Billy West Breaks Down His Most Famous Character Voices | Vanity Fair

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- Hi Vanity Fair. I'm Billy West.
You might recognize me as both Ren and Stimpy.
"Hey Ren, will you button me?"
"Shut up you fool! Else I shall kill you!"
Or Fry.
"Aw man did everything just taste purple for a second?"
And Farnsworth on Futurama.
"Good news everyone,
I don't want to live on this planet anymore."
[funky music]
- That's exactly the job I've always wanted.
- Nobody is as funny or as smart as you!
- I'm nice, I've got a great dog,
I can eat a ton of cotton candy
without getting sick.
- Eh, you were expecting maybe the Easter Bunny?
- Oh joy!
Hey Ren, it's Commander Hoek and Stimpy!
Happy happy happy!
Joy joy joy!
My favorite live action drama!
- It's so funny
when John Kricfalusi called me to do Ren and Stimpy he said
"Hey! I want you to do voices on the cartoon here."
I said sure, wonderful.
And I looked at the drawings
and I couldn't figure out what they were, you know?
Were they microbes or were they mosquitoes?
But it was like, very dolly-esque.
I used Larry Fine from The Three Stooges
as a template for Stimpy.
"Hey ma I peed on my shoe."
So I amped him up into a sort of like,
the cartoon universe you know, it's like
"Hey Ren, will you button me?"
- Come on Ren I need your help!
Oh please!
- He sent in my Stimpy audition
because he changed mind
he wanted to do the Ren character
and I said "Fine!
I don't give a fat frog's behind who does what."
I had a job, I was grateful.
We started doing stuff
and uh
he got himself fired
um, unceremoniously.
So then the execs were going,
"Well wait a minute,
wasn't Billy supposed to do both voices?"
And you know, they sent me some stuff
and I read it and I sent it in
and they said, "Okay, we'll work with you."
You know.
- Dear Ren,
that's me, that's me!
You are my favorite tv star.
- The voices to me sound like what they look like.
Happy happy, joy joy!
Happy happy, joy joy!
♪ Happy happy, joy joy joy! ♪
- I was uh
wondering, well
if you want to uh
[intense music]
go to the fair, stupid? [screams]
- Jim Jenkins, he was really creative
and he created this slew of characters.
And the character Doug I guess
was based on him when he was a little kid.
You know, he was sensitive,
had crushes on girls
when he didn't even know how to approach them.
He was respectful of everybody.
He was, "Well, a painfully average 11 and a half year old.
This is my dog Porkchop.
Oh no, here comes Roger Klotz."
"Hey loser, I'm running for office
so vote for this!"
- I know how you must feel now
but in a few years
when you look back on all this-
- What a loon!
You never told me your sister was such a weirdo!
- Well actually I did try to-
- She's even goofier than you are, Funnie. [laughs]
- [Doug] So everything worked out okay.
- These characters were just absolutely beautiful
and I got to do Doug Funnie and Roger Klotz,
I got to do the gym coach, Coach Spitz.
Now he sounded like this.
- You didn't break anything, did you?
Nah, nothing broken.
- I know there's a reason
why certain people talk the way they do.
They might have bruxism.
They might have periodontal malocclusion
or the jaw might be jutting out.
Say your jaw was like really out
and you have to talk through all that stuff
to get to your tongue.
You have to go through the jaw
and you gotta go through all that space.
By the time it comes out
this is all a
spiel.
And so that show lasted for four years on Nickelodeon
and my mom loved that show.
You know, long after it was over with
and they did another Doug on Disney.
I had nothing to do with it.
My mom would say,
"Too bad you can't get that Doug thing going again."
- Bugs Bunny?
- Eh, you were expecting maybe the Easter Bunny?
- You're a cartoon, you're not real.
- Not real eh?
If I weren't real, could I do this?
[Bugs smooches Michael]
- At the time that they were casting for Space Jam
I was still working in New York City
on The Howard Stern Show.
And I was getting ready to leave radio because,
you know, I did my bit for radio
for what it's worth.
But they don't pay anything.
You know, and I just said
"You know, I can't stay here.
If I stay in the part of the pool where people pee
shame on me."
But Ivan Reitman,
the person who was doing Howard's movie, Private Parts.
So he used to sit in in the radio studio
and watch me doing my thing.
He set it up where
I was gonna audition for Bugs.
It was hairy.
I mean because
you've gotta meet so many people's perceptions
of what that character is.
You try to come as close as you can
but there's something that no mortal can do
is replicate Mel Blanc's acting choices.
You really are skating on thin ice
when you start, you know, rambling.
Say it was a long monologue or something.
You know, you gotta really pay attention all the time
just to make sure that you're staying in character.
You know and I used to listen to cartoons
and I kinda got the pattern,
the rhythms and stuff like that.
Like, "Ain't I a little stinker?"
- Well uh does he say "What's up, doc?"
Like this?
[Bugs munches on carrot]
Eh what's up, doc?
- Yeah! - Yeah!
- Nope, never heard of him.
- Bugs changed every time
they had a new director for a cartoon.
So you know, bearing all that in mind
I took the plunge
and I was doing a Bugs Bunny
opposite Michael Jordan.
Except I was never in the room with him.
They had a blue screen guy feeding him lines.
And he'd say, "Oh stop it Bugs."
I wasn't anywhere near.
So then there was a wrap party
at Warner Brothers for Space Jam.
Michael Jordan's agent, Ken Ross sees me.
And he goes,
"Michael, this is Billy West. He did Bugs."
And he reached over like, six people
and he goes, "Hey Billy."
It was like his hand,
shaking his hand was like, that big.
"Michael Jordan, the closest thing to a religious figure
that we have."
[laughs]
And I did Elmer Fudd.
You can listen to the cartoons
and he's a combination of a child
who acts sort of innocently and new to the world
like a candide type of character.
"Shh, be vewy vewy quiet.
I'm hunting wabbits." [laughs]
And then he would go "Alwight wabbit,
come out with your hands up.
I'll bwast you."
- Alwight you pesky wabbit.
I've got you now.
[gun cocks]
[ramp slams on Elmer's head]
- And that guy who did his voice was named Arthur Q. Bryan.
And he was a radio star.
And he had these little characters
where you would do, you know the baby talk.
And they thought he was perfect for Elmer Fudd.
'Cause he would just look on and goes,
"Well Mr. Bunny wabbit,
would you come here for a moment pwease?"
You know and then he'd go, "I got ya now!"
[Billy mimics gun noises]
[gasps]
- Why for you bury me, weiner boy?
[Woody pecks at cart]
Guess who? [laughs]
- At that point I was just answering the calls for auditions
and they said they were gonna redo Woody Woodpecker.
And I thought, great!
You know, I'll come down.
Then I did my thing and I said,
"You guys do know that that's a sped up voice?"
So I tried to do it as approximate as I could.
"Guess who?"
And that was the Mel Blanc Woody Woodpecker.
After him it was Gracey Lantz.
That was Walter Lantz's wife.
She goes, "I hope you like today's show!"
You know, and they sped it up.
And if you could hear me sped up, that's what,
it would sound like Woody Woodpecker that way.
I couldn't do the laughing real time.
It had to be edited in.
Because I had to take breaks for breathing.
[Billy laughs]
And then when they edit it together
and sped it up, it was [Billy laughs].
- [Woody laughs]
- And I also auditioned for Wally Walrus.
"Oh
that Woodpecker!
I hate you Woodpecker!"
- That should fix that Woodpecker you bet [hums].
- And I get to do some,
a lot of incidental type characters.
- Oh, I would like to buy a hotdog please.
- I was plenty busy on that show
and I loved it.
I had nothing but energy.
You know, I was younger [laughs].
I was a young guy.
- So I'm gonna be a delivery boy?
- Exactly.
- All right!
I'm a delivery boy!
- Hey it's Philip J. Fry.
Greetings from the year 3000. It still sucks.
You know what that voice is,
that was just my um,
voice when I was 25.
I remember what he sounded like.
I was all whiny and nasally and complain-y.
I was a musician I might be like,
"Oh man I broke a string!
Now what am I supposed to do?"
You know that's exactly the way I sounded.
"You'd think somebody would turn the light on."
I was always bitching and carping [laughs].
And I thought,
that's the voice I'll do for Fry.
Because he's that type of person, you know.
He's not a masher, he's a gentleman.
He's not a very bright gentleman.
But nonetheless they just said he was 25
and he was a pizza delivery boy.
And he winds up in the future
and he's still a delivery boy.
You know, going from like year 2000, I think.
Yeah 1999 to the year 3000
and he's still delivering stuff.
That was the funny joke there.
"Pizza deliver for I.C. Wiener?"
- Oh crud.
I always thought by this point in my life
I'd be the one making the crank calls.
- I get called in to audition.
And I met them all at this big audition.
Everybody was there.
I mean, I took one look around and I said,
"I'm getting out of here."
I see Ryan Stiles.
I see guys like that.
I see Lori Petty from Tank Girl.
I saw everybody.
And I just kind of went,
"Oh man I don't know.
Ryan Stiles would probably mop the floor
with that audition."
And they sat me down
and they showed me pictures of characters.
And it was like, you know.
This is Professor Hubert Farnsworth.
And they said, "What do you think he would sound like?"
And I said he looks like airplane food.
You know like a deceased piece of chicken
stretched around a bone.
He's 147 years old so
he probably farts dust.
"Good news everyone!
Eh, bad news."
- That damn time machine alone
set me back 15 years.
- If only it'd work.
You could go back and not waste your time on it.
- This character they said,
"What do you think he would sound like?"
And I said, "Well he's got all that cool meat
hanging off his face.
So his speech [makes gargle sounds]."
And I kept thinking of two.
A vaudevillean,
vaudeville before there was television.
You know the master of ceremonies,
his name was George Jessel
and he was a comic and he was an actor.
And he had jokes like, you know,
"You know the definition of a smartass?
A fella that can sit on an ice cream cone
and tell you what flavor it is."
And then there was Lou Jacobi from the Arthur movies
where, you know he leans into Arthur and goes,
"What's it like to have all that money?"
You know, so I used the two of them.
Cold fused them and got Zoidberg you know?
"Your music is bad and you should feel bad!"
[alien noises]
And I used The Three Stooges again
as another reference point.
That [alien noises] is Curly from Three Stooges.
Stuff from the 1930's.
And I'm doing it, you know?
And the scuttling, I'd be going [Billy clacks].
And that was some curly going [Billy mimics gun cocking].
- Yum yum yum!
[slurps]
Uh oh!
[Zoidberg runs away]
- This is Zapp Brannigan.
You know, "Starship captain extraordinaire.
She's a beautiful ship, alright.
I'm gonna fly her brains out."
- Destroy them.
Mm.
That's got a nice feel to it.
- He was like Captain Kirk
if Willian Shatner ran the Enterprise
and not Captain Kirk.
And he always was trying to scoop Leela up
and Fry was like the
the little jealous but that could do nothing
but have anxiety
because he couldn't confront Zapp Brannigan.
It's all that, you know.
The bully gets the girl.
The bully gets the best piece of cake
at lunch in high school you know?
And after all the bullies came in
and took all the beautiful pieces of cake
there'd be one piece left in the corner
with a thumbprint in it.
That's for Billy, that's for Fry.
Futurama, everything was bing bing bing bing bing.
As the pages dictated.
Having dialogue for four pages.
Four characters that I did were arguing.
So I was arguing with myself.
And I would, I would do it.
I mean the...
I don't know how to do anything else in this world.
You know what I mean?
So it's the rewards of a misspent youth.
- [Rancid Rabbit] Unhand that burrito.
- Hey!
- How many times do I have to tell you?
No shirt, no shoes,
no CatDog.
- I loved going in for CatDog.
It was so much fun.
God, I was working with Tom Kenny
who is the funniest thing in pants.
Outside of his myriad of vocal ability
he was so funny.
It was always such a joy.
Even if you had the worst day of your life.
You run into him and you'd just instantly felt good.
At least I did.
The characters that I wound up doing were,
He's sort of an antagonist.
And he's some kind of a boss, you know?
And he runs a corporation.
And he sounds like Joe Flynn
from McHale's Navy, you know?
"McHale!"
- One,
I'm the guy in the taco shell.
Two,
keep this place clean!
My boss sometimes drops in.
- Forget the cat food, Scoob.
There's a lot better chow in this kitchen.
Mm! Smells great.
- Casey Kasem was always Shaggy.
"Like wow, Scoob."
But he was an ardent, almost rabid vegan.
One day he just kinda snapped and went,
"Come here Scoob, let's get some Scooby snacks.
Some hotdogs, hamburgers."
You know, and he goes, "Why does it always have to be meat?
I don't wanna talk about eating hotdogs."
You know, I mean he was adamant.
And so he was unenthused.
And they had to find somebody else.
So they brought me in there
and I was just trying to do my best
to sound like the character that he created.
Try to stay true to what was done.
You add a little something of your own in there, wallpaper.
You know, if you're doing a carbon copy imitation
there's something solace about it.
So you've gotta bring something of yourself to it
to make it seem real.
- Traveling with a baggage?
- Yeah. Here he comes now.
[screams]
- Oh man.
- [Red] Hey, what are you looking at?
- [Yellow] He's looking at my peanut.
[grunts]
- I feel so violated.
- This is the red M&M
and I've been the voice of the red M&M,
who could believe for 25 or 26 years.
And he's just like a wiseass version of me.
"Well think of me as sort of
a candy-coated Leonardo DiCaprio [laughs]."
Originally doing the M&Ms was Jon Lovitz
from Saturday Night Live.
And John Goodman played Yellow.
Some nonsense went down and they were recasting
and I got to play the red M&M.
And the yellow M&M,
do you remember the prison show Oz?
One time when I was married
I came home and my wife said,
"Come here, come here. Sit down."
And she's pointing at the tv and she goes,
"Have you seen this show? Watch this guy.
He is the real deal. He ain't no actor.
He is the real deal."
And this character was like neo-Nazi, white supremacist.
Just pure evil.
And I said [raspberries] "What, I know him!"
"You do?"
You know, and I said, "Yeah, he's the yellow M&M."
He's one of the best actors period, ever, J.K. Simmons.
And then he does the commercials for
is it State Farm?
"Seen it, covered it.
The Notre Dame Cathedral fire."
He won an Oscar for the movie Whiplash.
You know, this guy's a phenom.
And I've always looked up to him and respected him.
He just surprises me in his roles.
How did this happen?
It's like the David Byrne song,
You may find yourself
working with an Oscar-winning actor.
And my God, how will I work this?
- Oh we can spout crazy theories all day
but science suggests a more logical explanation.
The bean is possessed by a demon!
- Disenchantment, Matt Groening's latest show.
I've got a few parts that I'm doing on there
but we're not gonna miss this court magician
sort of doctor slash everything.
He's kind of, grizzled.
And he wears a little, you know, wizard coat
and a little hat sometimes.
- Oh come in, come in!
Make yourself comfortable on the dissection table.
- There was an actor
that I used to love named Jonathan Harris.
And he was on Lost In Space.
He played Dr. Smith who was the villain.
"Oh dear William, I can't breathe.
Please open that window."
"You know we're in the middle of the galaxy, Dr. Smith."
You know, it's
"Oh dear, oh dear!"
I just loved him and I actually got to work with him.
And I met him,
and I was all over him.
I wanted to know every single thing about this guy.
He told me the best stories of Hollywood
that I ever heard in my life.
'Cause he was there, since the 50's.
And he was doing plays, stage plays before that
with like, English divas.
And then he said, "I'll tell you a secret, Billy."
He goes, "I was a Dese, Dem and Doese guy from Brooklyn."
And he changed his accent
to make him seem almost regal
or elevated in society.
And people gave him more respect.
And he said, "So I stuck with it!"
And he was perfect.
So this Sorcerio was kind of my tribute to Jonathan Harris.
But he's sort of villainous
because he's got this love-hate relationship with everybody.
You know sometimes I think he'd rather see them dead.
And then you know, the next minute,
"Hello, dear friend. Oh dear."
When I was a little kid,
I would start just inventing my own little planet,
my own little universe you know, that would welcome me.
And these things would come out of me
and I realized that I had a superpower.
I loved comic books, I loved all these things.
And all of a sudden,
chunk would shoot out of me out of nowhere.
Full grown men's voice,
women's, kid's voices.
All roads were pointing to voice work.
I guess the closest to anything I could get
that I really like doing is Fry.
Because there's so much of me in that character.
Felt like I was a loser
no matter how hard I tried.
And over the years, you know, you become an adult
and cut through all that scar tissue from your youth.
I feel that he has an introspect
that is sort of like mine.
And so I inject that.
You know, how he's making that decision
on a moral dilemma.
"On the other hand, if I do this-"
I'd see the script and I could just watch the movie
and I could just hear how it would be said in my head.
So there's a nod to my past, way past
when I was 25, once.
Thanks Vanity Fair!
This has been the timeline of my career.
And I hope it inspired people.
I hope it made you laugh.
I hope it made you happy in times of darkness
because I was always looking for stuff like that.
"And as a final word, [blows a kiss] goodbye!"