Four finger discount. Dude shy, everybody, welcome to four figure discount were today we are very lucky to be joined by one of the most iconic voice actors of our time.
It is Billy West. Billy, how are you, sir, good?
How are you doing very well? I'm very very happy to have you on board the show. This authernoon for us, this evening for you. Well, it's nine thirty pm in Los Angeles. Ye, I appreciate you staying up past your bedtime.
Ah, that's the only new.
Are you a night out, Billy?
No, I used to be, but take a medication that I wake up every three hours. That's one of the side effects, you know, So I have to add up a night's sleep, you know, I have to like wake up and I go right back to sleep, of course, but it's a drag because I got to add up the hours to equal a decent sleep. Sometimes I just wake up and stumble around and try to figure out something to do until I fall asleep again.
It is one of the drags of getting a few more miles on the media. You've got to be very strategic about your sleep patterns.
Well.
Firstly, congratulations on the success of the latest season of Future Armor. I saw you posted recently that it's got the highest rating of any season for the last decade of Rotten Tomatoes, so that must be exciting.
I was thrilled to death that the fans appear to be over the moon and critics like it. That's as good as it gets. That's the best of both worlds. And you know, I'm thrilled to death that that situation is what's going on. I think that everybody is always trying to be at you know, their utmost creative, the actors, the writers, everybody. No, you know, it's like it's still a big labor of love and still a passion project for everybody.
Is you ture with the show you're most proud of? Do you think?
Yes, it's my favorite thing I've ever done. And plus after all this time, it's we're like family, you know.
Is that the reason that it is your favorite that the relationships that you've created during the making of it? Is it the creative output as well? Is it a combination of all of those things.
It's a combination of so many things.
You know, when we would record all the time, we'd be in a particular studio and then when the show was canceled and it was out of production. We were off for a couple of years or so, and when we came back, it was like we hopped in the same seats and you know everybody, you know, It was like we never left.
So you were back in the studio again. You went recording remotely because the pandemic obviously made everyone record from home.
But we had to record remotely when the show first came back because of the COVID and all the other things about it. But I've been going to the studio for the sessions and everybody else has been too.
You have to change your approach when you're recording from home as opposed to because you've got to try and create that energy and possibly it's be impossible to do, I'm assuming, but when you're at home, how do you approach the job differently When you're recording from a home studio compared to being in a room full of so many, so much talent.
You can't replicate the sparks that fly when you have an ensemble, but you have to trust the director, you know, and the director will keep you on your toes. And it's David X. Cohen who's always directing. I love his style and he lets us. You know, if they get what they want and somebody has an idea for something, they'll always explore it.
They'll always say, Okay, give it a whirl.
You know.
Doesn't it laugh for much ad libbing in Futurama? Or do you're one of those guys likes to sort of stick to the script? Mall right? Or do you prefer to Do you like to add lib?
Yeah? I do.
I honor the writers because they're my heroes. They these guys are so good, the men and women that write the show. They're just so good, you know. I love what.
They have to do and what they have to say.
And if I get an idea, you know, which isn't all the time, but I mean if every now and then something just happens to pop up, I will ask, you know, I'll say, hey, I was thinking, can I try something? And they're always happy to you know, and if they don't like it, of course, it'll just wind up on the floor.
But it's a wonderful situation. It always has been.
Yeah.
I love that level of respect. I imagine being in that kind of collaborative, creative environment. I imagine would be a kin to like to say, maybe doing live theater, or being on stage with a band, or even being in like say a radio studio with sort of like minded individuals and putting a show together. That way, you're
all going to be sparking off one another. Even if you're sticking to the script or sticking to the story or the or the lines that you put down for one another, you know there'll be an inflection in the way you deliver a line, or a level of energy might go up or go down, depending on how you've interacted with other people. It's got to feel like some kind of crucible or colder in that way.
I guess it's just it's joyous, you know. I mean, I never know when it's gonna be the last time, and so I try to just live as much as I can in every second, every moment of when we're working, and I'm so thankful when it's over. It's like I don't want to leave, you know, because I frame every moment in my gallery upstairs, because I know that it's finite and everything does come to an end. In our case,
it's come to an end a few times. So hopefully they'll pick us up for another season maybe if they wanted to do more. I mean, I'm so there. If not, I'm just gonna run away. I'm done. I have nothing to prove.
When did you start taking that approach off? This might be the last time because a lot of us we take things for granted, and during the nineties, do you think you took your success for granted at any point or do you have you always been I'm going to treat this like it could never happen again.
I think I treated it as something really, really precious, and you never wanted anything to happen to it or anyone else. I think as the years went by, I began to become more sentimental as time passes. I mean, plus, you know, I'm seventy four now, you know, you just you know, it's so weird to think of myself. And if somebody had told me that I'd be working at seventy four years ago, I would have thought they had rocks in their head. You know, I would have never imagined working at my age.
Billy I wanted to ask about about working the nineties, particularly working on shows like Red and Stimpy. I mean, I was I'm a generation ex kid, so I was sort of a ran for that era, and the impression that got of it was audience audiences were being fed
stuff in the eighties. It felt very predictable, very kind of by the numbers, but there was this underground scene that was bubbling up to the surface, and the powers that be in the entertainment industry were like, we know people like this, we don't know how to do it, so we're gonna give it to the We're gonna give these weirdos and these strange guys the reins and let them do exactly what they want and we got all
this great stuff as a result. I mean, is that what it felt like in the midst of it, in the in the thick of it, like I can't believe they're letting us, not only they're letting us make this stuff, that they're putting it out there, that they're advertising it, that they're saying, yeah, this is the next big thing to get to check out.
I think they got skittish, you know, they were like once they saw it in production, they were like, ah, what have we done? And but but the women at Nickelodeon, believe it or not, they were pretty adventurous. I mean, to have that three cartoon block that they came up with, which was Doug Rugrats and Ren and Stimpy That was Jerry Leeborne and Vanessa Coffee and Mary Harrington sort of oversaw and and sort of nurtured and fostered Ren and Stippy,
and then it became a television production. They were pretty courageous, you know, they were taking a risk. They knew it because it was you know, it was supposed to be for children. Nickelodeon was the children's network, and here you have this crazy, you know, psychotic show, all this screaming and yelling and h but I mean it was great. It was great. Yes, I think there was a feeling of like, oh my god, wait'll they wake up out of their coma, you know, and.
Kids are weird and loud and virgie on psychotic as well, so that would probably tapped into something that I really dug.
You know, you're so right. The thing is is the world had to be rescued from this universe of my little Pawony and Rainbow Bright Strawberry or Cake and Pound puppies, and you know, all this wreck that mirrored children's own immediate realities. It was never gonna take them on an adventure or take them somewhere, you know, on a thrill ride. And that's what these cartoons offered, you know, just an alternative.
They even did them on Sunday mornings, just to be different from what the networks were doing.
Can you recall when John first on board to do both ren En Stipy at the beginning. Obviously he took run over and then you took it over later on, But can you remember your first thoughts when you heard the idea for this ren and Stimpy. When you were first reading those lines, we thought, this is going to be some of the craziest stuff that's ever been created for kids television show.
I think that I was I had euphoria over the fact that I was actually getting paid to do voices for a cartoon. You know, I was thrilled to death. I just thought it was so surreal that I wasn't aware of too much outside of the daily business of going to the studio making sure I had enough energy because I would get fatigued. I mean, some of the takes would be so gruelling and repetitive and screaming, you know, a take after take after take. Oh, that's not quite it.
I don't know that's your ninety eight percent there and all kinds of shit like that, you know, And I was built for abuse, you know. Little my book comes out and people read about the kind of childhood I had, Billy, forgive me.
This sounds like a bit of a wanky question, but I mean, I'm curious about I don't know the resonance of voice acting for you as a performer. I mean, do you feel it in the body or in the mind when you feel like you've actually this is this is this character's voice, This is how the sound, this is how I this is the intenetion of a certain width. And then do you feel it physically or mentally or both?
It's both. I think a lot of it is based on having been around for so long and that I have a really good understanding of the human psyche. And I try to make characters not sound so cartoony so much as these are people that you could know in real life, even though they're cartoons. But even Matt Groening said The Simpsons is a cartoon to him, Futurama is real as if those people were real, really, okay, yeah, And I try to play them as if that you
could know them. And I try to find something that resonates not only sounds good, but sounds unique, different from the average approach, like what you would expect.
Well, you say that, I feel like the I think it was the second finale of Futurama, the one where it's the time loop. I think it's one of the most perfect ending to a TV show of all time with fran Lelif's going, let's go do that right again and brings that humanity to it in a show that's full of aliens and monsters and I go through space, but at the core of it, it's it's human.
Yes, I really work at trying to be as honest as I can, because that's what connects with people. That's why people like something. It's got to resonate for them. There's got to be more to a voice than just, you know, some screwy voice. I mean, you got to you know, one of my heroes, mel Blank, was such an amazing actor. I tried to act my ass off with these characters, and I want it to be where you don't even realize it or notice it. I guess it's a testimonial to how good you get after a
long time with performing. You kind of know what works and what doesn't.
Can you tell when you've done a take and they've gone thanks Bill, and you've gone, Nah, I can do it, Bet, I can kick it up a note. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm pretty honest about stuff and I and I have enough of self awareness, like, oh, they're not buying the bullshit?
Does that extend to pretty much everything you do with me? Because you've done a lack of commercial work as well. I mean I was, yes, I was really curious about, you know, working opposite Jack Caason as the red and Yellow M and M's I mean, are you giving that red eminem in a life so to speak?
Yeah, it's just something that you know, it's appropriate to what that character is supposed to be.
You know, he's he's sort of a wise, assy.
Cynical trying to be patient with those around him, but he seems to be moving a little too quick and then he, you know, and then he gets like pulled back by people like Yellow, played brilliantly by JK. Simmons, who's one of the best actors that's ever been.
And I knew this.
I started working with him thirty something years ago and I knew right away. I said this guy's a national treasure, you know, and I hadn't really seen him in much except for a TV show called Oz, which was a prison show.
We know, all was don't worry, oh boy you okay.
Yeah, nothing intimidating about that, you know, just like working with the guy. But he's the greatest guy in the world and unlimited in his talent and his abilities and what he puts forth. You know, it's I can't believe that, you know, still going on after all this time. I don't know where the time goes. It's like there's these theories the time is moving faster for some reason, that there's people screwing around in a laboratory and cern cern
and people warping time, and I don't know. I don't know. I do know that everything goes by in a blink of an eye. After a certain time in your life and your timeline.
I'd say there's some validity to that. Things don't feel like they're speeding up. But I just love the idea that, Yeah, the creation of these commercials for this for this Delightful Candy has become like a two handed between these two talented actors who were creating these characters and coming up with actions and reactions and interactions for them both. I think that's marvelous.
Have you ever eaten me? I had, I've eaten me?
Do you ever? Do you guys have a just just riff? And has a riff of yours have been turned into a commercial?
No, I'd like to say that, yes, it happens, but I don't know. It's it's streamlined. You know, It's like the writers know exactly what they want. It's been run through so many gauntlets. By the time it gets to us, you know that they know exactly what they want, and you know, and somebody will direct us. The ad agency takes turns directing. It's it's always a new group of people, you know, they get younger and younger. They're like Viet Con. They keep getting younger and they just keep coming.
How does the directing differ from a commercial compared to a show like a futuruma way, I'm assuming it's just the same people all the time, or a similar group of people. But what does it like when you have to do a new commercial for a new do you have to Obviously they know who you are, but how does their approach different from that of a TV show?
Well, everybody who directs mirrors the style of actors. Like there's a million styles of acting, million ways to get from point A to point B, you know, instead of a straight line. I mean, there's people that embellish, there's people that overact as a trademarked style, and there's people that underact and are subtle.
But the directors are the same.
Each one is different and and it's your job to fulfill their objective. You're an objective fulfillment machine unless it's your project, unless you created it. But I'm happy to be that, you know, happy to be the person that delivers for someone else.
And I imagine some are better at communicating the wants and needs than others.
Yes, it's true, it's true. I've been very fortunate though. The majority of directors that I've worked with are people that know what they want to hear. You know, they're not dithering, and you know we'll know it when we hear it. Oh, I hate when I hear that, you know at auditions, you know, what are you looking for? What? What ballpark? I don't know, we'll.
We'll know it when we hear it.
We could be here all day, man, you know, and you'll do something, and they'll go, what if what if it was a female? Okay, and you do that, and what if she was an Eskimol. You know, it's like when they don't know what they want, you could spend days ticking the pepper out of ants. Shit.
Yeah, Billy, there was something I was shocked to learn. I was reading a previous interview with you, and you mentioned that there would be occasionally, I'm not sure if this was happened to you specifically or happened with other voice actors, but you would go into audition for a role, and then the producers or the studio or the director or whoever would sort of use your audition as the template and they would go to say that, like to an a lister or a quite unquote name actor, and
say this is how we want it done. It's almost like, you know, yeah, llm's scraping actual intellectual property for AI slop. It struck me as so corrupt.
I brought a tape recorder when they actually still had them to an audition.
Actually it was a paid audition.
They wanted me to read some parts for an entire movie script, an animated and you know it's they were sort of nebulous about who they wanted to do it ultimately, and I knew that, but what I really didn't like was that you bring your own genius or whatever you want to call it, your own invention yet to things and they're just co opting it. You know. It's like, okay, we're going to okay, and then they they tell the celebrity, Okay, you hear what he did there, we want more of that,
and like, can you copy what he did there? And you know, and I've heard my stuff in the in the final mix in the theater. I've heard lines that I had libbed or put a particular spin on, you know, finesse whatever. I only accepted it because I got paid for it. You know, it was considered a paid audition, so they were buying what you were inventing that day. And you know, it's as simple as that. Really, there's so many ninnies that, you know, everybody's got to be
a celebrit or you're nothing. I feel like there's so many crafts people that just dedicate their life to this work. And I know a lot of voice actors that don't act theatrically that can piss circles around a lot of movie actors and TV actors that I've seen, but you know, there's always been this strange divide, like we're the redheaded bastards step children of the industry.
When did that shift start? Was it the Disney films in the nineties with like Aladdin and The Lion King. Was that when I started to sort of shift more towards we're gonna get on screen actors. Yeah, yeah, Tim Allens and your your Tom Hanks's toy story as opposed to genuine voice actors.
Well, they always wanted to go with star power, but my feeling was that they weren't voice people. They were basically doing their own voices. That used to bother me because to me, voice acting is alchemy. You know where they used to use us to. You know, we'd walk in a room and the producers and then everybody, the cre natives would say, see that bar lead on the table, it would be nice if you could turn it to gold for us, you know, before you left and you
go boom and there it is. You make gold out of it. And now when you know, when the bar lead is sitting on the table, they bring in these twenty million dollars per pictures, celebrities, and it's still a bar of lead. There's no alchemy, there's no there's no magic. There has to be something that changes into something else
for a voice to ring true as magic. You know, you pick anybody Tom Kenny all the things that he does, Dan cast and a Letta, any number of my contemporaries that can provide upwards of hundreds of variations of voices and characters, and hit the bell each time, you know, hit the ringer each time. Very challenging to be able to do that. And when you see somebody that's barely trying, and then where's my million dollar page? Get to just
drive your nuts. You know, it's like sending a bunch of highly skilled plumbers to go win the World Series for you. You know that they have no business in Fenway Park. Then they really don't. I mean, they're great at what they do, they're excellent at what they do, but voice acting is a whole other animal.
This show is brought to you by the four figure discount Patreon, where you'll find over one hundred hours of bonus podcasts, including exclusive Simpsons reviews and commentaries, as well as exclusive episodes of Going Down to South Park, Tales of Futurama, Bob's Pods, Speaking of the Hill, Talking Sifould, the one about Friends, and so much more. So go ahead and join the family today at patreon dot com slash four figure discount. I find because I've got two
small kids. I've got a seven year old and our five year old, and I'll go to watch a lot of kids movies and that's when they get at the start to do the voice acting. And I remember went to a film recently, can't recall. I think it was The Bad Guys Tour something, and I think I spent half of the film trying to figure out going I
know that voice, who is this person? And I found myself not of actually paying attention to the film, I was trying to work out who these voice actor was because they weren't putting on a voice, they were just speaking, and it was bothering me that I couldn't figure it out. Now I realized I've spent twenty minutes not concentrating, come so focused on this voice.
Well, it depends like like if you listen to The Jungle Book, everybody in that movie their personalities were bigger than life. Louis Prima, Phil Harris, George Sanders, those people. Those people were bigger than life, you know, their personas were bigger, and they were so good at what they did that you bought it for those characters. Yeah, George Sanders was this resonant, beautiful voice and everything. They were
spectacular in and of themselves. But there's a lot of voices you hear that I aren't particularly spectacular, and like you said, you're sitting there, it's bedeviling, Like you know, who is that is that Brad who's supposed to be?
You know, Pitt's the one that I think of, because I mean I remember, I think it was around the early two thousands when they did the animated Sinbad movie and they got Pitt to do the lead for that. No, do you respect to Pitt? Well, I think it is a fine actor, but I mean not the most distinctive voice, and certainly not for Sindbad either. Yeah, and that really just felt like you you're burning money.
I think that there's a lot of people that come home at the end of the day and tell their kids, guess who I worked with today? Sure, yea. Even the actors they at the beginning, I remember how they used to act huffyed.
Like, you know, I'm not going to be in a stupid cartoon. I'm an actor, you know.
And then all of a sudden, every one of them was involved because because of the paycheck involved, you know. And they used to try to say, well, I did it for my kids, you know, Yeah, like there has to be a disclaimer, there has to be a condition set on the reason why I did this. Well, you know, it's like Schwarzenegger doing a voice, you know, and he it's impressive to.
His Guess what kids, Guess what? Daddy is a cartoon chat? Yes, what you will tell your friends you say you did it for your kids. I think you did it for your kids college fun.
Yeah, right, No, but they used to say I did it for my kids, and it's like bullshit, you did it for thirty million dollars.
You mentioned your book before, and you mentioned your childhood as a result. Well, something you've said recently a couple of years ago it really stuck with me, was there was no word for autism in the fifties. No, and you've spoken about how difficult your childhood was because you weren't diagnosed with autism, and you said you personally struggle within yourself to work out why can't I learn these things? Why can my friends do it? And I can't? What's
going on here? And your dad was similar. He didn't treat you all that great as a result. He wasn't understanding of the situation.
No, he just thought I was stupid. And I just thought, well, this must be something everybody else going through. You know, why would I be different from everyone else? They just they're better at it and I just can't figure it out. You know, you go through a lot of stuff. There was this strange otherness the only way I can describe it. Whenever there was a problem, like a mathematical problem to be solved, arithmetic rather or just something like you know,
tying a necktie. Couldn't get my mind around it if my life depended on it. Struggle still with seat belts, like why is this so fucking hard? And I used to say that as a kid. I used to go, why is everything so difficult? Because you can't. I couldn't get my mind around so many things. But asked me to do something that almost nobody else in the entire world can do, it was no problem. It's crazy, but I was on the spectrum not too an extreme degree, but enough to get in my way. I hated school.
I used to get physically ill just even thinking about going to school because I knew it was going to be humiliating all day, every day.
So her voice is a mosque for that, where I go, well, you know what I am good at. I'm good at doing this, and I'm better than everyone else at doing this?
Is that?
What is that? What you think helped you gravitate towards voice acting? Just creating these characters and emulating people.
I don't know if I thought about like that way about it at first, and I kind of kept it hid, you know, like an appendix scar because a lot of times, well, kids are so cruel, you know, like you you could do something amazing. You're standing in front of your friends and you say, you know what I figured out. I figured out this really cool thing, and you do it and they just stand there looking at you.
Yeah.
So, and if somebody, I wish somebody could have I wish my adult self could have gone back in time to my little self and say, do you know why they treat you like that? Because you're standing in front of them and you're doing things that they will never ever ever be able to do in their entire life, how would you feel, I'd hate me.
Billy not wanting to get to sort of Oprah or Drew Barry Mill with a hand on the knee or something like that, but I wanted to sort of talk
about a bit about your relationship with your dad. In reading that he had I know, creative inclinations as well, that he wanted to be a musician or was a musician but couldn't find a way to sort of go pro with it and had yeah, creative direction, I found myself feeling really sad and really mad as well that this could have been a point of connectivity for the two of you, because you're both creative people, but instead it sort of became this wedge between you or a
bone of contention or am I completely misreading that?
No, you're not misreading. It's it's the human condition, you know.
I mean, if you could boil it down to.
A classic story between Mozart and Soliari, sure, yeah, the court musician insanely jealous.
He was doing everything he could to.
Get in that guy's way, and my dad would sabotage me, would ridicule me because he was insanely jealous, and you know he had he has just enough talent to like tease him and bother him. It was like God's cruel joke on him. I gave you just enough to drive you nuts.
How many voice outters do you think? You're out there in the same role, in the same position where they know they've got the talent to get there. But it's just especially in twenty twenty five, it's just so hard to get that one gig to sort of get you going now, isn't it.
I imagine it must be a nightmare. I mean, because you know, when I started, there was really about eight people that were doing everything. When I first came to Hollywood, there was eight people, you know, and I got to know them. Of course, I kind of rose through the ranks pretty quick, I mean, and I came out of New York, and I rose through the ranks in New York real quick because I poured it on when I got there. I said, you know, I want to I was very cocky. I said, I want to be Flavor
of the Month twelve times a year. Is that make me a bad man?
Because I want that, you know, And that's what eventually would have led to your gig on Howard Stern. I'm assuming and that's where you were for it. That's where a lot of people knew you from in the early nineties. Anyway, you'll work on Howistern. Do you look back on that time fondly? I know it ended poorly? I mean, want know, why have money now? Not? You felt like you went you look back fondly, which is a shame.
No, I don't.
I it was not the happiest days of my life. I had been diagnosed with actually I was. I was undiagnosed for chronic low level depression, which I was born with. So that was another thing I was up against in childhood, severe depression. But it was like, you know, just brace up, you know, get it together, don't sit there feeling sorry for yourself. And it was kind of a draconian way of dealing with stuff that was way more complicated than anybody realized. But no, but he had time for that.
You know, to most people it was like nonsense. You know, it's just he's just being obstinate, obstinate, or he's being lazy, or you know, there was always a reason and the qua out of it that they could be you know, denigrating towards it, But yeah, I mean the radio in New York. I mean, I thought it was he was Howard was kind of a firebrand, you know, and I am. I had a love of old radio, so my heart was I had a radio heart, you know. I mean, it's really I wanted to be a radio performer like
my heroes. And luckily it was such a unique situation that that's what it was. They didn't play music. It was just you walk into this room and suddenly it's Saint Elmo's fire shooting through everything, shooting through the microphones and the furniture, and you know, something would just come up out of nowhere, out of nothing, and you had this room full of people that were like lightning rods.
Very unique, very special sation. But again, you know, I the only thing that saved me from going crazy and really just losing it was the fact that I could go in there and laugh in the morning, and then I'd come out of there and I'd feel like I wanted to die and go back into the real world. But performing saved me, and I'm sure that's the reason that it developed the way it did from childhood was
performing was an escape. It was, you know, going doing any kind of like theater, like when I was in school play or a glee club or a chorus group, you know, singing standing there and you know performing It was it was a it was an escape. It was like paradise, you know, compared to how I felt all the time.
I'm curious, Billy, when that performance aspect kicks in, do you feel like a different person altogether, or do you feel like a better version of yourself? The version the self that you admit to be.
I think the latter that you mentioned. It's an interesting way to put it.
It's like you're seeing the real me when I'm performing.
Yeah, because I try to be as true and as honest as I can be in performing, even though their personas and their characters and everything.
But they come from you.
Yeah. I try to be the conduit, you know, like taking divine dictation, you know, as pure, as pure as you can get it. You know, it's not so difficult to explain it. It's all actors are searching for the truth in everything that they're doing.
And that's what I kind of, you know, go for. And I and I have a combined instinct of many.
Many years of experience and then an instinct to what sounds good, you know, what people respond to what types of things. And I was fearless, you know, I was always fearless. I would it was nothing I wouldn't try. And I always admired people that were fearless, like my friend Gilbert Gottfried, you know, he was just fearless.
Did that manifest itself in music as well, because I mean you were a guitarist and a trumpet player. I mean did you feel the same kind of connection when you were performing music as a post to performing voices or did that come from the same place.
It's a very special place. It's like a cosmic playground.
Your talent is like a skyhook that lifts your feet off the ground and puts you in this rarefied air, especially when you work with other people. And the idea about improvisation, somebody once described improvisation as never do anything the same way once, and I sort of understand that, even though it's conceptual and quirky.
But what it's like, you're always looking to invent.
Every breath in and out is like, oh, you know, I got a chance to reinvent something or create something.
Yeah, speaking of reinvention. Obviously, I was a kid in the nineties, massive fan of Space Jam when I was younger. You had to you would ring invented Bugs Bunny for the Space Jam films. Taking ever from as you mentioned earlier, Mail Blank, were you going into that going I need to recreate mel Or were you going into it going, I need to do the Billy West version of this. It's got to be the foremost correct.
I think you can't help but do the version with yourself injected in there somewhere, because you don't want to be just a tape recorder or a minor bird, you know, or you want to bring something something of your soul to it, because that's what keeps things fresh. I think I know that things are not particularly funny when everything is too perfect or too stainless or too clinical. There's got to be something askew to catch your ear or
catch your your attention as a as an audience. And you know, just some little weird thing that you might bring to the table that say Mel Blank didn't do might catch on like crazy. And again you have to kind of be fearless, and the directors will always pull you in.
You know.
It's like I don't know. You know, I wasn't. I wasn't one of those people that sat there and argue with the director. You know, mel Blank wouldn't do that. Bugs wouldn't. He would never do that.
You know.
It's like I wanted to do anything.
They threw out me and granted Bugs Bunny obviously, one of the most iconic characters of all time, had already been around for decades.
But oh I know that. But he's only twelve years older than me.
That's but that that film, though I ain't I a little stinker, That film was basically reintroducing the character to a new generation of fans, because we know, we knew, we knew of Bugs Bunny, but nineties, we weren't watching Bugs Bunny cartoons all that often. So this was like the new version of Bugs Bunny. So it was almost you had to almost recreate it to an extent.
Or if you were, you were watching it in the context of cartoons made in the sixties or seventies.
It's an old cartoon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I mean Bugs Bunny had different incarnations, like his personality would change from director to director. You know, there's a difference between the Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny and the Bob Clampett Bugs Bunny.
Sometimes it depended on.
The director whether he was more screwy, or whether he was more wise guy, or whether he was poker faced or sly or you know what I mean. But the directors would paint with some broad colors and intense colors, and sometimes they would concentrate on a particular thing. You know. Daffy Duck was the same way. He was like at his craziest when Bob Clampett was directing it, and then he was a little more subdued when Chuck Jones was directing him him.
That's how we think of though.
I mean, these are really iconic and original American character, isn't that.
I mean, yes, yes, And you know they were the grist for my mill most certainly, I mean what saved me as a child from cracking up, I mean from just totally falling apart. All my little friends lived in a TV lived in a glass and metal wood box in the corner of the room. There were three channels. Everything was black and white, and television went off the air at eleven PM at night, and that was that. And I used to lament that, like if I sneaked up in the middle of the night and I'd turn
on the TV and there was a test pattern. I would just sit and look at that and imagine things happening, because I couldn't.
Believe that it had gone away without telling me.
And that's another thing about performers coming from my generation is that when we were growing up, there was no way to preserve anything. In other words, when something was playing on television, you never knew if you were ever going to see it again. Ever, there was no way they didn't tell you. They didn't say in the TV guide you know this is going to run once you know,
they just wouldn't tell you. And so you're sitting there watching the most amazing thing you ever saw in your life, and it's changing your life and shaping your future, and it's going to be gone in thirty seven seconds. There's this horrifying desperation. So what you would do to overcompensate is you would just suck every single thing, every pixel, every proton out of that screen and try to capture it. And the only way that you could replay anything was
if you performed it. And so you'd go to school the next day and say, hey, did you see that thing that on television. No, I didn't let me show you how it went. You know, there's no way until I got my hands on a real to real tape recorder, a little tiny one that changed my life because I was recording reams of dialogue and I'd even go to the movie theater and record music cues. I was a really weird kid, but I used to sit for endless hours listening to this real to real tape and what
I managed to get on it. And you know, my world was clearly a sonic world more than it was a visual.
Billy was ever a feeling in your better in your heart that you were sort of paying it forward with the characters that you were creating on Futurama, on Red and Stimpy, or recreating Bugs Bunny even It's like there's some kid out there who may have trouble connecting with their friends, with their pea group or whatever, but I understand this character on the screen and I see myself in them. I mean, do you see yourself as part of that tradition in some way?
Yes? Absolutely, And I can tell you for sure because Comic Con shows I've done them in life, then I've done them in Australia, New Zealand, Wales, Ireland, you know, all over the place, and people at these shows are basically the same that they're like a lot of people are on the spectrum at these shows. So I feel totally at home. And it's and it's an interesting group of people because there is an a narcissist within a twenty miles of the place. There's no toxic masculinity, there's
no misogyny. Everybody's an mpath. I mean, what a friggin world this would be if that's the way things were. And then it dawned on me one day, I said, they can't explain the explosion of autistic births. This is just happening. It's exploding. So of course they're trying to find a formula. You know, It's like over here, Robert F. Kennedy JUNR Is like, well.
Some other's a mother's a day island all, you know, And it's like he's full of shit.
I was hoping you do an hour.
Oh yeah, a screwball.
That was this man in Judge of America's health. He just sends someone, well, it looks someone.
Well, who's the most unhealthy appearing person?
He looks like he looks like a piece of burnt bacon with eyes, you know, and he's telling you he looks like a baked good, you know, something that got overdone, like a croissant that get roasted in the oven.
And he's telling you what's the healthy way to be. I don't know what got me on him.
Oh yeah, well I would have had polio if I didn't take the vaccine, because that's when it happened. But the thing about autism, they're trying to blame it.
On like tile and all and stuff and excuse me.
Autism, you know, first came about in nineteen forty nine. That's when they identified it. You know, it was long before tail and all.
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slash four figure discount. Do you see yourself as an inspiration to those fans you see at comic cons and whatnot, who may think, do they do? They come to you and say, you inspire me to succeed in what I want to do as well?
Yes, I, and I was never sure if that's what I had. You know, I knew I had a head full of other maladies from childhood. When my mother announced to my father that she was pregnant, instead of being overjoyed, he beat the shit out of her and beat her around the and kicked her in the stomach, trying to kill me. So a truckload of problems was dumped on me right then and there. A lifetime of damage was
done in less than two minutes. You know, so I didn't know what end was up most of my life, but finding my way and being able to talk about it, you wouldn't believe. There's people that say, you know, I feel like I'm listening to myself talking when I hear you describe how you felt, and that makes me feel good because you don't feel alone. You know, it's so easy to believe that you somehow were played some cruel cosmic joke. You know, why, why me?
Why did I have to wind up like this, you know, and I have such difficult time.
But for some reason, artistic people really respond to sound, you know, and voices. It's a big thing. They identify through it. And I get it, you know, because in the autistic mind there's gifts in there. I know this.
And I started to say.
That I feel at home at these shows because you know, like I said, there's a narcissist within twenty miles. There's no toxic masculinity, there's no misogyny. Everybody's an mpath And I started to think, well, they can't explain the explosion of autistic births.
And it just hit me in the head like a lightning bolt, like an epiphany.
I can explain it. It's nature making a correction in the human condition. It always has. I think that autism is the next step in human evolution. I really do, because think of the qualities that these kids and these adults have. It's qualities that we're losing at light speed as a society, things like compassion and tolerance. They're so tolerant of each other and differences. They're tolerant of this longing to be one with an art form. I mean, that's high concept that's.
Evolved a lot of my son's friends. I said a lot of them. There's several of them. They've been diagnosed with autism. But I'll tell you what they When it comes to mathematics, one of them is an absolute genius. Another one he's when it comes to art, absolutely incredible. They have their own specialties, each and every one of them.
Well, you know, when I'm on an airplane and two guys in their thirties decide to have a fistfight at thirty two thousand feet, I go to myself, where are these freaks coming from? Where are these freaking freaks coming from?
Where?
How could you not know?
You know, full grown adults? And I said, we're like, we're slammed in reverse. We're devolving. And that's when it really dawned on me that, like nature, if I was more than nature. And I was in Yellowstone Park and I watched some idiot kicking a napping buffalo for hits on TikTok or you to, I think the buffalo would gorge him and kill him, and I would just say I had to take him out. I had to.
I don't want that.
Shit in the gene pool. Yeah, my job is to make sure that we evolve forward, not backwards. And the guy doing the video is is next because he's almost as stupid. I mean, it's critical mass. I mean, there are people that are so stupid they don't know they're stupid. And I hate to say it, but it's true. And so what is beginning to counterbalance this insanity? What I see is autism and a proliferation of people that are on the spectrum, but they have all the gifts that
come with it. You know, big fuck, you're awkward. You know, I'd rather have I'd rather have awkward people that are sensitive and that are non violent. And you know, I mean everybody's got this hair trigger temper now. And you get sucked down that rabbit hole on TikTok and you're watching people beating the shit out of it each other
over nothing, over nothing. I mean, it's like there isn't even a graduation in the acceleration, you know, it just goes from zero to sixty in a split second when somebody goes nuts.
And on the airplane, I go, why don't these people go nuts on the.
Way to the airport, You know why I have to beating each other up in their cars before they buy a ticket to get on the plane.
But I think nature has always made an intervention.
In thousands and thousands of years of us, Nature has always had to make a correction, whether it was in nature or the world, or people or the human condition. Some of the organs we don't use, they just get smaller and smaller till you don't have them anymore. You know, the vestigial glands and everything that our ancestors needed to survive.
We don't need it.
So what do they do? They disappear. It's evolution.
Well, at least these people are hopefully evolving the Roight way.
Well, I think they're going to bring society up, and I think it'll take probably one hundred to two hundred years, but they will integrate into society and then it'll become mainstream and become more refined. But I mean, it's got to happen because we're in serious, serious trouble. And I don't mean just meaning the United States. I mean like worldwide.
There's something off, something totally wrong, you know, for lack of a better word, it's like you're watching like evil take hold and it's hard to define what that is. I mean, and we're talking like the evil that's in a video game. You know, these demigods and these satanic monsters and creatures. No, no, just people that have lost the moral compass. But you know, you'd see it here and there, like one out of every hundred people would have a screw loose. And now it's like, everybody, do.
You have faith we can full we can pull ourselves out of the towelspin that we're in.
Yes, I do, And I hope that that's the way it goes. I mean, I don't know. I'm in like six more years. I will be eighty years old. A lot of my peers haven't even made it this far. People that I grew up with, you know, they're all dead, they're gone. So you know, I just hope I see something good. But you're looking at a really grateful person.
I mean underneath, you know, all of.
The the observation and the dismay that I have. I also studied the human condition, and I couldn't help it. I was like a born observer or a cop or an alien, you know, because I didn't know. I had no blueprint for being a human being. Oh that's how you laugh, Oh that's how you cry. It was always like I was watching to see how you be, how
you're supposed to be and why you laugh? Yeah, And so you become a purveyor of somebody that is offering up a pas holida of emotions in different characters and everything, and you have this innate and inane understanding of it. You know, I think eventually we'll be okay. But we got to go through this dark period. And now I don't know what's going to happen with AI. I just don't know.
I mean, none of us do.
It's like it's like everyone can play the home game.
Now.
Now some smoke can sit in his room, give a bunch of prompts.
To an AI software and just make his own version of Jaws, you know, where the shark is waiting on tables like in a restaurant, you know what I mean, and then offer it up. Look what I did.
Do you think if you grew up in a world where that was already accessible, that you would want to do that? Do you think because you've lived your life not being able to do that, you now see it as we shouldn't be doing that because a lot of it seems like a lot of young people are excited for AI with those who didn't grow up with it, but myself aren't excited for it. I think it's we refer to AOI slup, you know what I mean.
Yeah, of course they're excited, but there's a whole school of thought like everything that they think they're using to invent something comes from somewhere that somebody with a beating heart created a human being. And everything I watch and everything I listen to, if it doesn't seem to have a human, beating, human heart behind it, I can tell
I lose interest real fast. And just because it's exciting and new for somebody to just instantly start creating and painting and doing all this stuff, and they, you know, they're gonna get they're gonna drown in their own excitement and their hubris. But just because you can do those things doesn't mean you have talent. That's the Just because
you can do those things doesn't mean you're funny. It's just gonna be such mountains of garbage that you're gonna have thrown at you, and you know, eventually it'll become normal and nobody will know that they're fens.
I mean, creative people have always drawn inspiration from what's come before them, the art that's come before them, for instance. But the best of it is always distilled through their own perceptions. You know that they distill it through their own interpretation things or whatever, and you get something new as a result. Yes, yeah, with this, it seems like maybe one percent or point zero zero one percent of the AI quote unquote art that's created is maybe going
to have that. The rest is just going to be with that wishing to get to political Donald Trump and a fighter jet dropping shit on the not King's protesters.
You say it like it's a bad thing.
That's true.
I'm kidding.
I'm kidding. It's horrifying, it's appalling, it's mortifying. That's that's what we're in for.
Though.
It's like the groundhog, so it's shadow. We're going to get a thousand years of AI.
What's your thoughts on voice actors being replaced or continued on long after they're gone using AI. Do you think a voice actor who is offered the opportunity if they came to them and said, we're going to AI your voice going forward and your state will get so and so percentage of any takings, or we're just going to replace you with somebody else once you're gone, and that person will get all of the takings in their estate.
Will what do you think a voice actor? Which option are they going to take?
I think every corporation's wet dream is to figure out how we can carry on, how we can manufacture things, how we can put out product without ever having a human being involved. Oh yeah, that's their wet dream. So AI, you know, it'll be like a blitzkrig. It'll be like a digital blitzkrig, and there'll be bodies everywhere. I hate to say it, but a corporation will go, well, wait a minute. You know, we don't have to hire a voice actor to do this announced part. So they get
it for nothing, you know. And sometimes you can't tell if you're listening to an AI voice except sometimes you can see the seams in the costume.
You know.
It was like some voiceover was talking about Washington, d C. The city near the Portomac River, you know, the Portomac, the Potomac.
It's funny. Before we started recording that, I just saw an article in Variety. I think it was about it's kind named Kevin O'Leary. I think he's like a venture capitalist or something that's on Shark Tank. But he's got a s some yeah, some upcoming movie with Timothy Shallomey, and he was talking about how, yeah, we had like one hundred and fifty extras in this scene, and you
know what, a you could just recreate that. These are people that you had to actually you know, had to costume, and they had to feed them, and you had to pay them at the end of the day. You know, with AI you could just fill the bleachers with these computer generated people.
Yeah, and they have families that depend on that.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
Yeah, it's just so easy. It's so cavalier, you know, it's so uh.
He was trying to put a positive spinner as well, saying, you know, and with all the money, you saying, you can make more movies.
Yeah.
But at the same time, man, I mean.
You can replace more people with the money.
See.
I think you feel it in your soul or even in your mind when you're like when you're looking at something, it's like.
I don't think that's the real people.
I don't.
Yeah, and a little bit of humanity is sucked out of the project as a result, A.
Little bit generous and it'll get to a point where Hollywood doesn't need to exist anymore because everyone will just create whatever movies they want to do. They'll go, I want to watch Star Wars where Steven Spielberg is one of the Jedi. Make that happen, and there will be no need for people to make movies anymore. Everyone's just going to make their own movies. Everyone just make their own films.
But I mean, it's just like years ago, the condition of being cool, the idea of being cool. The word cool was invented in the fifties, and then a decade later everybody thought they were cool. Everybody was trying to be cool. And if everybody's cool, nothing's cool. And if you have a million people playing around with AI, it's meaningless. It doesn't mean anything. It's it's just like, you know,
there's just sit around and entertain themselves to death. But you are right, I mean, there will be no need for you know, the gatekeepers to keep it all hid because people will be able to just create what they want.
I can't say if it's a good or bad thing. I'm just not sure. If it's art, I'm just not sure.
Because it's a blender filled with ingredients that someone else created and you just turn the blender on, you know, and then you pour out a smoothie made of Da Vinci and this and that and the other thing.
If you're getting what you want all the time, it's ice cream for dinner, well it's not good for you. I mean, what's that. There's that episode of the Twilight Zone where the guy goes to hell or not sorry, the guy thinks he's gone to heaven, but he's like he's a he's like a problem gambler or something. He's like he gets blackjack every time, and you know, every woman he approaches like, yeah, I'm going home with you. Big bodies like you get so bored after dyeting, I
thought this has meant to be haapening. I was like, oh no, no, you're in the other place, buddy.
That was Yeah, that's a beautiful twist. That was the great thing about that show.
And that's what's going to be like. If you get what you want all the time.
Well people are going to find that out and they're gonna get bored and they're going to have to find another fix for their boredom. There's only about five hundred TV channels, and yet people are bored. And the kids
get bored. So yeah, you're right. I mean what I think is going to happen as a result of all this is that live performances are going to become sacred because there will be a place and there is now there are places where you can go and watch a human being stand in front of a crowd and deliver.
And AI can never do that.
An AI has to be modified, it has to be shown and reshown, it has to come from an electronic source.
It's never gonna stand in front of you and play violin like exact pearlman, you know what I mean.
And I think live performances are going to become like sacred and the places that the performance happened and will become like church holy in a way. Yes, I swear. I mean because people are going to go, wait a minute, I can do anything I want, but I still suck.
Yeah.
Well, like you said, the best art isn't stainless. You know, it's got flaws and it's got mistakes, and that's that's what makes it real and that's what makes people connect to it. I think AI, I think is UH is kind of stainless. You know, it's going to give you the perfect thing every time, and you're going to get tired of that as a result.
Yeah, Well, the AI creates nothing. I'm more interested in the creation, you know, the connection that some human beings have with the universe or God for lack of a better word. You know, I think to me that the spiritual aspect was always it was the highest thing that you could shoot for, you know, talk about aiming high.
But the AI and the technology and everything, unless it starts just thinking on its own and telling the people who's who are creating things, why don't you just take your hands off of that and let me do everything. You know, it'll come to that.
Wait, won't give us the option, You'll say, you're going to leave now wear in control.
Yes it will.
Yeah, it has to. It has to.
Otherwise life would be no fun, would it is?
That line in that Bo Burnham song Welcome to the Internet was just not or shake your head and we'll do the rest. That's that's what it's going to be.
Yeah.
Well, now that we've solved that problem.
That one final thing I wanted to ask you, Billy. Obviously this is a Simpsons podcast. We talked obviously voice actors and whatnot. You've been on sim Simpsons once, but it was the Future. I'm a crossover. You've been on so many shows, You've had so many one time bits. We do a King of the Hill podcast. You've been on King of the Hill and whatnot. Why it has the Simpsons just never been at your doorstep? Why have you never been on The Simpsons besides the Future run
across overhead? Why has that just never worked?
Well?
They certainly don't need me. I mean, they've got Danny Keston a letter and they have the other voice people. You know, my audition would make things worse. I think it's a beautiful entity. And I felt, you know, glad that they did a crossover. I thought that was very clever and it was a great idea. And you know, you're taking the best of both worlds, and you can't overdo something like that. I mean, if they want to use me for something, it's fine. If they audition. I
hear about auditions and I go. I used to go on every single audition because if you want to work, you have to audition.
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But that audition for Futurama was plenty for me. I mean, I didn't need to do any searching around after I got that job. It was just the best creative outlet. I knew I was auditioning for the Professor Farnsworth, and I knew I was auditioning for Zoidberg, and they showed me pictures of the characters, and I, you know, I just went with my guts. Like the first thing I thought of was I'm smart enough to know you can
think yourself out of a beautiful situation. You can second guess your way out of a great thing because you're thinking too much. So guts are important. And I went with the first thing I thought of. Every time I looked at a picture Zoidberg. He was corpulent, and you could play against type and give him a real high. I pitched genderless voice and maybe comedy could be gleaned
from that. But no, it's it's he should sound portly and big and and he had all this stuff hanging off his face, so I thought he would be impaired to a degree. And then I thought of these marble mouth performers that I grew up watching, people like George Sessel. You know the definition of a smart ass a fella that can sit on an ice peram tone and tell you what flavor it is, you know.
And then there was George, there was lu Jacoby. What's it like to have all that money?
You know? And then it became Zoidberg. Your music is bad and you should feel bad, you know. And and the professor was one hundred and forty seven years old, and they showed me a picture of him, and I said, he probably farts dust like a mummy, since he's that old. And it's like, I get him like palsy, you know, the age palsy and the rickety. You know, it's like who needs courage when you have a gun.
And I didn't know I was auditioning for Fry. They sprung that on me, you know, they just said, what do you think about this?
And they showed me a picture, and I had to pull something out of my ass quickly, and so I said, I'm gonna do a voice no one's ever heard, which is me at what I sounded like when I was twenty five years old. And it became a perfectly original creation because I committed to it.
I remember I was all whiny Naisalin. I was complaining I was in a band and I broke a string and ah, shit, now what am I gonna do?
You know?
And I was a project for a girl. You know, girls would be like, why do you have to dress like that? And I was, you know, I was needy and I was all over the place, but my heart was in the right place. So that's basically Fry. I mean, that's why Leela loves him, and she's a perfect It worked out perfectly because he's all over the place and he's needy, but his heart's in the right place and she's so strong and decisive that they worked perfectly together.
And that was kind of an accident.
You know.
I wasn't sure exactly how much of a lionis Lila was, you know, because I hadn't seen or heard the fully developed character. But the stab that I took at it just luckily was the right way to go.
And I can only imagine at the time it would have been what ninety eightish when you were auditioning, ninety seven maybe when you're auditioning for Futurama. No, I think it was about I thought it might have been a little bit earlier.
Yeah, so yeah, maybe a little a little earlier.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Matt Groening's name at that point. You know, he is the creator of the Simpsons, joining that family. I can just imagine the thrill that must have been.
Oh it was, and you know, and then when they started shuffling us around, I said, yeah, we're doomed.
You know, this will be gone. Don't get too attached to this, Billy.
And this beautiful thing call physical media save the day. So make sure you go out and buy your David's and Blue Rays. People don't rely on streaming.
I like that. I like that sales pitch.
Oh well, Billy, thank you so much for your time. I know it's late where you are. I mean, apologize for keeping up so late, but it's been so interesting. It's been a long time coming on. We had you, actually had you on this podcast a decade ago. I finally got you back, and I'm so thankful.
Really, I'm glad that you're still doing it. You know, we'll do this again. I mean, we have another season coming on its way, and then if they pick up some more after that, I don't know, man, I mean, I'm so there. If they want to do it, I get the energy to do five more seasons. I really could. But if not, I just want to be an old Irish guy sitting next to an old Irish river with an old Irish.
Dog and a young nurse.
The dream, you know, and uh, and that's the way to go out, you know, to the words rich widow mean anything to you. All you gotta do is let me crawl on top of you for like four years and I'll be gone. Don't worry about it. You'll be free and you'll still be young. I'm thinking like a pragmatic old, pragmatic old beezer with a plan.
What a sales pitch.
Well, thank you so much, Billy, Billy, thank you so much for your.
Time for being Billy West, sure thing.
Thanks, it was pleasure