I 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.

I've always said that you can't be the new Mel Blanc by doing Mel Blanc's voice.

I don't have that much of an ego where it's like "How dare you, you can't do something without me."

Everybody's got a bully pulpit now, and everybody's mad. I don't blame people for being angry and frustrated about everything. I'm old, but I'm not pulling my pants up to my tits. I take deep breaths of air when I enter a room and celebrate the fact that I'm alive.

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.

Robert Mitchum sounded different from John Wayne, and John Wayne sounded different from Clark Gable.

It had more layers than an onion. These writers meant business. There was a level for everybody. Your major could be celestial mechanics, and there'd be celestial-mechanics jokes.