If you've watched any cartoon on TV in the last fifteen years, chances are you've heard Billy West's voice. West is one of the premier voice actors working today, and during those fifteen years, he's used his versatile voice to create new characters -- and resuurect old ones -- all over the television and movie landscape. From Shaggy to Bugs Bunny to Woody Woodpecker to the Cherios Honey Bee to the Red M&M, the 54-year old West has put his imprint on all of them. But most people know him from two classic cartoon series: On Ren & Stmpy, he did the voices of both main characters (he picked up Ren after creator John Kricfalusi was fired after the first season), and on Futurama he did the voices of Philip Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. John Zoidberg, and Zapp Brannigan, among others.

In this wide-ranging interview, conducted by phone on May 31, Billy and I talked about his history with John K., the way he went about creating some of his Futurama characters, his early-'90s role on "The Howard Stern Show", and the influx of celebrity voices in current cartoon movies (let's just say he's against it). We also went over all the Futurama Season One episodes in the 90-minute (!) interview, which you will see in my Retro Squad coverage of the show. He was even nice enough to do a Futurama / R&S -themed intro for our APB podcast, which we used to open podcast #13 last week. Needless to say, Billy West is a mensch.

Huh.

Wuh.

Who?

Pah?

Those were the four reactions I had upon seeing the trailer for the new HDTV program called Billy Bastard, which features the voice talents of Ren and Stimpy and Futurama voice actor Billy West. The show is apparently supposed to be a kind of "reality puppet show" about the titular character, a swearing, drug-using, beer guzzling jerk. You would think combining West with two directors from Ren and Stimpy (Bill Wrayand Jim Gomez) with puppeteers from Team America would result in a really great show, but so far I haven't been floored by what I've seen, though I have cracked up a few times. Maybe my humor switch is stuck today, so I won't pass judgment on the show just yet. Besides, there's too much awesome talent involved for me to dismiss it before actually seeing it for myself. You can learn more about Billy Bastard (and see clips)on his blog.