With a voiceover career that includes such varied ’toons as “Ren & Stimpy,” “Doug” and “Futurama”—and stints voicing such classic characters as Bugs Bunny and Popeye—you’ve probably woken up or fallen asleep to one of West’s voices on the TV and not even known it.
On “Futurama,” West is the voice of the lobster-like physician Dr. Zoidberg, the clueless captain Zapp Brannigan, our hapless hero Philip J. Fry and Fry’s great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandnephew, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth—none of whom sound like they come from the same mouth.
And now that “Futurama” is making a comeback, with four direct-to-DVD movies that will also run as miniseries on Comedy Central—including the upcoming four-part epic "Bender's Big Score" (premiering March 23 at 8 p.m. ET/PT)—there’s even more chance for West’s voice(s) to not be recognized.
On the show, you do a bunch of different voices. Is there one that’s more physically taxing than the others?
The Professor’s voice is a little tough to go the distance with. It’s raspy and old, and there’s a lot of physicality that I try to put into [it].
When you went to work on the first “Futurama” movie, “Bender’s Big Score,” how hard was it to get back into doing those voices again?
Oh, it was easy. I fell right back into it. I just did what I always do—look at the script, get familiar with it and then go and record.
Those movies will eventually be split into individual episodes to air on Comedy Central, but the rumor is that after that, there will be new episodes. Care to comment?
That is a possibility. It all depends on how well it does. They’re going to run the ones from Cartoon Network, which were from Fox originally, and will then introduce the movies as episodics. But since there’s four of those, it’ll take us into 2009.
Besides “Futurama,” you’ve also done the voices of Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd and Popeye at one time or another. Is there any cartoon character whose voice you wouldn’t do?
Oh, no. I’m a journeyman. I look for things like that to do. Unless the original guy is still alive or still doing the voice…I wouldn’t get involved in that.
You’ve also done voices for video games and commercials. Is one more fun to do than the other?
I love doing commercials—they’re short and sweet—but all you’re doing is blasting out bullet points, so there’s not much messing around. But in a video game, you can be there for a couple hours, so there’s a lot more to get into.
I’m sure your friends always want you to do their outgoing voicemail messages…
You know, it’s not my friends—most of my friends are voice actors themselves. And I don’t do it for myself because I did it once and when I came home I had like 10 messages, all hang ups. People were calling just to listen to the message. So I gave that up.
What is your favorite cartoon of all time?
Mine is a one-off, a “Merry Melodies” from probably the mid- to late-’30s called “I Love To Singa.” It’s about this family of owls—the dad is a professor of music, mom has just laid some eggs, and as they hatch, one plays classical violin and the next plays classical flute, but the last one is jazz singing that old song, “I Love to sing-a, about the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a.” And the father doesn’t want anything to do with the kid, so the kid goes into town and winds up on the radio, and then they believe in what he does. I really identified with that story.
And of the voices you’ve done, which is your favorite?
Ah, man, that’s a tough one. I love all of them. Though I do savor theones that sound the most like me. Like Fry—that’s pretty much what Isounded like when I was 25. I also like what they make him say. Someonewill say to him, “Hey Fry, I heard that beer makes you stupid,” andhe’ll say, “No I’m doesn’t.”
