Beyond 3000: Why The Future Is Still Bright For Billy West

There are few cadences in contemporary pop culture as immediately recognisable as that of celebrated voice artist and radio host Billy West.

A decorated performer with 30 years' experience in the business, West has been a constant presence in the field of television animation since 1991, when he simultaneously nabbed the iconic roles of Doug Funnie and Roger Klotz in Nickelodeon's cult-favourite Doug alongside that of Stimpson J. "Stimpy" Cat in the incendiary Ren & Stimpy. (He would go on to subesquently also voice Stimpy's other titular half, Ren Hoek, as well as side character Mr Horse, from 1993-1996.)

In addition to a big-screen turn as Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in Space Jam, West spent much of the rest of the 1990s lending his pipes to all manner of minor and main roles across literal hundreds of episodes and characters for shows including Earthworm Jim, The Wacky World Of Tex Avery, Cow & Chicken, I Am Weasel, Extreme Ghostbusters, King Of The Hill, Histeria!, CatDog, Voltron: The Third Dimension, The Powerpuff Girls, even the pilot of Invader Zim — but it was with his multiple roles in Matt Groening and David X Cohen's beloved sci-fi comedy Futurama, a project on which he worked between 1999 and 2013 (save for an extended mid-run hiatus due to cancellation), that he well and truly cemented his place in the pop-culture pantheon.

[With 'Futurama'], people expected another 'Simpsons' — and it wasn't. It was its own animal, and people had to get used to it.

The series — in which West played protagonist Philip J Fry, along with his distant relative, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, the boorish space captain Zapp Brannigan, put-upon alien physician Dr John Zoidberg and more — was defined by tumultuous behind-the-scenes circumstances: its co-creator, Matt Groening, famously clashed with the series' network, Fox, over its initial attempts to have creative input on the show, while it became increasingly difficult to track as the station started playing fast and loose with its time-slot. 

Nonetheless, the show bounced back from cancellation first with a batch of straight-to-video movies that later served as the show's fifth season before continuing for a further two on Comedy Central, ultimately saying farewell three years ago after an emotional 14-year on-and-off journey.

"Well, people expected another Simpsons — and it wasn’t," West reflects on the initial response to the show. "It was its own animal, and people had to get used to it. And, of course, it was harder to see, because it was being yanked for sports, and the time changes were happening all the time — they kept changing the time periods and the nights and everything. But people found it, and there’s people finding it as we speak, going, ‘This is the greatest thing I ever saw!’ You know, I have kids telling me they grew up with Doug; there’s full-grown adults going, ‘I was raised on that,’ and it’s like, that’s what makes the world go round!" 

West, along with peers such as Futurama co-star Maurice LaMarche, is among probably only a handful of voice artists who has remained active through the entirety of the adult-animation explosion, a phenomenon that took the groundwork laid down by prototypical projects such as The Flintstones to give us the rich and diverse cartooning landscape of the late 20th century; and yet, he says, as much as things have changed since that time, there are still elements that remain consistent.

"It’s cyclical; you’ll see these magnificent cartoons, whether they’re minimalist or heavily involved," West reflects on the industry's past decades. "There was a spate of cartoons — like, Beavis & Butt-Head was in no way like The Simpsons, and Ren & Stimpy was in no way like Beavis & Butt-Head or The Simpsons. It was a beautiful time for things to explode. And then, you know, people got inspired and there was lots of people trying to do stuff, and you could see the influences suddenly everywhere, and that made me happy because that meant that they dug it so much that they wanted to do their version or just use a certain style.

"And then the other thing is, gosh, the artistry involved in these things. Now, I went through this whole period of time where everything I read for looked like stick drawings, like refrigerator children’s art. It was just like, I’m a fan of fine art; if something’s gonna have like strange, childlike drawings or stick figures or whatever, you’d better be funny or you lose me." 

I get to do the voices, I get to meet people, I get to find out what’s really going on in the world, because I go to bed at, like, 9.30 at night...

Special though Futurama and those earlier shows are to West and his many fans, it's clear he's also not prone to dwelling on past achievements or milking them for glory: instead, he's much more keen to focus on his present pursuits, which in his eyes are the main impetus for his upcoming visit to Australia for Supanova Pop Culture Expo. Granted, one of those is a mystery project about which he can't talk when we speak, but that's far from being all that's on his horizon at the moment.

"I can’t wait to see everybody again," he enthuses of his local sojourn. "I’ll be there with some of my pals, which is always fun — and, you know, I get to do the voices, I get to meet people, I get to find out what’s really going on in the world, because I go to bed at, like, 9.30 at night [laughs]...

"There’s a new reason to go [to Supanova in 2016] — I mean, right now, I’m in the middle of doing 62 episodes of a new cartoon, but it’s based on an older one from the ‘70s. I can’t announce what it is, because it hasn’t been announced yet, but I have a feeling very soon it will be — and then I’ll talk about that stuff. And I also have a podcast which I want people to know about."

As it turns out, The Billy West Podcast is something of a labour of love for the actor, who got his start in radio as a member of The Howard Stern Show in the 1988. He released seven episodes between July and October last year, reappearing with an eighth in March and, most recently, a ninth episode in late September. It differs from the typically dry set-up of a lot of talk-back-style podcasts, trading instead in surrealist humour, impersonations and other sketches to while away the time in as hilarious and outlandish a fashion as you'd expect from someone with as colourful a history as West's.

Given that it's clearly something he wants to pursue and promote, it raises the question of whether there was a particular reason for the extended break.

"Well, the thing is, it’s labour-intensive," West explains. "I mean, I don’t want to interview my friends just to pick up interviews, talking about my voice-over friends. I want to create some content. So I did it, and it was described in one of the trades as 'meta-absurdist'. And I’m having nothing but fun doing it, because I get to do characters, and I get to write — and it’s really fun writing.  

"You've gotta get together, like, two or three times to write a podcast, and then you have to find time to record it and refine it and, you know, it takes a good week to get people together. I do have my friends guesting on The Billy West Podcast, and some of them are really famous voice people, and some of them have already been on, but they don't play characters that they do, they play characters from my real life."

You're trying to say something, but it's not gonna piss people off. I didn't want to talk about politics, I didn't want to mention religion.

To date, that list of guests has included venerated voice artists such as the aforementioned LaMarche — who, along with his role as Kif Kroker and others in Futurama, has lent his voice to Pinky & The Brain, Captain Planet & The Planeteers, Rocko's Modern Life, Taz-Mania, The Critic, Freakazoid!, The Simpsons, The Tick and a wealth of other series — as well as peers and friends such as Jim Gomez (an animator who has worked on Ren & Stimpy, He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe and more) and the legendary Charlie Adler. 

"When I lived in Hollywood, there was a couple of old biddies that lived up the hill from me, and they were snoopy, you know? One of them would lean over the hill and go, 'Are you the boy from the garaaaage?' You know, that's what old people used to say, like, 'Are you the kid from the...' whatever, like whatever you're known for. 'Are you the kid with the stupid-coloured bike?'... Because they don't know their name. So that was so funny — Charlie Adler did the voice of both of my old-biddy neighbours. And my friend Maurice LaMarche played the entertainment attorney who used to live next door to me, and he knows the guy, so he nailed it!" 

"This is what makes me sit up and bark like Lassie, stuff like this, because ... you're trying to say something, but it's not gonna piss people off. I didn't want to talk about politics, I didn't want to mention religion — I just wanted to have it be as silly as it could be."

The Billy West Podcast is available on its official website.

Billy West is appearing at Supanova Brisbane (11-13 November) and Supanova Adelaide (18-20 November). For tickets, see the event's website.