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.
Billy WestWhen I was a little kid, I saw a guy with one of those cancer clarinets, and I flipped out. I totally flipped out. I said to my mom, "Mom, what is that thing?" And she happened to know, too, which was the oddest thing. She said, "That's a Bell Telephone artificial larynx, for men that had their voice boxes removed because of cancer." I was like, "Wow." And I couldn't wait to get one. I didn't get one 'til I was all grown up and everything.
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 WestJohn Kricfalusi is very talented; he used to really piss me off. But I did good work, you know? The Ren & Stimpy show without me was totally unsuccessful. So if there's anybody listening out there with any doubts about what I can do for a show: Try me. The thing is, I wasn't about to stop doing a job.
Billy West