Speaker 1: Four finger discount. Dude shy, everybody, welcome to four figure
Speaker 1: discount were today we are very lucky to be joined
Speaker 1: by one of the most iconic voice actors of our time.
Speaker 2: It is Billy West. Billy, how are you, sir, good?
Speaker 3: How are you doing very well? I'm very very happy
Speaker 3: to have you on board the show. This authernoon for us,
Speaker 3: this evening for you. Well, it's nine thirty pm in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. Ye, I appreciate you staying up past your bedtime.
Speaker 4: Ah, that's the only new.
Speaker 2: Are you a night out, Billy?
Speaker 5: No, I used to be, but take a medication that
Speaker 5: I wake up every three hours. That's one of the
Speaker 5: side effects, you know, So I have to add up
Speaker 5: a night's sleep, you know, I have to like wake
Speaker 5: up and I go right back to sleep, of course,
Speaker 5: but it's a drag because I got to add up
Speaker 5: the hours to equal a decent sleep. Sometimes I just
Speaker 5: wake up and stumble around and try to figure out
Speaker 5: something to do until I fall asleep again.
Speaker 3: It is one of the drags of getting a few
Speaker 3: more miles on the media. You've got to be very
Speaker 3: strategic about your sleep patterns.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: Firstly, congratulations on the success of the latest season of
Speaker 2: Future Armor. I saw you posted recently that it's got
Speaker 2: the highest rating of any season for the last decade
Speaker 2: of Rotten Tomatoes, so that must be exciting.
Speaker 5: I was thrilled to death that the fans appear to
Speaker 5: be over the moon and critics like it. That's as
Speaker 5: good as it gets. That's the best of both worlds.
Speaker 5: And you know, I'm thrilled to death that that situation
Speaker 5: is what's going on. I think that everybody is always
Speaker 5: trying to be at you know, their utmost creative, the actors,
Speaker 5: the writers, everybody. No, you know, it's like it's still
Speaker 5: a big labor of love and still a passion project
Speaker 5: for everybody.
Speaker 2: Is you ture with the show you're most proud of?
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 5: Yes, it's my favorite thing I've ever done. And plus
Speaker 5: after all this time, it's we're like family, you know.
Speaker 3: Is that the reason that it is your favorite that
Speaker 3: the relationships that you've created during the making of it?
Speaker 3: Is it the creative output as well? Is it a
Speaker 3: combination of all of those things.
Speaker 4: It's a combination of so many things.
Speaker 5: You know, when we would record all the time, we'd
Speaker 5: be in a particular studio and then when the show
Speaker 5: was canceled and it was out of production. We were
Speaker 5: off for a couple of years or so, and when
Speaker 5: we came back, it was like we hopped in the
Speaker 5: same seats and you know everybody, you know, It was
Speaker 5: like we never left.
Speaker 2: So you were back in the studio again. You went
Speaker 2: recording remotely because the pandemic obviously made everyone record from home.
Speaker 5: But we had to record remotely when the show first
Speaker 5: came back because of the COVID and all the other
Speaker 5: things about it. But I've been going to the studio
Speaker 5: for the sessions and everybody else has been too.
Speaker 2: You have to change your approach when you're recording from
Speaker 2: home as opposed to because you've got to try and
Speaker 2: create that energy and possibly it's be impossible to do,
Speaker 2: I'm assuming, but when you're at home, how do you
Speaker 2: approach the job differently When you're recording from a home
Speaker 2: studio compared to being in a room full of so many,
Speaker 2: so much talent.
Speaker 5: You can't replicate the sparks that fly when you have
Speaker 5: an ensemble, but you have to trust the director, you know,
Speaker 5: and the director will keep you on your toes. And
Speaker 5: it's David X. Cohen who's always directing. I love his
Speaker 5: style and he lets us. You know, if they get
Speaker 5: what they want and somebody has an idea for something,
Speaker 5: they'll always explore it.
Speaker 4: They'll always say, Okay, give it a whirl.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: Doesn't it laugh for much ad libbing in Futurama? Or
Speaker 2: do you're one of those guys likes to sort of
Speaker 2: stick to the script? Mall right? Or do you prefer
Speaker 2: to Do you like to add lib?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I do.
Speaker 5: I honor the writers because they're my heroes. They these
Speaker 5: guys are so good, the men and women that write
Speaker 5: the show. They're just so good, you know. I love what.
Speaker 4: They have to do and what they have to say.
Speaker 5: And if I get an idea, you know, which isn't
Speaker 5: all the time, but I mean if every now and
Speaker 5: then something just happens to pop up, I will ask,
Speaker 5: you know, I'll say, hey, I was thinking, can I
Speaker 5: try something? And they're always happy to you know, and
Speaker 5: if they don't like it, of course, it'll just wind
Speaker 5: up on the floor.
Speaker 4: But it's a wonderful situation. It always has been.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love that level of respect. I imagine being in
Speaker 3: that kind of collaborative, creative environment. I imagine would be
Speaker 3: a kin to like to say, maybe doing live theater,
Speaker 3: or being on stage with a band, or even being
Speaker 3: in like say a radio studio with sort of like
Speaker 3: minded individuals and putting a show together. That way, you're
Speaker 3: all going to be sparking off one another. Even if
Speaker 3: you're sticking to the script or sticking to the story
Speaker 3: or the or the lines that you put down for
Speaker 3: one another, you know there'll be an inflection in the
Speaker 3: way you deliver a line, or a level of energy
Speaker 3: might go up or go down, depending on how you've
Speaker 3: interacted with other people. It's got to feel like some
Speaker 3: kind of crucible or colder in that way.
Speaker 5: I guess it's just it's joyous, you know. I mean,
Speaker 5: I never know when it's gonna be the last time,
Speaker 5: and so I try to just live as much as
Speaker 5: I can in every second, every moment of when we're working,
Speaker 5: and I'm so thankful when it's over. It's like I
Speaker 5: don't want to leave, you know, because I frame every
Speaker 5: moment in my gallery upstairs, because I know that it's
Speaker 5: finite and everything does come to an end. In our case,
Speaker 5: it's come to an end a few times. So hopefully
Speaker 5: they'll pick us up for another season maybe if they
Speaker 5: wanted to do more. I mean, I'm so there. If not,
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna run away. I'm done. I have nothing
Speaker 5: to prove.
Speaker 2: When did you start taking that approach off? This might
Speaker 2: be the last time because a lot of us we
Speaker 2: take things for granted, and during the nineties, do you
Speaker 2: think you took your success for granted at any point
Speaker 2: or do you have you always been I'm going to
Speaker 2: treat this like it could never happen again.
Speaker 5: I think I treated it as something really, really precious,
Speaker 5: and you never wanted anything to happen to it or
Speaker 5: anyone else. I think as the years went by, I
Speaker 5: began to become more sentimental as time passes. I mean, plus,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm seventy four now, you know, you just
Speaker 5: you know, it's so weird to think of myself. And
Speaker 5: if somebody had told me that I'd be working at
Speaker 5: seventy four years ago, I would have thought they had
Speaker 5: rocks in their head. You know, I would have never
Speaker 5: imagined working at my age.
Speaker 3: Billy I wanted to ask about about working the nineties,
Speaker 3: particularly working on shows like Red and Stimpy. I mean,
Speaker 3: I was I'm a generation ex kid, so I was
Speaker 3: sort of a ran for that era, and the impression
Speaker 3: that got of it was audience audiences were being fed
Speaker 3: stuff in the eighties. It felt very predictable, very kind
Speaker 3: of by the numbers, but there was this underground scene
Speaker 3: that was bubbling up to the surface, and the powers
Speaker 3: that be in the entertainment industry were like, we know
Speaker 3: people like this, we don't know how to do it,
Speaker 3: so we're gonna give it to the We're gonna give
Speaker 3: these weirdos and these strange guys the reins and let
Speaker 3: them do exactly what they want and we got all
Speaker 3: this great stuff as a result. I mean, is that
Speaker 3: what it felt like in the midst of it, in
Speaker 3: the in the thick of it, like I can't believe
Speaker 3: they're letting us, not only they're letting us make this stuff,
Speaker 3: that they're putting it out there, that they're advertising it,
Speaker 3: that they're saying, yeah, this is the next big thing
Speaker 3: to get to check out.
Speaker 5: I think they got skittish, you know, they were like
Speaker 5: once they saw it in production, they were like, ah,
Speaker 5: what have we done? And but but the women at Nickelodeon,
Speaker 5: believe it or not, they were pretty adventurous. I mean,
Speaker 5: to have that three cartoon block that they came up with,
Speaker 5: which was Doug Rugrats and Ren and Stimpy That was
Speaker 5: Jerry Leeborne and Vanessa Coffee and Mary Harrington sort of
Speaker 5: oversaw and and sort of nurtured and fostered Ren and Stippy,
Speaker 5: and then it became a television production. They were pretty courageous,
Speaker 5: you know, they were taking a risk. They knew it
Speaker 5: because it was you know, it was supposed to be
Speaker 5: for children. Nickelodeon was the children's network, and here you
Speaker 5: have this crazy, you know, psychotic show, all this screaming
Speaker 5: and yelling and h but I mean it was great.
Speaker 5: It was great. Yes, I think there was a feeling
Speaker 5: of like, oh my god, wait'll they wake up out
Speaker 5: of their coma, you know, and.
Speaker 3: Kids are weird and loud and virgie on psychotic as well,
Speaker 3: so that would probably tapped into something that I really dug.
Speaker 5: You know, you're so right. The thing is is the
Speaker 5: world had to be rescued from this universe of my
Speaker 5: little Pawony and Rainbow Bright Strawberry or Cake and Pound puppies,
Speaker 5: and you know, all this wreck that mirrored children's own
Speaker 5: immediate realities. It was never gonna take them on an
Speaker 5: adventure or take them somewhere, you know, on a thrill ride.
Speaker 5: And that's what these cartoons offered, you know, just an alternative.
Speaker 5: They even did them on Sunday mornings, just to be
Speaker 5: different from what the networks were doing.
Speaker 2: Can you recall when John first on board to do
Speaker 2: both ren En Stipy at the beginning. Obviously he took
Speaker 2: run over and then you took it over later on,
Speaker 2: But can you remember your first thoughts when you heard
Speaker 2: the idea for this ren and Stimpy. When you were
Speaker 2: first reading those lines, we thought, this is going to
Speaker 2: be some of the craziest stuff that's ever been created
Speaker 2: for kids television show.
Speaker 5: I think that I was I had euphoria over the
Speaker 5: fact that I was actually getting paid to do voices
Speaker 5: for a cartoon. You know, I was thrilled to death.
Speaker 5: I just thought it was so surreal that I wasn't
Speaker 5: aware of too much outside of the daily business of
Speaker 5: going to the studio making sure I had enough energy
Speaker 5: because I would get fatigued. I mean, some of the
Speaker 5: takes would be so gruelling and repetitive and screaming, you know,
Speaker 5: a take after take after take. Oh, that's not quite it.
Speaker 5: I don't know that's your ninety eight percent there and
Speaker 5: all kinds of shit like that, you know, And I
Speaker 5: was built for abuse, you know. Little my book comes
Speaker 5: out and people read about the kind of childhood I had, Billy,
Speaker 5: forgive me.
Speaker 3: This sounds like a bit of a wanky question, but
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm curious about I don't know the resonance
Speaker 3: of voice acting for you as a performer. I mean,
Speaker 3: do you feel it in the body or in the
Speaker 3: mind when you feel like you've actually this is this
Speaker 3: is this character's voice, This is how the sound, this
Speaker 3: is how I this is the intenetion of a certain width.
Speaker 3: And then do you feel it physically or mentally or both?
Speaker 5: It's both. I think a lot of it is based
Speaker 5: on having been around for so long and that I
Speaker 5: have a really good understanding of the human psyche. And
Speaker 5: I try to make characters not sound so cartoony so
Speaker 5: much as these are people that you could know in
Speaker 5: real life, even though they're cartoons. But even Matt Groening
Speaker 5: said The Simpsons is a cartoon to him, Futurama is
Speaker 5: real as if those people were real, really, okay, yeah,
Speaker 5: And I try to play them as if that you
Speaker 5: could know them. And I try to find something that
Speaker 5: resonates not only sounds good, but sounds unique, different from
Speaker 5: the average approach, like what you would expect.
Speaker 2: Well, you say that, I feel like the I think
Speaker 2: it was the second finale of Futurama, the one where
Speaker 2: it's the time loop. I think it's one of the
Speaker 2: most perfect ending to a TV show of all time
Speaker 2: with fran Lelif's going, let's go do that right again
Speaker 2: and brings that humanity to it in a show that's
Speaker 2: full of aliens and monsters and I go through space,
Speaker 2: but at the core of it, it's it's human.
Speaker 5: Yes, I really work at trying to be as honest
Speaker 5: as I can, because that's what connects with people. That's
Speaker 5: why people like something. It's got to resonate for them.
Speaker 5: There's got to be more to a voice than just,
Speaker 5: you know, some screwy voice. I mean, you got to
Speaker 5: you know, one of my heroes, mel Blank, was such
Speaker 5: an amazing actor. I tried to act my ass off
Speaker 5: with these characters, and I want it to be where
Speaker 5: you don't even realize it or notice it. I guess
Speaker 5: it's a testimonial to how good you get after a
Speaker 5: long time with performing. You kind of know what works
Speaker 5: and what doesn't.
Speaker 2: Can you tell when you've done a take and they've
Speaker 2: gone thanks Bill, and you've gone, Nah, I can do it, Bet,
Speaker 2: I can kick it up a note. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm pretty honest about stuff and I and I
Speaker 5: have enough of self awareness, like, oh, they're not buying
Speaker 5: the bullshit?
Speaker 3: Does that extend to pretty much everything you do with me?
Speaker 3: Because you've done a lack of commercial work as well.
Speaker 3: I mean I was, yes, I was really curious about,
Speaker 3: you know, working opposite Jack Caason as the red and
Speaker 3: Yellow M and M's I mean, are you giving that
Speaker 3: red eminem in a life so to speak?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just something that you know, it's appropriate to
Speaker 5: what that character is supposed to be.
Speaker 4: You know, he's he's sort of a wise, assy.
Speaker 5: Cynical trying to be patient with those around him, but
Speaker 5: he seems to be moving a little too quick and
Speaker 5: then he, you know, and then he gets like pulled
Speaker 5: back by people like Yellow, played brilliantly by JK. Simmons,
Speaker 5: who's one of the best actors that's ever been.
Speaker 4: And I knew this.
Speaker 5: I started working with him thirty something years ago and
Speaker 5: I knew right away. I said this guy's a national treasure,
Speaker 5: you know, and I hadn't really seen him in much
Speaker 5: except for a TV show called Oz, which was a
Speaker 5: prison show.
Speaker 2: We know, all was don't worry, oh boy you okay.
Speaker 5: Yeah, nothing intimidating about that, you know, just like working
Speaker 5: with the guy. But he's the greatest guy in the
Speaker 5: world and unlimited in his talent and his abilities and
Speaker 5: what he puts forth. You know, it's I can't believe that,
Speaker 5: you know, still going on after all this time. I
Speaker 5: don't know where the time goes. It's like there's these
Speaker 5: theories the time is moving faster for some reason, that
Speaker 5: there's people screwing around in a laboratory and cern cern
Speaker 5: and people warping time, and I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 5: I do know that everything goes by in a blink
Speaker 5: of an eye. After a certain time in your life
Speaker 5: and your timeline.
Speaker 3: I'd say there's some validity to that. Things don't feel
Speaker 3: like they're speeding up. But I just love the idea that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the creation of these commercials for this for this Delightful
Speaker 3: Candy has become like a two handed between these two
Speaker 3: talented actors who were creating these characters and coming up
Speaker 3: with actions and reactions and interactions for them both. I
Speaker 3: think that's marvelous.
Speaker 5: Have you ever eaten me? I had, I've eaten me?
Speaker 2: Do you ever? Do you guys have a just just riff?
Speaker 2: And has a riff of yours have been turned into
Speaker 2: a commercial?
Speaker 5: No, I'd like to say that, yes, it happens, but
Speaker 5: I don't know. It's it's streamlined. You know, It's like
Speaker 5: the writers know exactly what they want. It's been run
Speaker 5: through so many gauntlets. By the time it gets to us,
Speaker 5: you know that they know exactly what they want, and
Speaker 5: you know, and somebody will direct us. The ad agency
Speaker 5: takes turns directing. It's it's always a new group of people,
Speaker 5: you know, they get younger and younger. They're like Viet Con.
Speaker 5: They keep getting younger and they just keep coming.
Speaker 2: How does the directing differ from a commercial compared to
Speaker 2: a show like a futuruma way, I'm assuming it's just
Speaker 2: the same people all the time, or a similar group
Speaker 2: of people. But what does it like when you have
Speaker 2: to do a new commercial for a new do you
Speaker 2: have to Obviously they know who you are, but how
Speaker 2: does their approach different from that of a TV show?
Speaker 5: Well, everybody who directs mirrors the style of actors. Like
Speaker 5: there's a million styles of acting, million ways to get
Speaker 5: from point A to point B, you know, instead of
Speaker 5: a straight line. I mean, there's people that embellish, there's
Speaker 5: people that overact as a trademarked style, and there's people
Speaker 5: that underact and are subtle.
Speaker 4: But the directors are the same.
Speaker 5: Each one is different and and it's your job to
Speaker 5: fulfill their objective. You're an objective fulfillment machine unless it's
Speaker 5: your project, unless you created it. But I'm happy to
Speaker 5: be that, you know, happy to be the person that
Speaker 5: delivers for someone else.
Speaker 3: And I imagine some are better at communicating the wants
Speaker 3: and needs than others.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's true, it's true. I've been very fortunate though.
Speaker 5: The majority of directors that I've worked with are people
Speaker 5: that know what they want to hear. You know, they're
Speaker 5: not dithering, and you know we'll know it when we
Speaker 5: hear it. Oh, I hate when I hear that, you
Speaker 5: know at auditions, you know, what are you looking for? What?
Speaker 5: What ballpark? I don't know, we'll.
Speaker 4: We'll know it when we hear it.
Speaker 5: We could be here all day, man, you know, and
Speaker 5: you'll do something, and they'll go, what if what if
Speaker 5: it was a female? Okay, and you do that, and
Speaker 5: what if she was an Eskimol. You know, it's like
Speaker 5: when they don't know what they want, you could spend
Speaker 5: days ticking the pepper out of ants. Shit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Billy, there was something I was shocked to learn.
Speaker 3: I was reading a previous interview with you, and you
Speaker 3: mentioned that there would be occasionally, I'm not sure if
Speaker 3: this was happened to you specifically or happened with other
Speaker 3: voice actors, but you would go into audition for a role,
Speaker 3: and then the producers or the studio or the director
Speaker 3: or whoever would sort of use your audition as the
Speaker 3: template and they would go to say that, like to
Speaker 3: an a lister or a quite unquote name actor, and
Speaker 3: say this is how we want it done. It's almost like,
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, llm's scraping actual intellectual property for AI slop.
Speaker 3: It struck me as so corrupt.
Speaker 5: I brought a tape recorder when they actually still had
Speaker 5: them to an audition.
Speaker 4: Actually it was a paid audition.
Speaker 5: They wanted me to read some parts for an entire
Speaker 5: movie script, an animated and you know it's they were
Speaker 5: sort of nebulous about who they wanted to do it ultimately,
Speaker 5: and I knew that, but what I really didn't like
Speaker 5: was that you bring your own genius or whatever you
Speaker 5: want to call it, your own invention yet to things
Speaker 5: and they're just co opting it. You know. It's like, okay,
Speaker 5: we're going to okay, and then they they tell the celebrity, Okay,
Speaker 5: you hear what he did there, we want more of that,
Speaker 5: and like, can you copy what he did there? And
Speaker 5: you know, and I've heard my stuff in the in
Speaker 5: the final mix in the theater. I've heard lines that
Speaker 5: I had libbed or put a particular spin on, you know,
Speaker 5: finesse whatever. I only accepted it because I got paid
Speaker 5: for it. You know, it was considered a paid audition,
Speaker 5: so they were buying what you were inventing that day.
Speaker 5: And you know, it's as simple as that. Really, there's
Speaker 5: so many ninnies that, you know, everybody's got to be
Speaker 5: a celebrit or you're nothing. I feel like there's so
Speaker 5: many crafts people that just dedicate their life to this work.
Speaker 5: And I know a lot of voice actors that don't
Speaker 5: act theatrically that can piss circles around a lot of
Speaker 5: movie actors and TV actors that I've seen, but you know,
Speaker 5: there's always been this strange divide, like we're the redheaded
Speaker 5: bastards step children of the industry.
Speaker 2: When did that shift start? Was it the Disney films
Speaker 2: in the nineties with like Aladdin and The Lion King.
Speaker 2: Was that when I started to sort of shift more
Speaker 2: towards we're gonna get on screen actors. Yeah, yeah, Tim
Speaker 2: Allens and your your Tom Hanks's toy story as opposed
Speaker 2: to genuine voice actors.
Speaker 5: Well, they always wanted to go with star power, but
Speaker 5: my feeling was that they weren't voice people. They were
Speaker 5: basically doing their own voices. That used to bother me
Speaker 5: because to me, voice acting is alchemy. You know where
Speaker 5: they used to use us to. You know, we'd walk
Speaker 5: in a room and the producers and then everybody, the
Speaker 5: cre natives would say, see that bar lead on the table,
Speaker 5: it would be nice if you could turn it to
Speaker 5: gold for us, you know, before you left and you
Speaker 5: go boom and there it is. You make gold out
Speaker 5: of it. And now when you know, when the bar
Speaker 5: lead is sitting on the table, they bring in these
Speaker 5: twenty million dollars per pictures, celebrities, and it's still a
Speaker 5: bar of lead. There's no alchemy, there's no there's no magic.
Speaker 5: There has to be something that changes into something else
Speaker 5: for a voice to ring true as magic. You know,
Speaker 5: you pick anybody Tom Kenny all the things that he does,
Speaker 5: Dan cast and a Letta, any number of my contemporaries
Speaker 5: that can provide upwards of hundreds of variations of voices
Speaker 5: and characters, and hit the bell each time, you know,
Speaker 5: hit the ringer each time. Very challenging to be able
Speaker 5: to do that. And when you see somebody that's barely trying,
Speaker 5: and then where's my million dollar page? Get to just
Speaker 5: drive your nuts. You know, it's like sending a bunch
Speaker 5: of highly skilled plumbers to go win the World Series
Speaker 5: for you. You know that they have no business in
Speaker 5: Fenway Park. Then they really don't. I mean, they're great
Speaker 5: at what they do, they're excellent at what they do,
Speaker 5: but voice acting is a whole other animal.
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Speaker 2: slash four figure discount. I find because I've got two
Speaker 2: small kids. I've got a seven year old and our
Speaker 2: five year old, and I'll go to watch a lot
Speaker 2: of kids movies and that's when they get at the
Speaker 2: start to do the voice acting. And I remember went
Speaker 2: to a film recently, can't recall. I think it was
Speaker 2: The Bad Guys Tour something, and I think I spent
Speaker 2: half of the film trying to figure out going I
Speaker 2: know that voice, who is this person? And I found
Speaker 2: myself not of actually paying attention to the film, I
Speaker 2: was trying to work out who these voice actor was
Speaker 2: because they weren't putting on a voice, they were just speaking,
Speaker 2: and it was bothering me that I couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 2: Now I realized I've spent twenty minutes not concentrating, come
Speaker 2: so focused on this voice.
Speaker 5: Well, it depends like like if you listen to The
Speaker 5: Jungle Book, everybody in that movie their personalities were bigger
Speaker 5: than life. Louis Prima, Phil Harris, George Sanders, those people.
Speaker 5: Those people were bigger than life, you know, their personas
Speaker 5: were bigger, and they were so good at what they
Speaker 5: did that you bought it for those characters. Yeah, George
Speaker 5: Sanders was this resonant, beautiful voice and everything. They were
Speaker 5: spectacular in and of themselves. But there's a lot of
Speaker 5: voices you hear that I aren't particularly spectacular, and like
Speaker 5: you said, you're sitting there, it's bedeviling, Like you know,
Speaker 5: who is that is that Brad who's supposed to be?
Speaker 3: You know, Pitt's the one that I think of, because
Speaker 3: I mean I remember, I think it was around the
Speaker 3: early two thousands when they did the animated Sinbad movie
Speaker 3: and they got Pitt to do the lead for that. No,
Speaker 3: do you respect to Pitt? Well, I think it is
Speaker 3: a fine actor, but I mean not the most distinctive voice,
Speaker 3: and certainly not for Sindbad either. Yeah, and that really
Speaker 3: just felt like you you're burning money.
Speaker 5: I think that there's a lot of people that come
Speaker 5: home at the end of the day and tell their kids,
Speaker 5: guess who I worked with today? Sure, yea. Even the
Speaker 5: actors they at the beginning, I remember how they used
Speaker 5: to act huffyed.
Speaker 4: Like, you know, I'm not going to be in a
Speaker 4: stupid cartoon. I'm an actor, you know.
Speaker 5: And then all of a sudden, every one of them
Speaker 5: was involved because because of the paycheck involved, you know.
Speaker 5: And they used to try to say, well, I did
Speaker 5: it for my kids, you know, Yeah, like there has
Speaker 5: to be a disclaimer, there has to be a condition
Speaker 5: set on the reason why I did this. Well, you know,
Speaker 5: it's like Schwarzenegger doing a voice, you know, and he
Speaker 5: it's impressive to.
Speaker 6: His Guess what kids, Guess what? Daddy is a cartoon chat? Yes,
Speaker 6: what you will tell your friends you say you did
Speaker 6: it for your kids. I think you did it for
Speaker 6: your kids college fun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, No, but they used to say I did
Speaker 5: it for my kids, and it's like bullshit, you did
Speaker 5: it for thirty million dollars.
Speaker 2: You mentioned your book before, and you mentioned your childhood
Speaker 2: as a result. Well, something you've said recently a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago it really stuck with me, was there
Speaker 2: was no word for autism in the fifties. No, and
Speaker 2: you've spoken about how difficult your childhood was because you
Speaker 2: weren't diagnosed with autism, and you said you personally struggle
Speaker 2: within yourself to work out why can't I learn these things?
Speaker 2: Why can my friends do it? And I can't? What's
Speaker 2: going on here? And your dad was similar. He didn't
Speaker 2: treat you all that great as a result. He wasn't
Speaker 2: understanding of the situation.
Speaker 5: No, he just thought I was stupid. And I just thought, well,
Speaker 5: this must be something everybody else going through. You know,
Speaker 5: why would I be different from everyone else? They just
Speaker 5: they're better at it and I just can't figure it out.
Speaker 5: You know, you go through a lot of stuff. There
Speaker 5: was this strange otherness the only way I can describe it.
Speaker 5: Whenever there was a problem, like a mathematical problem to
Speaker 5: be solved, arithmetic rather or just something like you know,
Speaker 5: tying a necktie. Couldn't get my mind around it if
Speaker 5: my life depended on it. Struggle still with seat belts,
Speaker 5: like why is this so fucking hard? And I used
Speaker 5: to say that as a kid. I used to go,
Speaker 5: why is everything so difficult? Because you can't. I couldn't
Speaker 5: get my mind around so many things. But asked me
Speaker 5: to do something that almost nobody else in the entire
Speaker 5: world can do, it was no problem. It's crazy, but
Speaker 5: I was on the spectrum not too an extreme degree,
Speaker 5: but enough to get in my way. I hated school.
Speaker 5: I used to get physically ill just even thinking about
Speaker 5: going to school because I knew it was going to
Speaker 5: be humiliating all day, every day.
Speaker 2: So her voice is a mosque for that, where I go, well,
Speaker 2: you know what I am good at. I'm good at
Speaker 2: doing this, and I'm better than everyone else at doing this?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 2: What is that? What you think helped you gravitate towards
Speaker 2: voice acting? Just creating these characters and emulating people.
Speaker 5: I don't know if I thought about like that way
Speaker 5: about it at first, and I kind of kept it hid,
Speaker 5: you know, like an appendix scar because a lot of times, well,
Speaker 5: kids are so cruel, you know, like you you could
Speaker 5: do something amazing. You're standing in front of your friends
Speaker 5: and you say, you know what I figured out. I
Speaker 5: figured out this really cool thing, and you do it
Speaker 5: and they just stand there looking at you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So, and if somebody, I wish somebody could have I
Speaker 5: wish my adult self could have gone back in time
Speaker 5: to my little self and say, do you know why
Speaker 5: they treat you like that? Because you're standing in front
Speaker 5: of them and you're doing things that they will never
Speaker 5: ever ever be able to do in their entire life,
Speaker 5: how would you feel, I'd hate me.
Speaker 3: Billy not wanting to get to sort of Oprah or
Speaker 3: Drew Barry Mill with a hand on the knee or
Speaker 3: something like that, but I wanted to sort of talk
Speaker 3: about a bit about your relationship with your dad. In
Speaker 3: reading that he had I know, creative inclinations as well,
Speaker 3: that he wanted to be a musician or was a
Speaker 3: musician but couldn't find a way to sort of go
Speaker 3: pro with it and had yeah, creative direction, I found
Speaker 3: myself feeling really sad and really mad as well that
Speaker 3: this could have been a point of connectivity for the
Speaker 3: two of you, because you're both creative people, but instead
Speaker 3: it sort of became this wedge between you or a
Speaker 3: bone of contention or am I completely misreading that?
Speaker 5: No, you're not misreading. It's it's the human condition, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you could boil it down to.
Speaker 5: A classic story between Mozart and Soliari, sure, yeah, the
Speaker 5: court musician insanely jealous.
Speaker 4: He was doing everything he could to.
Speaker 5: Get in that guy's way, and my dad would sabotage me,
Speaker 5: would ridicule me because he was insanely jealous, and you
Speaker 5: know he had he has just enough talent to like
Speaker 5: tease him and bother him. It was like God's cruel
Speaker 5: joke on him. I gave you just enough to drive
Speaker 5: you nuts.
Speaker 2: How many voice outters do you think? You're out there
Speaker 2: in the same role, in the same position where they
Speaker 2: know they've got the talent to get there. But it's
Speaker 2: just especially in twenty twenty five, it's just so hard
Speaker 2: to get that one gig to sort of get you
Speaker 2: going now, isn't it.
Speaker 5: I imagine it must be a nightmare. I mean, because
Speaker 5: you know, when I started, there was really about eight
Speaker 5: people that were doing everything. When I first came to Hollywood,
Speaker 5: there was eight people, you know, and I got to
Speaker 5: know them. Of course, I kind of rose through the
Speaker 5: ranks pretty quick, I mean, and I came out of
Speaker 5: New York, and I rose through the ranks in New
Speaker 5: York real quick because I poured it on when I
Speaker 5: got there. I said, you know, I want to I
Speaker 5: was very cocky. I said, I want to be Flavor
Speaker 5: of the Month twelve times a year. Is that make
Speaker 5: me a bad man?
Speaker 2: Because I want that, you know, And that's what eventually
Speaker 2: would have led to your gig on Howard Stern. I'm
Speaker 2: assuming and that's where you were for it. That's where
Speaker 2: a lot of people knew you from in the early nineties. Anyway,
Speaker 2: you'll work on Howistern. Do you look back on that
Speaker 2: time fondly? I know it ended poorly? I mean, want know,
Speaker 2: why have money now? Not? You felt like you went
Speaker 2: you look back fondly, which is a shame.
Speaker 4: No, I don't.
Speaker 5: I it was not the happiest days of my life.
Speaker 5: I had been diagnosed with actually I was. I was
Speaker 5: undiagnosed for chronic low level depression, which I was born with.
Speaker 5: So that was another thing I was up against in childhood,
Speaker 5: severe depression. But it was like, you know, just brace up,
Speaker 5: you know, get it together, don't sit there feeling sorry
Speaker 5: for yourself. And it was kind of a draconian way
Speaker 5: of dealing with stuff that was way more complicated than
Speaker 5: anybody realized. But no, but he had time for that.
Speaker 5: You know, to most people it was like nonsense. You know,
Speaker 5: it's just he's just being obstinate, obstinate, or he's being lazy,
Speaker 5: or you know, there was always a reason and the
Speaker 5: qua out of it that they could be you know,
Speaker 5: denigrating towards it, But yeah, I mean the radio in
Speaker 5: New York. I mean, I thought it was he was
Speaker 5: Howard was kind of a firebrand, you know, and I am.
Speaker 5: I had a love of old radio, so my heart
Speaker 5: was I had a radio heart, you know. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's really I wanted to be a radio performer like
Speaker 5: my heroes. And luckily it was such a unique situation
Speaker 5: that that's what it was. They didn't play music. It
Speaker 5: was just you walk into this room and suddenly it's
Speaker 5: Saint Elmo's fire shooting through everything, shooting through the microphones
Speaker 5: and the furniture, and you know, something would just come
Speaker 5: up out of nowhere, out of nothing, and you had
Speaker 5: this room full of people that were like lightning rods.
Speaker 5: Very unique, very special sation. But again, you know, I
Speaker 5: the only thing that saved me from going crazy and
Speaker 5: really just losing it was the fact that I could
Speaker 5: go in there and laugh in the morning, and then
Speaker 5: I'd come out of there and I'd feel like I
Speaker 5: wanted to die and go back into the real world.
Speaker 5: But performing saved me, and I'm sure that's the reason
Speaker 5: that it developed the way it did from childhood was
Speaker 5: performing was an escape. It was, you know, going doing
Speaker 5: any kind of like theater, like when I was in
Speaker 5: school play or a glee club or a chorus group,
Speaker 5: you know, singing standing there and you know performing It
Speaker 5: was it was a it was an escape. It was
Speaker 5: like paradise, you know, compared to how I felt all
Speaker 5: the time.
Speaker 3: I'm curious, Billy, when that performance aspect kicks in, do
Speaker 3: you feel like a different person altogether, or do you
Speaker 3: feel like a better version of yourself? The version the
Speaker 3: self that you admit to be.
Speaker 5: I think the latter that you mentioned. It's an interesting
Speaker 5: way to put it.
Speaker 3: It's like you're seeing the real me when I'm performing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because I try to be as true and as
Speaker 5: honest as I can be in performing, even though their
Speaker 5: personas and their characters and everything.
Speaker 3: But they come from you.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I try to be the conduit, you know, like
Speaker 5: taking divine dictation, you know, as pure, as pure as
Speaker 5: you can get it. You know, it's not so difficult
Speaker 5: to explain it. It's all actors are searching for the
Speaker 5: truth in everything that they're doing.
Speaker 4: And that's what I kind of, you know, go for.
Speaker 4: And I and I have a combined instinct of many.
Speaker 5: Many years of experience and then an instinct to what
Speaker 5: sounds good, you know, what people respond to what types
Speaker 5: of things. And I was fearless, you know, I was
Speaker 5: always fearless. I would it was nothing I wouldn't try.
Speaker 5: And I always admired people that were fearless, like my
Speaker 5: friend Gilbert Gottfried, you know, he was just fearless.
Speaker 3: Did that manifest itself in music as well, because I
Speaker 3: mean you were a guitarist and a trumpet player. I
Speaker 3: mean did you feel the same kind of connection when
Speaker 3: you were performing music as a post to performing voices
Speaker 3: or did that come from the same place.
Speaker 4: It's a very special place. It's like a cosmic playground.
Speaker 5: Your talent is like a skyhook that lifts your feet
Speaker 5: off the ground and puts you in this rarefied air,
Speaker 5: especially when you work with other people. And the idea
Speaker 5: about improvisation, somebody once described improvisation as never do anything
Speaker 5: the same way once, and I sort of understand that,
Speaker 5: even though it's conceptual and quirky.
Speaker 4: But what it's like, you're always looking to invent.
Speaker 5: Every breath in and out is like, oh, you know,
Speaker 5: I got a chance to reinvent something or create something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of reinvention. Obviously, I was a kid in
Speaker 2: the nineties, massive fan of Space Jam when I was younger.
Speaker 2: You had to you would ring invented Bugs Bunny for
Speaker 2: the Space Jam films. Taking ever from as you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: Mail Blank, were you going into that going I need
Speaker 2: to recreate mel Or were you going into it going,
Speaker 2: I need to do the Billy West version of this.
Speaker 2: It's got to be the foremost correct.
Speaker 5: I think you can't help but do the version with
Speaker 5: yourself injected in there somewhere, because you don't want to
Speaker 5: be just a tape recorder or a minor bird, you know,
Speaker 5: or you want to bring something something of your soul
Speaker 5: to it, because that's what keeps things fresh. I think
Speaker 5: I know that things are not particularly funny when everything
Speaker 5: is too perfect or too stainless or too clinical. There's
Speaker 5: got to be something askew to catch your ear or
Speaker 5: catch your your attention as a as an audience. And
Speaker 5: you know, just some little weird thing that you might
Speaker 5: bring to the table that say Mel Blank didn't do
Speaker 5: might catch on like crazy. And again you have to
Speaker 5: kind of be fearless, and the directors will always pull
Speaker 5: you in.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: It's like I don't know. You know, I wasn't. I
Speaker 5: wasn't one of those people that sat there and argue
Speaker 5: with the director. You know, mel Blank wouldn't do that.
Speaker 5: Bugs wouldn't. He would never do that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like I wanted to do anything.
Speaker 2: They threw out me and granted Bugs Bunny obviously, one
Speaker 2: of the most iconic characters of all time, had already
Speaker 2: been around for decades.
Speaker 5: But oh I know that. But he's only twelve years
Speaker 5: older than me.
Speaker 2: That's but that that film, though I ain't I a
Speaker 2: little stinker, That film was basically reintroducing the character to
Speaker 2: a new generation of fans, because we know, we knew,
Speaker 2: we knew of Bugs Bunny, but nineties, we weren't watching
Speaker 2: Bugs Bunny cartoons all that often. So this was like
Speaker 2: the new version of Bugs Bunny. So it was almost
Speaker 2: you had to almost recreate it to an extent.
Speaker 3: Or if you were, you were watching it in the
Speaker 3: context of cartoons made in the sixties or seventies.
Speaker 2: It's an old cartoon.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I mean Bugs Bunny had
Speaker 5: different incarnations, like his personality would change from director to director.
Speaker 5: You know, there's a difference between the Chuck Jones Bugs
Speaker 5: Bunny and the Bob Clampett Bugs Bunny.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it depended on.
Speaker 5: The director whether he was more screwy, or whether he
Speaker 5: was more wise guy, or whether he was poker faced
Speaker 5: or sly or you know what I mean. But the
Speaker 5: directors would paint with some broad colors and intense colors,
Speaker 5: and sometimes they would concentrate on a particular thing. You know.
Speaker 5: Daffy Duck was the same way. He was like at
Speaker 5: his craziest when Bob Clampett was directing it, and then
Speaker 5: he was a little more subdued when Chuck Jones was
Speaker 5: directing him him.
Speaker 2: That's how we think of though.
Speaker 3: I mean, these are really iconic and original American character,
Speaker 3: isn't that.
Speaker 5: I mean, yes, yes, And you know they were the
Speaker 5: grist for my mill most certainly, I mean what saved
Speaker 5: me as a child from cracking up, I mean from
Speaker 5: just totally falling apart. All my little friends lived in
Speaker 5: a TV lived in a glass and metal wood box
Speaker 5: in the corner of the room. There were three channels.
Speaker 5: Everything was black and white, and television went off the
Speaker 5: air at eleven PM at night, and that was that.
Speaker 5: And I used to lament that, like if I sneaked
Speaker 5: up in the middle of the night and I'd turn
Speaker 5: on the TV and there was a test pattern. I
Speaker 5: would just sit and look at that and imagine things happening,
Speaker 5: because I couldn't.
Speaker 4: Believe that it had gone away without telling me.
Speaker 5: And that's another thing about performers coming from my generation
Speaker 5: is that when we were growing up, there was no
Speaker 5: way to preserve anything. In other words, when something was
Speaker 5: playing on television, you never knew if you were ever
Speaker 5: going to see it again. Ever, there was no way
Speaker 5: they didn't tell you. They didn't say in the TV
Speaker 5: guide you know this is going to run once you know,
Speaker 5: they just wouldn't tell you. And so you're sitting there
Speaker 5: watching the most amazing thing you ever saw in your life,
Speaker 5: and it's changing your life and shaping your future, and
Speaker 5: it's going to be gone in thirty seven seconds. There's
Speaker 5: this horrifying desperation. So what you would do to overcompensate
Speaker 5: is you would just suck every single thing, every pixel,
Speaker 5: every proton out of that screen and try to capture it.
Speaker 5: And the only way that you could replay anything was
Speaker 5: if you performed it. And so you'd go to school
Speaker 5: the next day and say, hey, did you see that
Speaker 5: thing that on television. No, I didn't let me show
Speaker 5: you how it went. You know, there's no way until
Speaker 5: I got my hands on a real to real tape recorder,
Speaker 5: a little tiny one that changed my life because I
Speaker 5: was recording reams of dialogue and I'd even go to
Speaker 5: the movie theater and record music cues. I was a
Speaker 5: really weird kid, but I used to sit for endless
Speaker 5: hours listening to this real to real tape and what
Speaker 5: I managed to get on it. And you know, my
Speaker 5: world was clearly a sonic world more than it was
Speaker 5: a visual.
Speaker 3: Billy was ever a feeling in your better in your
Speaker 3: heart that you were sort of paying it forward with
Speaker 3: the characters that you were creating on Futurama, on Red
Speaker 3: and Stimpy, or recreating Bugs Bunny even It's like there's
Speaker 3: some kid out there who may have trouble connecting with
Speaker 3: their friends, with their pea group or whatever, but I
Speaker 3: understand this character on the screen and I see myself
Speaker 3: in them. I mean, do you see yourself as part
Speaker 3: of that tradition in some way?
Speaker 5: Yes? Absolutely, And I can tell you for sure because
Speaker 5: Comic Con shows I've done them in life, then I've
Speaker 5: done them in Australia, New Zealand, Wales, Ireland, you know,
Speaker 5: all over the place, and people at these shows are
Speaker 5: basically the same that they're like a lot of people
Speaker 5: are on the spectrum at these shows. So I feel
Speaker 5: totally at home. And it's and it's an interesting group
Speaker 5: of people because there is an a narcissist within a
Speaker 5: twenty miles of the place. There's no toxic masculinity, there's
Speaker 5: no misogyny. Everybody's an mpath. I mean, what a friggin
Speaker 5: world this would be if that's the way things were.
Speaker 5: And then it dawned on me one day, I said,
Speaker 5: they can't explain the explosion of autistic births. This is
Speaker 5: just happening. It's exploding. So of course they're trying to
Speaker 5: find a formula. You know, It's like over here, Robert F.
Speaker 5: Kennedy JUNR Is like, well.
Speaker 4: Some other's a mother's a day island all, you know,
Speaker 4: And it's like he's full of shit.
Speaker 3: I was hoping you do an hour.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, a screwball.
Speaker 3: That was this man in Judge of America's health. He
Speaker 3: just sends someone, well, it looks someone.
Speaker 4: Well, who's the most unhealthy appearing person?
Speaker 5: He looks like he looks like a piece of burnt
Speaker 5: bacon with eyes, you know, and he's telling you he
Speaker 5: looks like a baked good, you know, something that got overdone,
Speaker 5: like a croissant that get roasted in the oven.
Speaker 4: And he's telling you what's the healthy way to be.
Speaker 4: I don't know what got me on him.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, well I would have had polio if I
Speaker 5: didn't take the vaccine, because that's when it happened. But
Speaker 5: the thing about autism, they're trying to blame it.
Speaker 4: On like tile and all and stuff and excuse me.
Speaker 5: Autism, you know, first came about in nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 5: That's when they identified it. You know, it was long
Speaker 5: before tail and all.
Speaker 2: This show is brought to you by the four figure
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Speaker 2: as exclusive episodes of Going Down to South Park, Tales
Speaker 2: of Futurama, Bob's Pods, Speaking of the Hill, Talking Sifeld,
Speaker 2: The One About Friends, and so much more. So go
Speaker 2: ahead and join the family today at patreon dot com
Speaker 2: slash four figure discount. Do you see yourself as an
Speaker 2: inspiration to those fans you see at comic cons and whatnot,
Speaker 2: who may think, do they do? They come to you
Speaker 2: and say, you inspire me to succeed in what I
Speaker 2: want to do as well?
Speaker 5: Yes, I, and I was never sure if that's what
Speaker 5: I had. You know, I knew I had a head
Speaker 5: full of other maladies from childhood. When my mother announced
Speaker 5: to my father that she was pregnant, instead of being overjoyed,
Speaker 5: he beat the shit out of her and beat her
Speaker 5: around the and kicked her in the stomach, trying to
Speaker 5: kill me. So a truckload of problems was dumped on
Speaker 5: me right then and there. A lifetime of damage was
Speaker 5: done in less than two minutes. You know, so I
Speaker 5: didn't know what end was up most of my life,
Speaker 5: but finding my way and being able to talk about it,
Speaker 5: you wouldn't believe. There's people that say, you know, I
Speaker 5: feel like I'm listening to myself talking when I hear
Speaker 5: you describe how you felt, and that makes me feel
Speaker 5: good because you don't feel alone. You know, it's so
Speaker 5: easy to believe that you somehow were played some cruel
Speaker 5: cosmic joke. You know, why, why me?
Speaker 4: Why did I have to wind up like this, you know,
Speaker 4: and I have such difficult time.
Speaker 5: But for some reason, artistic people really respond to sound,
Speaker 5: you know, and voices. It's a big thing. They identify
Speaker 5: through it. And I get it, you know, because in
Speaker 5: the autistic mind there's gifts in there. I know this.
Speaker 4: And I started to say.
Speaker 5: That I feel at home at these shows because you know,
Speaker 5: like I said, there's a narcissist within twenty miles. There's
Speaker 5: no toxic masculinity, there's no misogyny. Everybody's an mpath And
Speaker 5: I started to think, well, they can't explain the explosion
Speaker 5: of autistic births.
Speaker 4: And it just hit me in the head like a
Speaker 4: lightning bolt, like an epiphany.
Speaker 5: I can explain it. It's nature making a correction in
Speaker 5: the human condition. It always has. I think that autism
Speaker 5: is the next step in human evolution. I really do,
Speaker 5: because think of the qualities that these kids and these
Speaker 5: adults have. It's qualities that we're losing at light speed
Speaker 5: as a society, things like compassion and tolerance. They're so
Speaker 5: tolerant of each other and differences. They're tolerant of this
Speaker 5: longing to be one with an art form. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's high concept that's.
Speaker 2: Evolved a lot of my son's friends. I said a
Speaker 2: lot of them. There's several of them. They've been diagnosed
Speaker 2: with autism. But I'll tell you what they When it
Speaker 2: comes to mathematics, one of them is an absolute genius.
Speaker 2: Another one he's when it comes to art, absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2: They have their own specialties, each and every one of them.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, when I'm on an airplane and two
Speaker 5: guys in their thirties decide to have a fistfight at
Speaker 5: thirty two thousand feet, I go to myself, where are
Speaker 5: these freaks coming from? Where are these freaking freaks coming from?
Speaker 6: Where?
Speaker 4: How could you not know?
Speaker 5: You know, full grown adults? And I said, we're like,
Speaker 5: we're slammed in reverse. We're devolving. And that's when it
Speaker 5: really dawned on me that, like nature, if I was
Speaker 5: more than nature. And I was in Yellowstone Park and
Speaker 5: I watched some idiot kicking a napping buffalo for hits
Speaker 5: on TikTok or you to, I think the buffalo would
Speaker 5: gorge him and kill him, and I would just say
Speaker 5: I had to take him out. I had to.
Speaker 4: I don't want that.
Speaker 5: Shit in the gene pool. Yeah, my job is to
Speaker 5: make sure that we evolve forward, not backwards. And the
Speaker 5: guy doing the video is is next because he's almost
Speaker 5: as stupid. I mean, it's critical mass. I mean, there
Speaker 5: are people that are so stupid they don't know they're stupid.
Speaker 5: And I hate to say it, but it's true. And
Speaker 5: so what is beginning to counterbalance this insanity? What I
Speaker 5: see is autism and a proliferation of people that are
Speaker 5: on the spectrum, but they have all the gifts that
Speaker 5: come with it. You know, big fuck, you're awkward. You know,
Speaker 5: I'd rather have I'd rather have awkward people that are
Speaker 5: sensitive and that are non violent. And you know, I
Speaker 5: mean everybody's got this hair trigger temper now. And you
Speaker 5: get sucked down that rabbit hole on TikTok and you're
Speaker 5: watching people beating the shit out of it each other
Speaker 5: over nothing, over nothing. I mean, it's like there isn't
Speaker 5: even a graduation in the acceleration, you know, it just
Speaker 5: goes from zero to sixty in a split second when
Speaker 5: somebody goes nuts.
Speaker 4: And on the airplane, I go, why don't these people
Speaker 4: go nuts on the.
Speaker 5: Way to the airport, You know why I have to
Speaker 5: beating each other up in their cars before they buy
Speaker 5: a ticket to get on the plane.
Speaker 4: But I think nature has always made an intervention.
Speaker 5: In thousands and thousands of years of us, Nature has
Speaker 5: always had to make a correction, whether it was in
Speaker 5: nature or the world, or people or the human condition.
Speaker 5: Some of the organs we don't use, they just get
Speaker 5: smaller and smaller till you don't have them anymore. You know,
Speaker 5: the vestigial glands and everything that our ancestors needed to survive.
Speaker 4: We don't need it.
Speaker 5: So what do they do? They disappear. It's evolution.
Speaker 2: Well, at least these people are hopefully evolving the Roight way.
Speaker 5: Well, I think they're going to bring society up, and
Speaker 5: I think it'll take probably one hundred to two hundred years,
Speaker 5: but they will integrate into society and then it'll become
Speaker 5: mainstream and become more refined. But I mean, it's got
Speaker 5: to happen because we're in serious, serious trouble. And I
Speaker 5: don't mean just meaning the United States. I mean like worldwide.
Speaker 5: There's something off, something totally wrong, you know, for lack
Speaker 5: of a better word, it's like you're watching like evil
Speaker 5: take hold and it's hard to define what that is.
Speaker 5: I mean, and we're talking like the evil that's in
Speaker 5: a video game. You know, these demigods and these satanic
Speaker 5: monsters and creatures. No, no, just people that have lost
Speaker 5: the moral compass. But you know, you'd see it here
Speaker 5: and there, like one out of every hundred people would
Speaker 5: have a screw loose. And now it's like, everybody, do.
Speaker 3: You have faith we can full we can pull ourselves
Speaker 3: out of the towelspin that we're in.
Speaker 5: Yes, I do, And I hope that that's the way
Speaker 5: it goes. I mean, I don't know. I'm in like
Speaker 5: six more years. I will be eighty years old. A
Speaker 5: lot of my peers haven't even made it this far.
Speaker 5: People that I grew up with, you know, they're all dead,
Speaker 5: they're gone. So you know, I just hope I see
Speaker 5: something good. But you're looking at a really grateful person.
Speaker 4: I mean underneath, you know, all of.
Speaker 5: The the observation and the dismay that I have. I
Speaker 5: also studied the human condition, and I couldn't help it.
Speaker 5: I was like a born observer or a cop or
Speaker 5: an alien, you know, because I didn't know. I had
Speaker 5: no blueprint for being a human being. Oh that's how
Speaker 5: you laugh, Oh that's how you cry. It was always
Speaker 5: like I was watching to see how you be, how
Speaker 5: you're supposed to be and why you laugh? Yeah, And
Speaker 5: so you become a purveyor of somebody that is offering
Speaker 5: up a pas holida of emotions in different characters and everything,
Speaker 5: and you have this innate and inane understanding of it.
Speaker 5: You know, I think eventually we'll be okay. But we
Speaker 5: got to go through this dark period. And now I
Speaker 5: don't know what's going to happen with AI. I just
Speaker 5: don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, none of us do.
Speaker 4: It's like it's like everyone can play the home game.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 4: Now some smoke can sit in his room, give a
Speaker 4: bunch of prompts.
Speaker 5: To an AI software and just make his own version
Speaker 5: of Jaws, you know, where the shark is waiting on
Speaker 5: tables like in a restaurant, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: and then offer it up. Look what I did.
Speaker 2: Do you think if you grew up in a world
Speaker 2: where that was already accessible, that you would want to
Speaker 2: do that? Do you think because you've lived your life
Speaker 2: not being able to do that, you now see it
Speaker 2: as we shouldn't be doing that because a lot of
Speaker 2: it seems like a lot of young people are excited
Speaker 2: for AI with those who didn't grow up with it,
Speaker 2: but myself aren't excited for it. I think it's we
Speaker 2: refer to AOI slup, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Yeah, of course they're excited, but there's a whole school
Speaker 5: of thought like everything that they think they're using to
Speaker 5: invent something comes from somewhere that somebody with a beating
Speaker 5: heart created a human being. And everything I watch and
Speaker 5: everything I listen to, if it doesn't seem to have
Speaker 5: a human, beating, human heart behind it, I can tell
Speaker 5: I lose interest real fast. And just because it's exciting
Speaker 5: and new for somebody to just instantly start creating and
Speaker 5: painting and doing all this stuff, and they, you know,
Speaker 5: they're gonna get they're gonna drown in their own excitement
Speaker 5: and their hubris. But just because you can do those
Speaker 5: things doesn't mean you have talent. That's the Just because
Speaker 5: you can do those things doesn't mean you're funny. It's
Speaker 5: just gonna be such mountains of garbage that you're gonna
Speaker 5: have thrown at you, and you know, eventually it'll become
Speaker 5: normal and nobody will know that they're fens.
Speaker 3: I mean, creative people have always drawn inspiration from what's
Speaker 3: come before them, the art that's come before them, for instance.
Speaker 3: But the best of it is always distilled through their
Speaker 3: own perceptions. You know that they distill it through their
Speaker 3: own interpretation things or whatever, and you get something new
Speaker 3: as a result. Yes, yeah, with this, it seems like
Speaker 3: maybe one percent or point zero zero one percent of
Speaker 3: the AI quote unquote art that's created is maybe going
Speaker 3: to have that. The rest is just going to be
Speaker 3: with that wishing to get to political Donald Trump and
Speaker 3: a fighter jet dropping shit on the not King's protesters.
Speaker 4: You say it like it's a bad thing.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 4: I'm kidding.
Speaker 5: I'm kidding. It's horrifying, it's appalling, it's mortifying. That's that's
Speaker 5: what we're in for.
Speaker 6: Though.
Speaker 5: It's like the groundhog, so it's shadow. We're going to
Speaker 5: get a thousand years of AI.
Speaker 2: What's your thoughts on voice actors being replaced or continued
Speaker 2: on long after they're gone using AI. Do you think
Speaker 2: a voice actor who is offered the opportunity if they
Speaker 2: came to them and said, we're going to AI your
Speaker 2: voice going forward and your state will get so and
Speaker 2: so percentage of any takings, or we're just going to
Speaker 2: replace you with somebody else once you're gone, and that
Speaker 2: person will get all of the takings in their estate.
Speaker 2: Will what do you think a voice actor? Which option
Speaker 2: are they going to take?
Speaker 5: I think every corporation's wet dream is to figure out
Speaker 5: how we can carry on, how we can manufacture things,
Speaker 5: how we can put out product without ever having a
Speaker 5: human being involved. Oh yeah, that's their wet dream. So AI,
Speaker 5: you know, it'll be like a blitzkrig. It'll be like
Speaker 5: a digital blitzkrig, and there'll be bodies everywhere. I hate
Speaker 5: to say it, but a corporation will go, well, wait
Speaker 5: a minute. You know, we don't have to hire a
Speaker 5: voice actor to do this announced part. So they get
Speaker 5: it for nothing, you know. And sometimes you can't tell
Speaker 5: if you're listening to an AI voice except sometimes you
Speaker 5: can see the seams in the costume.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: It was like some voiceover was talking about Washington, d C.
Speaker 5: The city near the Portomac River, you know, the Portomac,
Speaker 5: the Potomac.
Speaker 3: It's funny. Before we started recording that, I just saw
Speaker 3: an article in Variety. I think it was about it's
Speaker 3: kind named Kevin O'Leary. I think he's like a venture
Speaker 3: capitalist or something that's on Shark Tank. But he's got
Speaker 3: a s some yeah, some upcoming movie with Timothy Shallomey,
Speaker 3: and he was talking about how, yeah, we had like
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty extras in this scene, and you
Speaker 3: know what, a you could just recreate that. These are
Speaker 3: people that you had to actually you know, had to costume,
Speaker 3: and they had to feed them, and you had to
Speaker 3: pay them at the end of the day. You know,
Speaker 3: with AI you could just fill the bleachers with these
Speaker 3: computer generated people.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they have families that depend on that.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what I was thinking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just so easy. It's so cavalier, you know,
Speaker 4: it's so uh.
Speaker 3: He was trying to put a positive spinner as well, saying,
Speaker 3: you know, and with all the money, you saying, you
Speaker 3: can make more movies.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, man, I mean.
Speaker 4: You can replace more people with the money.
Speaker 5: See.
Speaker 3: I think you feel it in your soul or even
Speaker 3: in your mind when you're like when you're looking at something,
Speaker 3: it's like.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the real people.
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a little bit of humanity is sucked out
Speaker 3: of the project as a result, A.
Speaker 2: Little bit generous and it'll get to a point where
Speaker 2: Hollywood doesn't need to exist anymore because everyone will just
Speaker 2: create whatever movies they want to do. They'll go, I
Speaker 2: want to watch Star Wars where Steven Spielberg is one
Speaker 2: of the Jedi. Make that happen, and there will be
Speaker 2: no need for people to make movies anymore. Everyone's just
Speaker 2: going to make their own movies. Everyone just make their
Speaker 2: own films.
Speaker 5: But I mean, it's just like years ago, the condition
Speaker 5: of being cool, the idea of being cool. The word
Speaker 5: cool was invented in the fifties, and then a decade
Speaker 5: later everybody thought they were cool. Everybody was trying to
Speaker 5: be cool. And if everybody's cool, nothing's cool. And if
Speaker 5: you have a million people playing around with AI, it's meaningless.
Speaker 5: It doesn't mean anything. It's it's just like, you know,
Speaker 5: there's just sit around and entertain themselves to death. But
Speaker 5: you are right, I mean, there will be no need
Speaker 5: for you know, the gatekeepers to keep it all hid
Speaker 5: because people will be able to just create what they want.
Speaker 4: I can't say if it's a good or bad thing.
Speaker 4: I'm just not sure. If it's art, I'm just not sure.
Speaker 5: Because it's a blender filled with ingredients that someone else
Speaker 5: created and you just turn the blender on, you know,
Speaker 5: and then you pour out a smoothie made of Da
Speaker 5: Vinci and this and that and the other thing.
Speaker 3: If you're getting what you want all the time, it's
Speaker 3: ice cream for dinner, well it's not good for you.
Speaker 3: I mean, what's that. There's that episode of the Twilight
Speaker 3: Zone where the guy goes to hell or not sorry,
Speaker 3: the guy thinks he's gone to heaven, but he's like
Speaker 3: he's a he's like a problem gambler or something. He's
Speaker 3: like he gets blackjack every time, and you know, every
Speaker 3: woman he approaches like, yeah, I'm going home with you.
Speaker 3: Big bodies like you get so bored after dyeting, I
Speaker 3: thought this has meant to be haapening. I was like,
Speaker 3: oh no, no, you're in the other place, buddy.
Speaker 5: That was Yeah, that's a beautiful twist. That was the
Speaker 5: great thing about that show.
Speaker 3: And that's what's going to be like. If you get
Speaker 3: what you want all the time.
Speaker 5: Well people are going to find that out and they're
Speaker 5: gonna get bored and they're going to have to find
Speaker 5: another fix for their boredom. There's only about five hundred
Speaker 5: TV channels, and yet people are bored. And the kids
Speaker 5: get bored. So yeah, you're right. I mean what I
Speaker 5: think is going to happen as a result of all
Speaker 5: this is that live performances are going to become sacred
Speaker 5: because there will be a place and there is now
Speaker 5: there are places where you can go and watch a
Speaker 5: human being stand in front of a crowd and deliver.
Speaker 4: And AI can never do that.
Speaker 5: An AI has to be modified, it has to be
Speaker 5: shown and reshown, it has to come from an electronic source.
Speaker 4: It's never gonna stand in front of you and play
Speaker 4: violin like exact pearlman, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And I think live performances are going to become like
Speaker 5: sacred and the places that the performance happened and will
Speaker 5: become like church holy in a way. Yes, I swear.
Speaker 5: I mean because people are going to go, wait a minute,
Speaker 5: I can do anything I want, but I still suck.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, like you said, the best art isn't stainless. You know,
Speaker 3: it's got flaws and it's got mistakes, and that's that's
Speaker 3: what makes it real and that's what makes people connect
Speaker 3: to it. I think AI, I think is UH is
Speaker 3: kind of stainless. You know, it's going to give you
Speaker 3: the perfect thing every time, and you're going to get
Speaker 3: tired of that as a result.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, the AI creates nothing. I'm more interested in
Speaker 5: the creation, you know, the connection that some human beings
Speaker 5: have with the universe or God for lack of a
Speaker 5: better word. You know, I think to me that the
Speaker 5: spiritual aspect was always it was the highest thing that
Speaker 5: you could shoot for, you know, talk about aiming high.
Speaker 5: But the AI and the technology and everything, unless it
Speaker 5: starts just thinking on its own and telling the people
Speaker 5: who's who are creating things, why don't you just take
Speaker 5: your hands off of that and let me do everything.
Speaker 5: You know, it'll come to that.
Speaker 2: Wait, won't give us the option, You'll say, you're going
Speaker 2: to leave now wear in control.
Speaker 4: Yes it will.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it has to. It has to.
Speaker 4: Otherwise life would be no fun, would it is?
Speaker 3: That line in that Bo Burnham song Welcome to the
Speaker 3: Internet was just not or shake your head and we'll
Speaker 3: do the rest. That's that's what it's going to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, now that we've solved that problem.
Speaker 2: That one final thing I wanted to ask you, Billy.
Speaker 2: Obviously this is a Simpsons podcast. We talked obviously voice
Speaker 2: actors and whatnot. You've been on sim Simpsons once, but
Speaker 2: it was the Future. I'm a crossover. You've been on
Speaker 2: so many shows, You've had so many one time bits.
Speaker 2: We do a King of the Hill podcast. You've been
Speaker 2: on King of the Hill and whatnot. Why it has
Speaker 2: the Simpsons just never been at your doorstep? Why have
Speaker 2: you never been on The Simpsons besides the Future run
Speaker 2: across overhead? Why has that just never worked?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 5: They certainly don't need me. I mean, they've got Danny
Speaker 5: Keston a letter and they have the other voice people.
Speaker 5: You know, my audition would make things worse. I think
Speaker 5: it's a beautiful entity. And I felt, you know, glad
Speaker 5: that they did a crossover. I thought that was very
Speaker 5: clever and it was a great idea. And you know,
Speaker 5: you're taking the best of both worlds, and you can't
Speaker 5: overdo something like that. I mean, if they want to
Speaker 5: use me for something, it's fine. If they audition. I
Speaker 5: hear about auditions and I go. I used to go
Speaker 5: on every single audition because if you want to work,
Speaker 5: you have to audition.
Speaker 2: This show is brought to you by the four figure
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Speaker 2: bonus podcasts, including exclusive Simpsons reviews and commentaries, as well
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Speaker 2: of Futurama, Bob's pods, speaking of the Heel, talking Soifold,
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Speaker 2: ahead and join the family today at patreon dot com
Speaker 2: Slash four forget his goat.
Speaker 5: But that audition for Futurama was plenty for me. I mean,
Speaker 5: I didn't need to do any searching around after I
Speaker 5: got that job. It was just the best creative outlet.
Speaker 5: I knew I was auditioning for the Professor Farnsworth, and
Speaker 5: I knew I was auditioning for Zoidberg, and they showed
Speaker 5: me pictures of the characters, and I, you know, I
Speaker 5: just went with my guts. Like the first thing I
Speaker 5: thought of was I'm smart enough to know you can
Speaker 5: think yourself out of a beautiful situation. You can second
Speaker 5: guess your way out of a great thing because you're
Speaker 5: thinking too much. So guts are important. And I went
Speaker 5: with the first thing I thought of. Every time I
Speaker 5: looked at a picture Zoidberg. He was corpulent, and you
Speaker 5: could play against type and give him a real high.
Speaker 5: I pitched genderless voice and maybe comedy could be gleaned
Speaker 5: from that. But no, it's it's he should sound portly
Speaker 5: and big and and he had all this stuff hanging
Speaker 5: off his face, so I thought he would be impaired
Speaker 5: to a degree. And then I thought of these marble
Speaker 5: mouth performers that I grew up watching, people like George Sessel.
Speaker 5: You know the definition of a smart ass a fella
Speaker 5: that can sit on an ice peram tone and tell
Speaker 5: you what flavor it is, you know.
Speaker 4: And then there was George, there was lu Jacoby. What's
Speaker 4: it like to have all that money?
Speaker 5: You know? And then it became Zoidberg. Your music is
Speaker 5: bad and you should feel bad, you know. And and
Speaker 5: the professor was one hundred and forty seven years old,
Speaker 5: and they showed me a picture of him, and I said,
Speaker 5: he probably farts dust like a mummy, since he's that old.
Speaker 5: And it's like, I get him like palsy, you know,
Speaker 5: the age palsy and the rickety. You know, it's like
Speaker 5: who needs courage when you have a gun.
Speaker 4: And I didn't know I was auditioning for Fry. They
Speaker 4: sprung that on me, you know, they just said, what
Speaker 4: do you think about this?
Speaker 5: And they showed me a picture, and I had to
Speaker 5: pull something out of my ass quickly, and so I said,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna do a voice no one's ever heard, which
Speaker 5: is me at what I sounded like when I was
Speaker 5: twenty five years old. And it became a perfectly original
Speaker 5: creation because I committed to it.
Speaker 4: I remember I was all whiny Naisalin. I was complaining
Speaker 4: I was in a band and I broke a string
Speaker 4: and ah, shit, now what am I gonna do?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 5: And I was a project for a girl. You know,
Speaker 5: girls would be like, why do you have to dress
Speaker 5: like that? And I was, you know, I was needy
Speaker 5: and I was all over the place, but my heart
Speaker 5: was in the right place. So that's basically Fry. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's why Leela loves him, and she's a perfect It
Speaker 5: worked out perfectly because he's all over the place and
Speaker 5: he's needy, but his heart's in the right place and
Speaker 5: she's so strong and decisive that they worked perfectly together.
Speaker 4: And that was kind of an accident.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I wasn't sure exactly how much of a lionis Lila was,
Speaker 5: you know, because I hadn't seen or heard the fully
Speaker 5: developed character. But the stab that I took at it
Speaker 5: just luckily was the right way to go.
Speaker 2: And I can only imagine at the time it would
Speaker 2: have been what ninety eightish when you were auditioning, ninety
Speaker 2: seven maybe when you're auditioning for Futurama. No, I think
Speaker 2: it was about I thought it might have been a
Speaker 2: little bit earlier.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah, maybe a little a little earlier.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Matt Groening's name at that point. You know, he is
Speaker 2: the creator of the Simpsons, joining that family. I can
Speaker 2: just imagine the thrill that must have been.
Speaker 5: Oh it was, and you know, and then when they
Speaker 5: started shuffling us around, I said, yeah, we're doomed.
Speaker 4: You know, this will be gone. Don't get too attached
Speaker 4: to this, Billy.
Speaker 2: And this beautiful thing call physical media save the day.
Speaker 2: So make sure you go out and buy your David's
Speaker 2: and Blue Rays. People don't rely on streaming.
Speaker 5: I like that. I like that sales pitch.
Speaker 2: Oh well, Billy, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: I know it's late where you are. I mean, apologize
Speaker 2: for keeping up so late, but it's been so interesting.
Speaker 2: It's been a long time coming on. We had you,
Speaker 2: actually had you on this podcast a decade ago. I
Speaker 2: finally got you back, and I'm so thankful.
Speaker 5: Really, I'm glad that you're still doing it. You know,
Speaker 5: we'll do this again. I mean, we have another season
Speaker 5: coming on its way, and then if they pick up
Speaker 5: some more after that, I don't know, man, I mean,
Speaker 5: I'm so there. If they want to do it, I
Speaker 5: get the energy to do five more seasons. I really could.
Speaker 5: But if not, I just want to be an old
Speaker 5: Irish guy sitting next to an old Irish river with
Speaker 5: an old Irish.
Speaker 4: Dog and a young nurse.
Speaker 5: The dream, you know, and uh, and that's the way
Speaker 5: to go out, you know, to the words rich widow
Speaker 5: mean anything to you. All you gotta do is let
Speaker 5: me crawl on top of you for like four years
Speaker 5: and I'll be gone. Don't worry about it. You'll be
Speaker 5: free and you'll still be young. I'm thinking like a
Speaker 5: pragmatic old, pragmatic old beezer with a plan.
Speaker 3: What a sales pitch.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much, Billy, Billy, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for your.
Speaker 3: Time for being Billy West, sure thing.
Speaker 5: Thanks, it was pleasure