It's very hard to take a character out of nothing, and put a hook on it, especially because it's only sonic. Futurama is a sonic world, and everyone's attention is focused on that sound and that little cartoon image. You can change it.
Billy WestTom Kenny is a master of changing a pubic hair this way or that way, and sounding like a totally different character.
Billy WestJohn Kricfalusi wanted me to quit the job when he got fired in 1992. But the problem there is that I wasn't his partner. I was a hired gun. And then people badmouth me for 10 years, like a rock in my shoe in that camp. It's a very small but active group of posters, as I've come to find out. But the thing is that I finally got to the point where, "Okay, I get you, I get it you don't like that I did what I did." But the thing was, the whole story was cockeyed. They said I put everybody out of work. No, I didn't. Everybody was going to be out of work if I didn't continue the Ren & Stimpy show.
Billy WestSomebody's real voice is probably the hardest one that somebody could attempt. The characters are all, believe it or not, rooted in a reality of some sort. I've met and talked to people, and they're also fusions of showbiz periphery. But the best thing was, if you did your own voice and you were the star of the show - if it came to blows and they had you on the ropes and you had to leave, then they could just get someone to sound exactly like you.
Billy WestI did speak out about celebrities because I thought it was appalling. I thought that if the cartoon became popular, it was only going to last as long as the career of the people who are in it. They didn't make up timeless voices. They used their own. They brought nothing to the table, in other words. There was no alchemy. That's why a cartoon was so alluring, was that a human being went into a place and created this supernatural sound, or whatever sound it was supposed to be that was totally unlike their own, and did it in multiples.
Billy West