You have to have some kind of power of observation, almost like a trained observer.

Even when I was coming through school I was a loner and I used to study music and listen to it and play it and play it, and I was in bands.

Tom Kenny is a master of changing a pubic hair this way or that way, and sounding like a totally different character.

Well, I happen to have a love of vocal reproduction devices.

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.

In a black-and-white world, back in the '50s, were voices from another era. All actors used to sound different. Robert Mitchum sounded different from John Wayne, and John Wayne sounded different from Clark Gable. They were like men's voices, but they weren't Everyman, it was them.

To me, it all comes down to things being character-driven. It's hard for me to look beyond that. CG and all this cool stuff - so be it. But to me, it pretty much begins and ends with character-driven plots rather than technologically-driven plots.