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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!"

- Hi Vanity Fair. I'm Billy West.

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