian sounding accent, instead of an italian. I mean, she lives next to the vesuvius, so she's obviously italian. I assume this already was in the original tv series, but it just doesn't make sense to me. Does anyone know why they did that?

[Leonard]

I don't think that it is a russian accent,i always thought that it is just a speaking disoder.
Do you even know how Russian sounds like?

[Ninormaal]

Originally posted by Leonard:

I don't think that it is a russian accent,i always thought that it is just a speaking disoder.
Do you even know how Russian sounds like?

I know she has some sort of lisp too, but she definitely has an accent. I don't know, I thought it just sounds vaguely eastern european, not neccessarily russian, though perhaps I phrased that wrong. It know it's definitely not an italian accent though.

[Yorae Moogle]

Yeah They even got most of the orginal voice actors from the TV shows to do the voices for the game. A few they couldn't get becuase they have died, but Magica DeSpell (voice actress June Foray is 95) and Scrooge McDuck (voice actor Alan Young is 94) are voiced by the orginals. Gyro Gearloose, Fenton Crackshell/Gizmoduck, Flintheart Glomgold, and Mts. Beakly voice actors all have passed away so had to have someone else do them.

[Ninormaal]

Originally posted by Yorae Moogle:

Yeah They even got most of the orginal voice actors from the TV shows to do the voices for the game. A few they couldn't get becuase they have died, but Magica DeSpell (voice actress June Foray is 95) and Scrooge McDuck (voice actor Alan Young is 94) are voiced by the orginals. Gyro Gearloose, Fenton Crackshell/Gizmoduck, Flintheart Glomgold, and Mts. Beakly voice actors all have passed away so had to have someone else do them.

I agree that it's amazing how they returned at that age and still did a great job. Note that I wasn't saying that her voice was bad, just that the accent was unfitting, but that can only be blamed at the director(s) of the tv series.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

I think this is basically an artifact of her being sort of a generic cartoon villain, and specifically a Dracula-inspired one, and Dracula is eastern-European...

[FreeToaster]

She's always had that accent, but I wouldnt assume that where someone lives would dictate what kind of accent they would or should have. I currently live in the southern united states and I have a NY accent. now, if her back story, if one exists has her growing up there, then thats an issue. although the italian version of the show does have her speaking in an Neapolitan accent... sooo...

In the end, it's just a kids cartoon, so it's not really worth obsessing over any errors that may be present. they are talking ducks after all...

[Zodiakos]

I don't want to put too much thinking into this, because I admit it's a little embarassing to put too much analysis into a children's cartoon villain, but my guess is that Magica de Spell is supposed to be Italian (hence the faux Italian sounding name). She apparently lives on/in Mt. Vesuvius, which is also in Italy. Oddly, her accent sounds vaguely pseudo-Romanian to me, and there is the whole 'resurrecting Dracula' thing going on... I guess Romania is only about 420 miles away from Italy 'as the buzzard flies', maybe she has a complex backstory -

Okay, I can't do this anymore. Someone else has to pick up this train of thought.

Edit: I'll never live this down, but here's the wikia entry that pretty much answers every question in this thread: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magica_De_Spell