"You have a TV?" "No. I just like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide. You don't need a TV." ♪ Hello everybody. Happy Friday. Thank you for checking out the show. It is live special edition time. The super-secret guest I had at the Wright LA Comedy Festival was the one and only Mr. Billy West. It was a ton of fun, so you are going to hear that episode if you did not hear it live. And for those that did to hear it live, thank you guys so much for coming out. It was amazing to see that many people who had come out to see the show, some friends, some new friends, listeners of the show, people who came from great distances that was very shocking. Some people drove from Las Vegas and Portland, Oregon. It was really, really great to meet you guys, really great to see old friends. I appreciate you guys coming out and hopefully you enjoyed the show. Now just in case you don't know, Billy West is the voice of pretty much every cartoon character you've ever liked ever. He's started as Stimpy, then became Ren and Stimpy. He's the original Doug. He does most of the voices on Futurama. You will hear him do many of the voices in this episode. He's a really interesting guy, very, very entertaining guy. And this is a great time. Again, I was so happy to do this live show. And when I started this podcast, I had never envisioned doing live shows. So having been asked to do more than a few this year has been pretty amazing to me. And that people come out is even more amazing. So I want to thank Abby Londer and the LA Riot Comedy Festival for having me out there in the first place. It was a lot of fun. And also want to thank Gary Summers, who does the Northeast Comic Con here in the Boston area. And he is who I met Billy initially through. I recorded a couple of live episodes during Gary's event. You may have heard the Evan Michelson episode or last week's Paris. Themin episode, those are at Northeast Comic Con. And Gary had asked me to do a roast of Billy, which I talk about a little bit with him in that episode, which I was reticent about, I don't do fake mean very well. I sometimes just get real mean. But it was actually fun. And Billy enjoyed it. And we stayed in touch. And then he came and did the show. So it was a lot of fun. So one quick note about the audio. I did record off the soundboard. So the audio is very good for 99.9% of the show. But the guy in the booth didn't pot up the soundboard audio till about four minutes in. So for the first four minutes, you will be hearing the room mic. So it's a little bit echo-y. I did my best to make it sound good. But don't bail on it. It gets better at four and a half minutes because that's when the the board audio comes in. I didn't want to cut that first four minutes. So it gets a little echo-y at first and then gets pretty much crystal clear. So please enjoy this week's live episode of TV Guidance Counselor with my guest, Billy West. Thank you so much. These are all tourists that we went down along with Boulevard. We gave out tickets. That's one of them. I think it's a lot. But it looks at least seven days old. Yes, there is a strategy. This is an interesting venue because when I was in a punk rock band and this was like basically every place we spent our entire youth in was like this, but not as nice. We're standing at the rock wall. I used to play the rap in the let's see. Let's say 1973. Okay. Yeah, so we formed a punk band. Yeah, I was a little cut up. Man, I was troubled. Some could have made me in a relationship because there was a nice little rap like it's all day and night. Well, you had a good relationship with being high. Well, I did have that. What was I used to say stuff about cocaine makes a new man out of you and then the new man wants some. So you so long people don't know that you grew up in a Boston area. You grew up in Rosalindale. Yeah, Rosalindale. Right, which is kind of like it's sort of the Dorchester you have to know about would be for Boston and Nova for a lot of people. Yeah, it's sort of like Roxbury, Dorchester, Rosalindale, West Roxbury, and a lot of this huge influx of Greek immigrants. Well, that's a mistake. Yes. It's okay, I know your father. Yes, yes. We won't have lots of those. Not anything, but that whatever. But anyway, they huge influx of Greeks and the Greeks saved Rosalindale. They cut the lawns, they fixed the roofs. You know, it was like, like we all had to do when we inherited a neighborhood. Right, right, right, right. Just try to make the best of it. And now it's very expensive neighborhood. But in the, when you draw it up, it is really, it's totally like an expensive commuter. It was a one-hour sort of working class. I guess, basically, Southern Boston. There were factories there. You could get yourself a good job of a factory. That's what you wanted to do. Make a shot of people that didn't mind that because the pressure was 9 to be a superstar. Right. And for the past 20 years, television and telling kids, you know, you're either a superstar or you're not. Right. And it's like you're kidding me. You're going to have a whole entire economy of entertainers. Yeah. You know, that would sustain you. It's like so much on an event of perpetual emotion machine, where it's like, you can be famous, but your biggest fan is you. But you're the only person that buys your products. But if you get the money, could you see my YouTube channel? I review my other YouTube videos. That's where we'll get it. I know, but it's the point where one and every three people in about 10 years will be a Kim Kardashian impersonator. Or an actual member of the Kardashian family. Because they seem to be expanding. That's financial. They get around them. Yeah. So if you're not been in the Boston area. Wait, wait, wait, you guys have seen my Kim Kardashian impression? I have. I've heard about them. It's everybody's been talking to me. Right. Ooh. For the people listening, it was going right down. It was uncanny. Right. So I didn't even see where you pulled the baby out from. I mean, it's like a magician. Her man is a magician. So I guess I should run down on a lot of stuff that I did. Yeah. I started driving. Yeah. And then you grew up. I was a rock and roll player. Yeah. I played guitar. Yeah. I played guitar. I had my first band in 1966. Yes. It's true. Yeah. It was kind. I knew Fred and Mark. They had a great group. They had a better band. But, you know, it was so great because if you were carrying a guitar case back in those days, it'd be a plus load of kids screaming at you. Like, hi. You know, you want to go to a party, you don't even write it because it meant so much back. And it was, and I don't mean this in an insulting way, but it was new. Like, you didn't have people that, like, you'd have big band people that were like, I've been playing jazz for 35 years, kind of guys. But like, kids weren't playing music for that long at that point. So it was kind of a novelty. You know how you wind up doing stuff just to overcompensate for, you know, things you could, things you couldn't have. I'm talking to them. We shut it up. No, you get like, one day you get fed up of being the smallest guy at a dance, a high school dance, getting stomped on wherever you went, you know. In Boston? Yeah, I think they even had a cock blocking. Yeah, they did. But I mean, but you were always getting shoved around and whatever girl you thought you might have made eye contact with. I was really shy. But there was something fearless about my nature, but, you know, I couldn't, I didn't belong in that pig part. I belonged, like, up on the stage. Yeah. You know, that's the only way I could see being in a place like that. Right. Because in a lot of ways, it's a way to be interacting with the group without having to actually interact with anyone there. So you, like, a lot of shy people end up going into stage stuff because they're like, I am socializing with a whole bunch of people at once, which is economical, without, without actually having to talk to any of them. Well, you know what, you know what it is? It's also this unspoken rule that it just says you've got more balls than anybody else. Yeah. Yeah. Because this, which you have to develop and it makes up for like all your height problems and your hydraulics and all the other stuff. Right. It all balances out in the end. So you, I remember talking to you a couple weeks ago. I met Billy because I was asked to do a roast of Billy, which I don't do roasts because I can't do fake mean. Like, it's really hard for me. And like, when I've been asked to do them halfway through, I'll be like, Oh my God, I'm a monster. But, and I'm a big fan of Billy's work. So it was difficult for me to even do that. But I kind of just, it was beautiful. You played it just perfectly. I tried. I was, I was wondering. I mean, I thought they were going to lower the boom on me. All these people from my life from 30 years ago, were band members. And you name it, they were showing up. And I thought, Oh my God, you know, I'm going to get a big time when these people get up there and do a test. Like, you were probably expecting someone to come out and be like, I'm your son. Yeah. Or worse. I remember me. No, I don't. I don't remember you. You don't remember me? No, I don't. You spent the summer at my house. You don't remember what you did. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's the worst. But I remember you saying that you kind of, much like me, television was like your salvation when you were a kid watching. When I was a little kid, it was a toss up though. You'd be surprised between the television set and the radio. Right. Because my world, you know, look at what I wound up doing. My world was a sonic world, where everything was about what I heard on the radio. And I was doing, I was singing blue suede shoes. Like, the third week it came out. Right. By Elvis Presley. And then my mom said I used to jump up and down on the bed and wear my dad's rain shoes, galoshes. And that was the blue suede shoes for me. Sounds about right. Did you ever get to see Elvis? What? Did you ever get to see Elvis? No. I saw his crack ones. Yeah. Yeah. When he, no. So you, everybody loved Elvis. Yeah. He was one of the inspirations for me to go play music. So music was your first thing that you were like, this is how I can be a performer. Music's going to do it. Right. But I was an artist before that. I had a good hand at drawing. Okay. You know what it was? It wasn't as an immediate fix. You have to spend time, you know, and there's the guitar sitting in the corner. You pick it up and respond to the way you touch it. And everything can be a complete little statement. Right. But you don't have to wait for it. Right. Yeah. And so I could be more manic, I guess. Yeah. It's, it's a much different. Like the energy you get back, the response you get from playing music is much different than if you have a drawing on a wall and people come by one at a time ago. Oh, it's crazy when you go into this trance when you're just sitting, playing an instrument, you know, and suddenly it'll be three in the morning, you know, you started out at 9.30, and you go out of your room and your eyes are plaid like you were doing drugs, you know. Right. But it's just this weird thing that happens. And just to put it in just real, I don't know, abstract terms, is they said the definition of improvisation, if your musician is never doing anything the same way once. Right. You know what I mean? Which is just, you sort of get it. It's like, no, just keep inventing, keep inventing. That's how I approach math in high school, which did not work out well. So you're playing music in the Boston area in the '60s? Yeah, I played dances and I got to wear all these cool clothes that I wouldn't be caught dead in, you know, because they look good on stage. And there were shirts available for guys, but later on I found out they were like all clean clothes. The things you can get away with on a stage though. I had high heels. I had high heels shoes that were like, the heel was that big on them. And my hair all poofed up. I was like a David Bowie. Right. Like full on glam teddy boy thing going on. Oh yeah, there's nothing more pathetic. Well, that's, I mean, especially since you're not making records and you're not making a dime except to play the deer lodge for all the guys want to kill you anyway, for wearing what you wore. Right. Playing at the Dorchester arms. And I'm sure everyone was very tolerant in the area of dressing like that. No, I mean, you know, they try to ambush you. If you had a pair of like capizios on red shoes, let's say those clothy red shoes, there'd be kids planning to ambush you with them all. Yeah, for like weeks too. They would like to a dry run. Yeah, he's coming in today. We're gonna get the fuck this guy up. Red shoes. Who the fuck do you want red fucking shoes? Yeah. Because a lot of, I mean, Boston has a bad reputation. Some of it well deserved, but there's a stream. A hot bit of racism. Absolutely. Here's the thing about Boston. It's not just racism though. I know. It's so much more. No, Boston is beautiful. It's a world-class city now. Well, I wasn't even going to, I was going to offend it by saying that it was, it's not just racism. It's like a artisanal xenophobia. It's not even, it's not even that you're a race they don't like. It's that you're not their family. That's usually because, but people are so tribal in neighborhoods, they're like, you're off from two fucking streets. Oh, fuck you. Like, it's not even, it's such a weird thing. I don't think people understand. No. The other thing is that, you know, the North End, the Italian North End, they took care of everybody there. You never saw anything go weird or off in the North End, because there was so many guys that were just up there, you know, claiming their guns and the wind was, you know. Hey, did I, did that fucking guy do what I just thought he'd do? Yeah. Who are you? Yeah. And now, Frankie, that's the night. That's the night, Wednesday night, I mean, they're losing it twice just because you're so nice and jalina. Hey, is that my mama's gravy or someone's blood? And now, Frankie Avalon lives in the North End in Boston. He does? I've seen him there. It's really weird. From Frankie Internet, he lives in the North End. It's really, yeah, he really lives there. Frankie in a net. He signed my "Back to the Beach" laser disc. Which I carry on me at all times. One of my favorite stupid movies was "Beach Blanket Bingo." It's fantastic. Because that's as close as you could get to pornography when you were my age. It absolutely is. And that mosquito catalog, the underwear miles, that was like, you know, I want to take this book for a while, okay? Yeah, I'm just going to study this plan to get in a women's garments. Yeah, that's a business. Yes. Yeah, but there was all kinds of restrictions on you. You couldn't say this. You couldn't do that. When you're putting the show to anything, all you could do was be a spectacle. Yeah. I didn't want to be, I didn't want to go on stage and be little, like, whitey, you know, Johnny Jones, the boy next door, with no dick, you know. Two different Rocky Mountains, huh? You know, yeah. You want to know just like rock out and make I want to rock out bad. And plus I was fueled with alcohol and cocaine. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and it was just like I was a robot because I wasn't playing my own songs. Right. One day, I got to play our own material, the band. And, you know, you can come so close so many times, you can think you can hang with people that are winners, you know, that are already doing big stuff. And you're like the underage kid that just wants to go with the big guys and not be king of the little kids, you know. So my manager actually was a manager. He was just an agent and he was Frank Borsha. And he lived in Boston. He lived in Boston. And he used to book us at high school dances and all these places. And one day he comes up to us and he says, "You guys gotta see Arroshman." Really? Someone said that to me last week. Yeah, right. No, but I mean, this was like when they were starting out. They used to play at clubs in Boston at night. And he says, "You gotta go see them. I'm booking them now. And this is where it's at." A guy that talks like that telling you where it's at should have been like the first clue. Like, I don't need to go to revere. You know, the less teeth they have, the less they know where it's at. That's an old adage. So this is in the days of like the Boston Tea Party was around. That's right. It was a club that like the Velvet Underground would play with like Arro Smith and the MC5 or something. It's like a really weird lineup. I saw Jeff back at the Boston Tea Party with Rod Stewart singing. And I was only about 17. Yeah. I mean, it was very, very weird time where it was kind of coming from. With that guy, I'll tell you more about him. Oh, yes. Back, yeah. Yeah. But you know what there's was is you can get close to these people, but you're not the one. You're not the ticket that won. Right. You go down Sunset Boulevard here and you see like for every axle rose, there's a hundred axle roses that didn't make it. And they're sitting in the laundromat watching their spandex go round and round and round. Including probably axle rose right now. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I don't know anything. He's new still. I used to be axle rose. No, I really did. Now I'm two axle roses, but not successful ones. Well, well, you know what the thing is is, you know, I was trying really hard and everything, but these guys really had it. They could just see it. Even though they were, I go see Arro Smith with my drunken bass player and was sitting in front row. And they're all banging into each other. Just hammered. Just hammered. And I said, I said to my friend, these guys are never going to fucking make it. So, first of all, what kind of a fucking name is Arro Smith? You know, this is the way. What was your band named? What was that? What was your band name at that time? I'm too embarrassed to say. I was just curious. What the hell kind of name was I thinking? No, my earlier band was the Rogues. Okay. Because there was so many Irish guys in the band. Again, I'm shocked. Yeah, really. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, you can never tell who's going to make it out of a scene, I think. There's always like the band that people are like, they're going straight to the top, and then nothing happens. And it's always one where people are like, these guys suck. But you can tell when certain people do have that sort of that thing. Like, yeah. No, I mean, but they also were the accessible Rolling Stones. If you go back and read about what was going on in all those days, Keith Richard and Mick Jagger couldn't go to one square foot of any other country without being arrested. You know, they were warrants everywhere, especially here. They had to go to jail when they were on their way to plan a concert at the Boston Garden for obscenity or heroin. Just something, you know, just peripheral stuff. Yeah. And you also at the time, too, there was like the infamous James Brown concert at the Garden, which was right probably 1968, I think. It was like Martin Luther King. He saved Boston. Yeah. There's a documentary called The Night James Brown Saved Boston because there was just lean down and went, wow. Yeah. And everyone went home. That's why he started that. Yeah. That's why he started wearing a cape. Whoo. But so you have that sort of tangency. Angel dust. Ha. Well, then, how even till now? I always thought that Mrs. Johnson from Punky Brewster was very similar to James Brown in many ways. Yes. Yeah. I don't know if I know that reference. You're I was an adult when you're a better man for it when you were watching that. You're a better man for it. Yeah. I was already, you know, a fully formed man. Yes. So you're in these bands and then you start working, I think, at a record store? Oh, yeah. It was Rosendale. I'm not Rosendale, it was um... Cambridge, right? Cambridge. Harvard Square. And I wound up working for this guy and it was called the record garage because they used to sell records, but no one ever bothered to change the sign. We used to sell used guitars and amplifiers. And I found out that I could just sit there and play the shittiest guitar on the world, but I was pretty good. I was a little gun slinger, believe it or not. And these kids would suddenly want to buy these guitars we couldn't move. Right. You know what I mean? It was like it was like if Clapton went out and bought a $10 guitar, every kid in the world would have done it. Right. You're Michael Jordan selling shoes, basically. Yeah. If I have those, I'll be like him. Yeah, yeah. But they, you know, it worked and this guy loved me for that. He says, just sit around and play. It's like, it's really good if that was your job, you know, to sit around and play and get paid for it. But Jesus, I mean, there was just so many variables back then. Right. You know, there were a lot of other bands that came along like there were the cars and it's so funny. I knew guys, I know guys that were in the cars. I knew Elliot East, and pretty well. Oh, yeah. It's our player. Yeah. We used to play it together. You know, screw around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Boston's a very small music scene, which I think a lot of people don't realize that if you look at the number of people, even comedy too, that have come out of Boston either from there or went to school there or had whatever horrible thing happened to them that made them good at something happened to them. It was out of Boston. There was a huge comedy boom, but when I started, I had gone out on stages, and there was this Chinese restaurant in Inman Square, the Dear Herman. It was called the Ding Hall, which is Chinese for bad food. But it was turned into a comedy club, and people went there to watch comedy, and they didn't think about how bad the food was, I guess. Yeah, which is a model of people used to this day. Yeah, but Barry Crimmons basically moved from up to New York. Barry Crimmons. And he kind of made that place into a new comedy club. He's the guy that brought me on stage. You know, and he kind of was like, you've got to get up here and do comedy. You've got to get up here. He says, you're just so extemporaneous, and that was the first blow. It's like, nobody told me you had to have an act. Right. I could just go up there and do whatever I thought was funny. And maybe you'll get last one night, and then you try it at another club, and it's like, you go to hell on a shitty Chevy. Absolutely. Which is, I find, weirdly, a lot of musicians, or people that started positions, end up in comedy at some point, because I think- Is there all wise guys? All wise guys. Me included, I'm one of the people who goes, oh, when I make a joke in between songs, everybody loves it. Well, what if I just do that? And then you're like, it's not the same thing at all. I did the same exact thing, is I get so bored, you know, going through these different kinds of bands, and one day I was playing in lounges, you know, which I swore I would never do, but, you know, got to make some money to play. So we would do songs that we grew up with, and this is like ancient history, but I grew up with the Beatles and the Beach Boys, you know, Brian Wilson. He was my hero. Didn't you play with him on TV one time? Yes, I did. Oh, was it on Letter Road, tonight's show? Yeah, you're getting way ahead of yourself. Sorry. Right, Robin. Howard Stern showed up everywhere. Yeah, that was my dog. So, yes. Hey, Robin, I just farted. So you're playing lounges, and you kind of just fed up with it, was where you were at? Well, no, I just was getting worse and worse as a drinker, and I was just bored, you know, and so I would go down and cause trouble. I was never very much of an outward troublemaker, but I was so full of resentment that I had to play these places. And this couple said, "Hey, if you buy a drink and I sat down with them, you know, lounges used to have like red vinyl walls and red vinyl seeds and a little candle that you were almost like a denizen in the dark with whoever you were with. And I said to this guy, "Hey, you know, it's fine. Just the kind of place where people go to cheat on each other." And this girl friend was like, "It is." No, and she was just like didn't know what to say, but I knew it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew there was, because the motel was right in the back of the way. It's like an airport lounge. Yeah, you know, it's just, it's called those hot sheets motels. Yeah, but I got so sick of it one night, and I went back to my room, and this was the end of that business for me as I took a 1959 Les Paul standard with a sunburst hop, an original from 1959. Should be worth almost nothing now. I was watching TV in my room. This had to be about 1978, and I'm watching and they were playing happy days, and I said, "Look at all these guys, man. I could probably do this." Of course, you can't, because if you're going through a filter of depression and anxiety and substance abuse, you don't want to do anything except throw the guitar at the TV set, which is exactly what I did. Yeah, yeah. I took this beautiful, beautiful instrument. See, I should be shot for that, but it just went boom. Asked first through the TV set. I'd like to think it's the episode where Fonzie jumps the shark. No, I think it was like, you know, it was a Halloween episode. Oh, yes, were there in the haunted house having the frat party? Well, Richie Cunningham dressed up as like a Peter Pan looking dude. Oh, that, you know what? Forgiven. That Les Paul. And he was lost, he was awful act, you know, and Fonzie said to him, "What'd you do? Get beat up by a puff elf?" Yeah, that was the line that did it. Yeah, I will not stand for elf talk here. And I said, I could write this stuff. I could do all that, but it's what I could have should have. You got to take care of your problems first. You got to be clean before you call the cops on somebody. You know what I mean? Yeah. So then I started thinking, well, you know, my spandex license was taken away in '78, finally. Due to the taxes they passed in '78, that we were, it was draconian spandex taxes in Massachusetts. But, you know, I went on to play with this group doing lounges, and eventually it became really great because we were doing songs that we grew up with. Like I said, this was a little later on in the TV throwing. But it would be like, you know, we did Beatles and Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, all the stuff we really liked, and the crowd at lounges, you know, used to say, oh, there's only old people at lounges. Well, the crowd that we were in sync with, you know, grew up with a do. Right. So you, they weren't for kids. It was, it was kind of click old people and their parents, you know. Yeah. And I came to like the Beatles. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. Give me a buck or I'll touch you. No one wants to be touched by old people. Yeah. Which is why that show I pitched was not picked up. Oh, you're pitching shows? Yeah, touched by an old person. I like that. Yeah. I wanted to do a show that it was like a game show where you broke. If you would win if you broke all the 10 commandments. Nice. Because it would be called fuck the 10 commandments. Yeah. Which would be funny because some of them would be really hard to prove where it'd be like, we don't really think you did covet your neighbor's wife. It's like, I'm coveting it right now. No, you know, with the secret cams and everything, you can watch anybody doing whatever it is they do. You could call it thou shall not. Thou shall not or thou shall not win. No, but I mean, what do you do? What happens if you break every commandment? You know, you don't win. You'd probably just implode like. Yeah. You're like, be gone. Did it or they just if someone did that, two new tablets would fall from the sky. Yes. Like I've been waiting to release these ones. You guys haven't got through the 10 levels of the game. It took 2000 plus years. Oh God, that's funny. Because I used to believe in all that stuff and I had religion shoved down my throat when I was a kid in Boston. Yes. Did you go to Catholic school or anything? For a while, I did, but I I come from a period of time where I knew the mass in Latin. Right. Right. And it was like this ancient language and it was a secret language because they didn't want you to know what you were repeating. Yeah, on your steak, which all the speckets and Mundi, Mizorari, and all these. On your steak, which all of it. And they'd say, what'd you learn today? Potter, Noster, Quiz, and Chely, Sank of a Chan, on Toma, being out ready in my tomb. You know, I learned the Lord's Prayer in Latin. Yes. Yeah. Which probably helps you almost every day now. Well, that in 68 cents would get you a cup of coffee and McDonald's. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Knowing those things and and too much religion. I you know what I stop. I stop going to church when I discovered the three stooges. You know, some would say you never stop going to church if you discovered the three students every time every time you watch them. I had my saints. Yeah, I found my saints, you know. And did you see them on TV 38 the first time? No, I was living in Detroit and it's like it's all the fault of these local owned and operated television stations for showing the three stooges before every kid went to school in the morning. Because it was people would buy these local television UHF stations would buy whatever the cheapest thing they could get. Oh, no, and it was owned and operated. Yes, owned and operated stations, which was like one guy who kind of owned this thing. And he had he was like diversifying his business or he was like, I got three car dealerships and a TV station. And so they would they would get whatever was cheap. And a lot of it was these short theatrical shorts in the 30s and 40s. Nothing. You couldn't show it's a wonderful life though because it was still under copyright from somewhere. But one day it ran out and you could see it in July. Right. You could see it everybody ran it all the time. So you would get all the arguments right every time I'm on an angel. Here's one of those, the darnest thing. I've heard I've heard many very racist stories about him. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he had uh he had. I hate using the N word. So I'm gonna say the whole word, you see. One of them was he had Hal Williams on his show in the 70s. He had a variety show, Jimmy Stewart. And the quote is, who hired that N word? But not the N word. And uh get him out of here. You kidding me? That's what I heard about Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart. Well, he's had it. That's why he was always confused. He was always confused in every movie. Do I do the N word or do I say it? Or why are they letting them, let them drive now? Miss Daisy? I have to make water. You're too driving up. Shut up. See what, hop. See watching the stooges and did you immediately start imitating them? Yes. And is that that's kind of the first voices you started? Yes. Well, everybody could do Mo and everybody could do Larry. But no one, I mean, not Larry Curly. No one gave a damn about Larry except for me. I think I was the only person in the world who cared about Larry more than his mother did. And now Larry is, Larry's everyone's favorite now and I'd like to attribute that to you. You think? I totally think so. 'Cause they're in in Stimpy? I think so. Well, he's got the funniest voice out of them. He does. And I research stuff like you don't know. I mean, I don't just go out and try to, you know, they'll say, "What do you want to do for a voice for this character?" And I said, "Well, you know, some of the voices come from bad imitations." Like, if you do a bad imitation of, say, Christopher Walken. Which everybody does. Which, yeah, you could give it to a character and it would be a voice no one's ever heard before. Right. Because it's permuted to be on recognition. Right. 'Cause the bands are like that too a lot. Like, you all have a band who will sound really original and they think that they're just ripping off like the stones or something. But they're so bad at it that the thing they're doing is actually interesting. Like, no, the original guy stole it from an inward. Yes, yes. We're playing their music now. Yeah. I grew up with that. There was, you know, Detroit had stations that played that jungle music they used to call it. Yeah. And people forget how much of a thing that, like, people really thought it was going to destroy society. Like, there were people who... Oh, I know. Just like everything, punk was going to destroy, rap was going to destroy us all. Yeah. Which is hilarious to me. But it just, it was a millionaire factory, you know, it just churned in the mouth. Well, I think that's probably why people thought it would destroy us all because people that people didn't want to have money had money all of a sudden, basically. No. Yeah. But, you know, it was just like the stooges. I was learning how to act. I was learning comedy. I was learning timing without even knowing it. Right. Right. You know, and, but Larry was the one I fixated on because he didn't say much, but when he did, it was like, I'd be like, "Ahh!" No. He said something. You know, I mean, be like, you know, be careful, Mo. There's too much sizzle in that tree. Man, I used to go crazy. Would you do it for a so sublime? Yeah. It is sort of calm. Well, you know, and Mully, you took my money, didn't you? Yeah. Then it's Shamp. He's come back to haunt us. Because he's got that great, weird Philly accent. Well, you know what it is. You're absolutely right. He was from Philly. And there was like, people had bad plumbing from like their nose to the bridge in the back of their throat. It was like bad plumbing. You know, you'd be like, "Hey, Mo, you know, what happened to me? I pissed on my shoe, mama. What's wrong?" You know, and George O'Hamlin, the voice of George Jetson, was from Philly. Yeah. And he had this weird blockage, too. You know, it's like Larry, you've heard, I just did it, but George O'Hamlin was like, "Oh, come on, Jamie. I need to clean this 500 miles away. It'll take an extra five minutes just to get there." Which, I remember when I was a kid realizing that people had accents was like a revelation, because whenever I'd hear someone with a Boston accent, which is usually on people's court, I would really want. I would be like, why do they talk like real people, and everyone else doesn't? And I didn't really, it didn't really register that it was, it was accents, and I always remember really loving that from other states committed crime, too. Yeah, well, they did. Well, this was more like, Your Honor, his dog. I didn't mean to kill it. It was that kind of thing. But, and then the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz has a Boston accent as well, because he grew up in Cambridge. No hot? My hot? Like, they, they gave me-- Well, that was like a different province of Ireland. Yes, yeah, he's got like 32 of them, and then people from like, I don't know, Clara said, "No hot, no hot." But I always remember feeling like a weird kinship to them, because they're actually, but not knowing why. And so, it's really a good latch on to those two guys who have very similar voices, but you kind of don't, you know, as a kid, you don't know why that is. You begin to figure it out if you, if you have intellectual curiosity about this particular business. Right. It's just like anybody else that just would, would love to spend nothing, nothing but time, you know, studying, looking at architecture. You know, to go to Europe, Europe, just to look at our architecture of like, the era, you know, I was in a building, it was a gap in London. Right. A gap closed or, and it was in a thousand-year-old building. Yeah. Well, there's the Bradbury building up the street here, which is very famous, built in Blade Runner, it's an Angel Heart, it's all these movies, it's beautiful, it's like an architectural marvel, and it's going to subway in it. Let's tear it down. Yeah. Let's tear it down, level it, nobody wants it. Get something new. Get something new. So yeah, you're kind of feeling it back and seeing where this stuff comes from, and you start doing these voices. Are you doing them for like, your family and your friends as a kid? Are you just kind of- I was very- What's the word, reticent? I was like, I didn't just come out with stuff. I don't know, I was made to feel like, you know, the only reason you could do this stuff was because it was like a parlor trick, and then other people were too cool to do it. Right. So I never wanted to show my hand. Right. You know, and then of course it would be like, if you showed anybody that you had something on the ball or you have something really brewing there, they'd ignore you. Right. Because they just would rather not process it. Right. And I always thought it was because, you know, I'm more of a nothing than I thought I was. Which is the exact opposite, it's like people are sort of threatened by it almost. Nobody teaches kids that though. No, they certainly do not recognize all through your wonder years and beyond, and then one day figure out that everyone has something. Everyone has some special, I don't care if you can shoot spit from both sides of your mouth. There is a place in the business for you. There is, there is, and it's not too far from here. But. So you kind of are weight-laid with that stuff by the music thing, and then Kremens kind of says, you got to get on stage. You got to get on stage. And did you start immediately kind of, did you just go back to those voices? Was that the thing that came from those? No, I was panicked. I didn't have any material, so I went out there and I said, I watched all these other comedians, you know. You know, do you have a notice when you blow your nose? You know, and I heard so many of those openers that I came out and I said, do you ever notice everything? He's looking at everything. Yeah, like searching for material. Oh, look, he forgot. I found an old book. Yeah, I saw black or white. So you're kind of, you're kind of fucking with people at those things. Like even, even with the comedians then, it kind of was almost the same thing as the music where you're like, all right, I can do this, but it's not the thing that everybody's doing. Right. Well, Barry Kremens, when comedy started booming in the 80s, Barry Kremens said to me the funniest thing he says, hey, there's like 2,000 comedians out there now and there's still only three acts. Yeah, that is still fairly accurate. Barry, do you ever see him? Yeah, oh yeah. Oh, please give him my absolute best job of that guy. Yeah, absolutely. He was fearless. He taught me how to be fearless. He's sort of the father of alt comedy in Boston and the mainstream comedy in Boston at the same time. Weirdly. Blockhead Goldway just finished a documentary about Barry Kremens that's playing the film festival circuit right now. Yeah, I know Bobcat. Yeah. So you're doing stand up and it's kind of like, it wasn't really going over until like, when I thought of things I thought were funny and I try to construct it as a joke, you could tell, I mean, you could tell I wasn't into it. No one was buying it. It was a contrivance, a conceit. Right, right. And you can't do many conceits, you know, like false premises, you can't live on that stuff, you know. If people don't think it's a genuine character or something or if it's something that can't smell. Or something that really happened to you. Yeah, exactly. You got to disguise it and, you know, Bill Hicks was a master of this. Yes, absolutely. But certainly it makes it look so easy. But yeah, that makes a lot of bad people think that they can do it. I would wind up in trouble all the time because Radcliffe, I forget, there was a girl's college right near Radcliffe, I think, right in Harvard Square? Radford. Radford? Was it? No, Radcliffe? Radcliffe, yeah. Radcliffe, yeah. I don't know. I always wanted to go in there, but I don't know. I was scared of Amazon women. I always picture some sort of weird Puss 'em Buddies kind of scenario where you're like putting drag on to like sneak into the, just going to my dorm room. Yeah, can I borrow you a prill? Gee, your hair smells terrific. Yeah, I remember that. But we're talking about shampoo products from another era. It's the shampoo cast, everybody. They had a thing called Mini-Poo. Mini-Poo? Yeah, you could wash your hair with powder. Okay. And then just brush it out and your hair would be shampooed. Where's that gone? I know it's probably in the Smithsonian for fucking weird products that everybody felt. First of all, I would say, guys, Mini-Poo might not be the thing you want to call it. Like the part of shampoo people like, if I had to guess, I'd say it's the sham. Well, people used to make jello with deviled ham in it. Yes. And mayonnaise. Yes. And a bowl of baloney soup, eh? Sorbet, savory jello. Not a lost art. You know what, and I'm very healthy. I ate all that crap liver and everyone thought, well, television told us it was good for us, I think, at that time. Yeah, eat your liver. Not your liver. It was everybody. It was the meat and the human being's introduction to eating parts that you're not supposed to eat. Yes. Just because they said, these will sell, right? Yeah. What else are we going to do with them? Because it's dark with them anymore. It's really dark meat. Yeah. Sweet breads and trails. People hate them. They do. But they do again. That's the weird thing. Where? Because they took too much bath, so they made a face one day. I bet, I bet if you go to like a really expensive foodie place in LA right now, there's a guy selling like sweet breads and livers and they're $700 because he kissed them. Oh, whatever way you prepare them. Like charcuterie, fuck you. That's like, this is really bad meat that I cut up. And then what I did was I let it rot till it was all dry. But I cut it very thin and put it on a plate. $700. Oh my god. Yeah. Anything. Anything goes. Yeah. So you're then you got a job in radio kind of weirdly through that comedy. I noticed that the only thing that would really grab people was when I started doing voices. I didn't realize that that would be the thing that I would wind up doing. You thought it was just something you did to me yourself that you could do that you were scared to show people? I just thought I had like an appendix scar, you know, because like I said, when you're growing up, near peers don't want to hear from you if you clever or smart in any way. So I would go to this dinghong and I also went to a couple of comedy connections. And I just, oh, I was going back to the Radcliffe story. Yeah. The club had a lot of girls from Radcliffe in it and I was talking, I was doing a press with the Humphrey Bogart because that's what we did back then. We didn't have Woody Allen to make fun of. Yeah. You know, he's like, you wind him, you dine him, and you put him in your back pocket. And then I hear, and I went, and I hear, and I said, you know, a man would stand up and do that. You'd take it on all of Radcliffe. Yeah. They're marching up to the stage with hobmail boats. Don't call me baby. I was actually into the feminist movement. I was. I read a lot of books, believe it or not, Jermaine Greer. I read Marilyn French. Well, that was at the time. I wanted to know what I was in for. It's like reading your wife's horoscopes so you can know what kind of a day you're going to have. Right. Yeah. You got to do your pre-work. I did my pre-work and I found out about feminism. But it's sort of, it's hard to be a true wise-ass on stage, especially at that time, because people can actually kick the shit out of you. Like another country called Isis or something? Yes, yes, exactly. Is that a country now? I think it's a country. They're living on that garbage island in the Pacific. They've claimed it. Someone had that. He's more plastic. I want to die. So you're like, maybe this isn't for me the comedy club circuit. No, because I thought you could have three HBO specials and still nobody would know who you were back on it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, no one at HBO. It was like, no, you're back in the cellar, you know, after you've been on like Merv Griffin or not him. I'm thinking, playboy after dark. Yes. Yes. It was hard to really become a rock star. Yeah, right. Like there wasn't that, that way to move up until maybe like the mid to late 80s. The closest thing to a comedy rock star that I would see was Jay Leno. Yeah. I got to know him back then. Who was still local at that time, right? He was still local, but he had something. There was something cool about him. And I remember when he finally got the Tonight Show he had me on. And I sat there and I was telling stories about places I had to play. I said, Jay, you know, I was a musician and I know that I played a lot of the clubs you did on Route One and Saw, I guess. It was on strip clubs. Yep. You play at a strip club. He goes, oh, yeah, I remember the end. I said the silver dollar. Oh, I played the silver dollar. You know, and I said, remember like girls named Davorsola? Davorsola? Davorsola. I don't know if I ever met her. Oh, I think you did. You know, that kind of thing. But I did know him and I knew Steve Sweeney. Jimmy Tingle, he did a lot of things. But these are people that, like I'm saying, there's like with rock stars, you know, for everyone, Jim Morrison. There's a hundred other Jim Morrison's that didn't make it. Yeah. There's only so many jobs, basically. Right. And so even if people are qualified. But you can't, you know, you got to be like on your game, like always and everywhere. Because your fate's kind of not in your hands and it's sort of like when that opportunity arises. You're funny with ease. Yeah. Yeah. You're relaxed. I'm a twitch. I'm like, oh, I'm not. I'm heavily medicated. This suit is actually soaked in a heavy-duty experimental sedative. So I got into radio right around then some, my buddy who installed burglar alarms. Who worked with you at the store, right? Did he work with you at the store? He didn't work there, but he was a frequent, you know, hanging around type guy, you know, like night court, there was these characters. Yeah, yeah. And he was your bull. Yeah. He was just sitting down there playing stone songs and, oh, I almost died once. Yeah, I know it was a quick leap, but. You'd be surprised how many people go stone songs near death. You know, cocaine was running wild, you know, and I found out that other guys in the store were injecting it. They'd go in the back room and inject it. Like Speedy from Green Arrow. And they would come out and I'd go, you know, you just look like a fucking Frankenstein once. Where are the bolts in your neck, you know, and they said, hey, you don't even know what it's like. And so not knowing the difference between objective reasoning and subjective reasoning, I said, sign me up. I was disgusted by it, but I had, I was really fearless deep down inside. I wanted to try everything. Yeah. And that when that hit me, it was like, it was like when, like if someone shot ice water into the back of your head, you know, and it was this taste in your, it was so weird and you, you know, it looked like a pink and blue pinball machine going off. Yeah. You were being rewired, electrically, or shorted out. And so the guy that did it to me heard a customer come in and I'm in the bathroom. So he runs out of the bathroom, helps the customer. So I'm perfectly okay except I just didn't know what to feel. You know, I didn't know what to expect. So I go in. I'm in the bathroom laying on the floor like this, like this can't happen on my wall. Yeah. Don't you die on me. I got it down too badly. He couldn't take it. Yeah. It's not my fault. You should have just like, just to fuck with him been like, avenge me. No, that was enough of a scare, you know, because that was, did you think the hospital or was it just like a total? It was a joke. Oh, it was a total joke on. Yeah. When did you spring it on? That didn't really happen to me. Oh, really? But, but I said I almost died because there's many instances where you can. It will just blow a hole through your heart. Yeah. You could be an athlete and, which has happened many times. Len bias. Yes. Sign of the self basketball player. Young, stronger than shit. And, uh, it was like the first night he was supposed to play. The first night he was supposed to play decides to go in and do what we call a gagger, which was this big line of code that was so huge that you had to do it in one thing or you were not a man, you know. And here's a list of things you have to do in one thing or you're not a man. The gaggers, 12 inch subs. There's too much to this man. So, girls, you wouldn't want to be a guy. Don't hide. All guys are dogs. I can say that now because I'm 63. Well, including you, you were a chihuahua. No, but I was thinking the scareless moves, you know, what was that age. But, but you learn when you get older, it's like you finally realize like after you're 60, you know exactly what a woman wants. You know what I mean? It's like, is it? It's, tell us, you gotta be funny. Okay. So you're fine. You have to be a good provider and provide strength. Those two things don't go together. And you gotta be loyal. Okay. You know what I mean? You can't go around sniffing asses the rest of your life, you know, like a dog. But what if that's how you provide for her? Fair amount. So you get into this record garage, you know, it's about drugs and alcohol and guitars. I see a sitcom right there. But, oh, I know. I know. I gave him my idea for a sit down. You could break the 10 commandments in the record store. They'll show them that steal. I took the refrigerator part and stole every pork chop, and then I went into the fuck the guy's wife. All right, and knocked off two of them. And then I made a golden calf out of the bones. Oh, and we used to have these button flies on the jeans. I don't know. They probably tried to bring them back a little, but people went, this didn't work then, and it's not going to work now. Yeah. It was a button fly. And I used to go crazy because like I said, I could not maintain a relationship with a girl because I was a mess. No girl wants a little boy that's looking for a mommy. Well, I've met a few. You know, you know how to get them that way. Well, no, I know how to work. Maternal instinct. Hey, if it works. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, whatever. And, you know, that's when I get into radio. Yeah. This burglar alarm guy, I know, installed one at my, at this guy's house. He was a disc jockey. He was a big disc jockey in Boston, Charles Laquadera. Because you couldn't be a huge celebrity as a local disc jockey. Yeah, if you were on like WBCM and just like millions of people listen to it. So I started going in there and I was still playing music. So I was getting in at like 3.15 in the morning and then they sent this guy to my house to drag me out of my house no matter what shape I was in. It was like butch Cassidy and the sun dank. Get up, get in the shower. And one time I had the door locked and I hear the guy up front. Billie, don't do this to me. Because he would lose his job. And I said, why am I this important? But they saw something. Yeah, which is kind of flattering. I'm sure in hindsight, at the time we're in private also in powers and assholes. That's also true. It's like, you know, maybe I don't want to stop fucking up because I'll lose my powers. Yeah. You know, and you think all kinds of stuff. Yeah, you justify a lot of things. I think you almost think you're bulletproof. Right. Until you get shot. When you were 16. Yeah. And so this radio gig, I just naturally had an ear for what felt good when people are listening to you. Right. And I grew up listening to all these big dumb disc jockeys of the day. You know, that they loved far and away above everything else in the world, the sound of their own voice. Absolutely. They wouldn't give birth to it. You know, they carry their balls in a wheelbarrow and they get coming to the Worcester sector. Oh, man. Yeah. And I go, what is that? It's hamburger help or for words. They don't want to let go of their voice. They think that the air must be filled with their room, uh, rumination. Yeah. Yeah. No matter what. So it's almost like how you approach stand up where you're like, I can do this, but I'm not doing the thing that they're doing. I get what they're doing. And I'm kind of like calling out the bullshit pieces of it almost. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, that was so funny to me because these guys, this was the last stop on the bus for guys like that. The world was their oyster early on in the country's history, like the 40s and 30s. Yeah, they were important people. They were real important. And, uh, and so these guys were big voices. One day they went out and did a survey of young people and they said, what do you really dislike about radio? And, and too many kids said to them, I don't know, man. I just get this feeling whenever I hear a guy like that that he's lying to me. Right. It's just that easy. The war Vietnam is a win. Yeah. Oh, yeah. All that stuff. Yeah. Um, and so I took note of that and I said, I really don't want to be those guys, but secretly, I had a love hate relationship with me. I loved the big bluster and everything. They're larger than life things. Yeah, but you could look into the eyes of any one of those guys and see the back of his skull. Yeah. You know, they weren't going far. Right. I just have a big dumb voice. And I called them big dumb announcers. And then when I got to Madison Avenue in New York, when I first started, I left radio in Boston. Um, it was cool because, um, people could hear me on the Howard Stern show. Yep. All of Madison Avenue would listen and snitch bits and riffs. So it was like an electronic business card. Right. They already know who you are. Right. So, but when I was running around there, it was like, you know, the big dumb dinosaurs were dying off. Yeah. And I saw guys that I listened to when I was a child, you know, still auditioning for stuff. That's got one of my heroes, Jackson Beck, who was the voice like in the old Popeye cartoons. He was the voice of Bluto. Yep. I hear him run. You know, that kind of stuff. Were you up against these guys for parts sometimes? Yeah. That's going to be weird. Yeah. And one time my friend said to Jackson Beck, Mr. Beck, I get a friend that he can do your voice. I'm sure that's flattering for a guy. He's younger than you and can do your job. You love him. Yeah. He's one of the young raptors while you guys just go to the bone yard. Right. So, um, so he said, uh, any thing I should say, tell me where he lives. Give me his phone number first, and I'll kill him, you know. Because you want to be like, I love your work. I'm such a fan. And he's like, I want to step over with your dead body and take your job. No, I was never like that. I have a sense of entitlement ever in my life. But sometimes, I mean, clearly you're a fan of these cartoons and these voice over artists as a kid and you, you, it sounds like you knew their names then, which most people probably did. I did because when I was old enough to read, I would read the credits to a cartoon. That's the stuff that hit me between the eyes more than music or art was these people who are these people that are responsible for all these things. And then eventually you'd hear a similarity between one character and the other and you'd eventually find out it was the same guy. I started connecting the dots there. Connecting the dots. Nobody knew that I did all these voices until later on when they came out and said, right, who did what? Right. You know, they say, wait a minute. The same guy does Doug, does Zappranigan. Yeah. You know. But that was the kind of thing that separated kids growing up before sort of the internet age as the people like us who are obsessed with these things where you wouldn't, you wanted to know who made it. Like, I do want to know all like obsession. And I found out later on that I had serious OCD and lots of other junk from childhood. Well, that's what makes chronic low level depression. I was born with it. A shrink. This woman. All my best teachers in life have been women. And this one woman, a therapist, said to me, do you think you might have depression? And I'm like, what am I paying you for? I said, you know, I don't know. I really had no idea how depressed I was. And then she said, tell me about your day. What do you do? I said, sometimes I wake up and I'm okay. And then my breath starts getting staggered. And I start feeling this fear of nothing. And I would make my way to the shower and I'd turn on the water and it'd be okay. And then all of a sudden I feel this black cloud crushing me to the floor. I used to sit in the shower like this and look out and go, I can't go out. I can't. I just can't go out. You know, and I didn't know what that stuff was. Did you just assume everybody did that? I did. Yeah. I swear to God. So that's why I absolutely used to think that myself. That's why I was afraid to say anything because, you know, I just thought, well, all these people got this, you know, maybe it was a pussy and I can't deal with life on life's terms. Right. You know, and then all these other people can, but you're judging your insights, other people's outside. Right. Exactly. Which is AA stuff, you know. So you're, you're up against these guys. Yes. You're in the first cartoon voice I remember you getting was probably Beanie and Cecil. Yes. And so that was a 50s show, Bob Clampett show. 50s on TV with puppets. Yes. And then it became an animated show in the 60s, which I watched. So how weird was that to step to have to step into the shoes of a character that you watched growing up and the people that did the voices were still around doing voice? They still were, but a lot of them were just out of commission. You know, they were either too old to bother or but I got this cartoon Beanie and Cecil and it was done in Canada. So I had to go to Canada from Boston. First time in there. Every week. It just recorded and you know, they flew me out, which I couldn't believe. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. There's something to all this. Right. Yeah. They had the MGM Grand back then, which was all singular seats with its own window and its own little set up in front of it and fresh baked chocolate chip cookie. On the plane? Right. And I even heard, who's that guy? The actor James. Looked at this CNN. Oh yeah, James Earl Jones. James Earl Jones was sitting in front of me and they came over and he said, "Would you like a piece of cheesecake or the chocolate chip cookie?" And he was, "I'll have that chocolate chip cookie, please." You know what I'm going? Dark, dark fate or? It's good enough for dark food. Somehow he can stick a piece of cookie through that grill, you know, that car grill. And the chocolate chip cookie cowered in fear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, this was highfalutin for me. And I came from lower middle class and you were basically taught to never aspire behind your class. Yeah. And if you, because you think you're better than me thing, it has just ruined generations of Boston. What do you think you're better than us? You're never, if you do well. Right. It's never a good job. It's you doing well fucks us all over. Even though it has nothing to do like, there could be some kid from your neighborhood who was like, "Maybe I want to be the voice of a cartoon fucking cat." But no way. Thanks a lot. There's nothing to do with them. But nobody wanted those things. Right. There was no signpost. There were no brochures. There were no teachers to teach you how to do animated voices. So I just listened to all my heroes. And one of them was a guy named Dawes Butler, who did all the Hanabar Barra stuff with another guy. And he did Yogi Bear, and he did Huk Hound, and you name it, quick drama girl. And then the other guy, Don Masek, did the Ranger in the Yogi Bear commercials. The straight man. Yeah, he was like, his voice was like, "Yogi, why don't you eat nuts and berries like all the other bears in the forest?" And then Dawes Butler would rock out and he'd go, "Sheesh, nuts and berries. What a drag." And so you had this juxtaposed Mr. Bored up his ass and that leisurely Yogi would tie in a crushed hat. It's like comedy 101, though. It's like really teaching you the exact mechanics. But I remember I finally found out what Dawes Butler really sounded like. And I got these old albums from the Stan Freiberg show, which was on the 50s. It was the last syndicated big radio show. And Dawes Butler was the voice guy on there. And he would just say stuff like, one time it was a parody of a movie. And they tried to do the shock around the clock and hat full of rain. And the man in the grey flannel suit, so the grey flannel hat full of rain. And these businessmen would be on there. And it's like, "Well, let's roll it up the flag and see if anybody's eludes." You know, I just was enamored by that voice. I see it sounds like an everyman, but this guy's in neutral in a maserati. He could go down in it on a stratosphere. Yeah. You know, he did Elroy Jetson. Yeah. Oh, Pat, I don't want to go to school today. But it's a movie. People don't give them enough credit for that. It's almost like having a four octave range singing or something to be able to do that. But a guy like that wouldn't go around beating the drum for himself. And I never did that. Right. Never. I felt weird trumpeting my abilities. Because you didn't really use the closest to your real voice that if a character used probably fry. Yeah. And that's, you know, way into your career that you kind of rolled that out. Well, because no one can imitate your real voice. Right. Right. Right. You know, because number one, they don't really know what it sounds like. Right. And then when they try to do that character, it's the most natural thing for me to do. I mean, I sounded exactly like that when I was 25. Were you reticent to do voices that were close to your voice for a while? A lot of people do. But I had this arsenal of heroes that I worshipped in music and in voiceover. Yeah, like I said, Dawes Butler and Mel Blank, of course. Yeah. I mean, he lit the way for everybody. If you're thinking about voice acting, just all you got to do is watch Mel Blank voiceovers in the old Warner Bros. cartoons. It is a study beyond belief. He wasn't just a collection of witty, little high-pitched, genderless voices. Yeah. He was a real actor and he could act on any one of those characters and suddenly they have a whole new point of view, a dimension. The voice would be stretched and squashed beyond anything that you could relate it to. And he would bounce between a lot of people don't know that in the days before, like, easily adding audio. A lot of times he'd record those characters live at the same time. Yes, but some of them were sped up, I found out. Okay. But he was still doing, like, a conversation with himself. Yes, sort of live. Yes, two incredibly different characters. I mean, I'm like that, you know? I mean, I used to do six pages in a row of Futurama. Of like, without, you know, I'd be talking to myself. That's a weird thing to like, like midway through that, I'm just like, what is this job? Like, I'm in a room by myself. I'm in a conversation with six people in my own hand. I don't know. That's the part I wasn't, you know, I'm lucky I wasn't a schizophrenic. Right. I think this is as close as to it as you can get, but I'm not a schizophrenic. It's like having the superpower of that without any of the bad stuff. Right. And I don't turn out things I have no control. Right. Right. Right. Do you ever, um, do you ever forget that you did a voice? Like, you ever watching something and you're like, how does your leg start leaning? But I always go, who's that? That guy's good. I swear, if you've done it for decades. Yeah, because there's probably so many. And, and I hear this crystal clear little voice that's easy to edit, you know, that's what all engineers told me. So you were the easiest guy to edit. You know why? Because I grew up in my head listening to television through an 80 inch speaker and broadcast compression. So I used to use my, I used to compress my own voice. He's self-compressing. Well, which, yeah, which, um, which nobody really did. You know, you just trust the engineer and the mic. Right. And one of your fears is you're never close enough to it, which is the exact wrong thing to do. You should be like, Mel Blank did this when you go to like, all right, where do you want me? You'd be like, the nose to your baby finger. Stay right there. That's like, you pay all this money from Mel Blank to teach you. And it's that for like six weeks. Oh, yes. CBS school of broadcast. Yeah, nose to finger. Yeah. And, but these are all little things. You know, you'd learn from like, craftsmen. Yeah. Because you had their cool little move that they didn't want to share with everybody. How did you get them? How did you get them to share that? Because you, you were in voice, so you kind of got into voice over at a really interesting time where all these people that you grew up with who were sort of the first people to do animated voices when animation, especially on television was new. It was on us. It was, it was just on you. And then you get to sort of learn from them and then also completely be in these things that inspire the whole new generation of cartoons. Like Cartoon Network wouldn't exist without the Nicktoons and that sort of creator controlled stuff. And you're, you know, the major voices in two of those. Um, I don't know, see, whenever I hear the TV and I hear the M&M commercials. Yep. Billie's the red M&M. I, I, um, it catches my ear, but I, like, again, I don't, I have a sense of entitlement. Well, there can't be anything else but an M&M is commercial. You know, meanwhile, they're busy looking for young Billy West and stuff. Billy West only younger. We want to put that in auditions, you know? Yeah, you know you've made it when there's an usher showing you the door. We want you exactly you, but not you. No, I want to rock out whenever I went in front of a microphone. I want to deliver a thousand times more than they ever expected. What's your favorite voice that, like, character or voice that you've ever done? Well, my newest one is Stephen Hawking. Okay. You did that in the movie, the recent movie. Wait. I can't do it yet. Wait. Still working on it. Thank you. You suck. Perfect. My head cancer. The guy that used to own the rat had one of those. Did you, it might have been after you left. Yeah. The guy who's... You explained to people who Mitch is. I mean, the guy who's... I love it that you're paying attention all this even though it's all over the place, like a bad car. It's just for me. Uh, but this, this club that we started talking with, the rat, the owner had really weird hair. Boy, she willed the beast hair. Yeah, it looked like a chia pet made out of spaghetti. Yeah. And he had a tracheotomy, so he had the little buzz thing. And my favorite thing he would do is when he laughed, he'd hold it up. Like, it was no need for him to do that. Well, you know, it's a good thing Stephen Hawking, because there was comedy going on down there and there was rock and roll. And this guy was at the door, you know, and one night I knew him. I knew him, and he told me, "Don't go down there." I said, "Why, why, why?" And he goes, and he said the N word through the thing, which I am not going to do. That ain't my... Do you haven't heard the N word till you've heard it through a tracheotomy, everybody? They've all got fertile imagination. Yeah. You know, they know what time it is. They see everything coming. But I'm like, a guy who holds this thing up to his tracheotomy laugh. There's a selfless man. But I went crazy because when I was a little kid, my mom took me to lunch in the late 50s, maybe, 58. And we were sitting there eating, and I heard this sound coming from the corner, you know, and it's like, "Look you." And I'd go, my ears were just like, "What is that?" It's like a cyborg. But I just was trained on this, and I said, "Mom, what is that? What's that all about?" He said, "Well, he doesn't have a voice box, and now they have a gadget where you can hold it up, and you're able to hear sounds that the person is saying." And I'm going, "Wow." I said, "I want one of those." So years later, I go to Las Vegas with my friends, and I'm downtown, you know, with the pond shops, and everything. I see a banjo, and a guitar, and a pistol, you know, some gold coins, a fake leg. You know, and then I went, "Fake leg." You mean that there was somebody out here that was so destitute that they were going to bet their last leg money to try to win some. I know this is the one. Yeah, this is the one. I'll be back, though. Don't worry. So I see this thing. I see the thing, the gadget, when I started going, "Oh, my God, I really do believe that that's that thing." And so I go in, and the guy- Which I don't even think it has a name, to be honest with you. Well, they used to call it the Bell Telephone artificial larynx. Well, no wonder it's- I might have told me that because she used to work for Bell Telephone. It's so snazzy. I know, but here it was, and I grab it, and I go, "How much? How much?" I go, "I don't know, seven dollars?" Sounds about right. How about three? He talks him down. That's my favorite thing. Did he even know what it was? He didn't matter. I would have paid him a hundred dollars if that's where he started. This is why I was obsessed with certain things. I'm so peripheral when it comes to focusing on something, and that's the OCD stuff. But I took the thing, and I ran, and I got a cab back to the hotel, and I said, "Oh, baby." You know, you'd think I'd be out like every other guy, you know, just waiting around being a cool jerk at the casino and pick up women. No, you got a Bell Telephone artificial larynx. I had to. So I go, and I'm looking in the mirror, and I'm like, "How did the guy do it though?" He was just like, "Did you clean it first?" No, I didn't. I mean, somebody may have used that, you know, it was rounded, and it was, you know. I'm sure there's someone in the corner of the internet that's into that. There's something for everybody. Absolutely. So you start trying to, so I'm fooling around with it, and I start to go, "Hey, hello. Uh, hello." And it didn't work, so I went back to the guy. I said, "Look, man, this was very important to me. I don't care what you think. It doesn't work." And he goes, "Of course it doesn't work, stupid." I go, "Why, why, why?" And he goes, "You have to have no voice box number one. You have to have cancer and have a whole cut in your neck." How much for that? Yeah. That's... Give me the other four bucks I wanted. Yeah, so I was obsessed, and I said, "I want futuristic voices to sound like what futuristic voices were supposed to sound like in the 50s." Right, right, right, right. You know, "I shall destroy you." Like technology will save us. Yeah, there was no real sounding computer voices. It was all this. It was coming through a buzz. Right. And Stephen Hawking still has that stuff. And we worked with him. On Futurama? Yeah, Futurama. And he went to lunch with the writers, and he was in his wheelchair with his whole setup, of course. And he was game for anything. He even went up into a plane until he flew into zero gravity so he could float around. Because he's a huge fan of Futurama and the Simpsons. Yes, I know. Huge. So here he is out there, and he's walking along, and they're going, "What do you feel like eating?" Mr. Hawking. And he doesn't say anything, and then there's two old bitties coming this way. And he loses control of the wheelchair. And he's heading right before them, and they had to jump out of the way. And they said, "Are you okay? Do you want us to help you? Are you okay?" I was just playing chicken. And then was he like, "And by the way, that's what I want for dinner." This is the guy that's figured out exactly when 10-foot aliens are going to come here and they're black and they're pissed. And Jimmy Stewart hates them. Yes. Watch how fucking green he is. I thought these little aliens had an almondine eye. Sort of. A pallid color. But if you're going to play chicken with somebody, it should be the world's leading master of quantum physics, because he's going to know exactly when to jump out. I love it. I would not be afraid. Well, you know, but he, you know, nothing fazed him. Did you do his voice for him? I said, "Did you ever do stand-up comedy? Because I was stunned. I didn't know what to say." That's what he said to him. And then I realized, "Wait a minute. He can't even stand up." So I'm digging a deeper and deeper grave for myself. And I said, "You know, I've been trying to get one of those things for years and it didn't work for me. And I don't know if I can afford a computer that does those things. They must cost a million dollars." Right. And I said, "But, but I was thinking if I were, if I were in that condition or something, I would still want to be funny." Yeah. Why not? You know, it's like, and he said, "Like what?" And I said, "What's the difference between the call medium and the call tangent? The call medium tells jokes." You're not supposed to laugh at your own jokes. If you have a bell Atlantic artificial lantern... I'm doing this voice really sucky. Come back the next time we do it. Work on it. Yeah. I had it so down and then I said to myself, "What are you doing?" Like, you're like, "This is going to be the one that's going to be so many ad work for this thing." But they have every gadget imaginable that they can put an effect on anybody's voice. You want to sound like Voltron or Ultra Man or whatever. Yeah. Oh, true man. But that was really cool. That's how the sound went. That was really cool. But when I was living in Hollywood finally after all those career changes... What thing moved you out here? I was just... I think I reached the end of the line on the stern show. Gotcha. So it wasn't a specific role that you... No, I just felt like, you know, I did my bed for radio. Yeah. I'm never going to be the guy. Right. You know, because that's kind of what you always think. If you're going to be going off into somewhere, I know that you fantasize, "What must it be like to be the guy?" And that's not so much to ask to think about. You know, it's not like it's going to happen. So, but it's nice for fantasy for, I don't know, fleeting second or two. Right. Absolutely. But I was just like, I don't know, I'm never going to be powered. I'll be here until I'm 60 and I might get a dribble drabble of raises over that period of time, but that's it. But you do such a mean Howard, I wonder if he was like, "I'm sick today, Billy. Just be me." He used to never acknowledge it. Really? Yeah. Would you do him to him all the time when he would just be like... I did. I came up with it a few times. Because I did the Jackie puppet. Right. Which was this puppet who was spitting image of the guy who sat in front of me that wrote jokes for everybody. And it was so Twilight's own because I used to torment him with his own image. Which I think is one of the commandments. Laugh it up. I laugh when you came in. And if the jokes could be even not funny in any way, but this demonic venomous voice would deliver it and just laugh at everybody that's not laughing. Right. Just clobber that. And so I was doing that and Howard loved that because he loved the bus jaggy's balls. Right. But he didn't like his own balls being busted. No. No. So I just said, you know, I'm pursuing it. I want to go somewhere where I can bust people's balls a little on my terms. Well, I mean once you're in that room, they play rough in there. Yeah, absolutely. And I had to just do as the Romans did. Right. And everything after that was probably easier. Everything was after that was easy. Right. Yeah, because I'd come out of there and I'd have to drain the poison and ask myself, what did you say? Yeah, because you have no idea. Like, it's not no idea. Yes. It's just sounding like a couple of people in a room to me. I was never on the receiving end of where the listener would be. Millions of people are hearing every horrible thing you say as whoever you're saying. Yeah. And it's like, oh, I don't know. You know, doing Mary and Barry humor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just brutal stuff. And so Stephen Hawking. Exactly. So why am I, why do I am so fatally fascinated? Well, because clearly you have a history, but it was, it resonates with me a bit when you said you're a kid and your mom pointed that out to you because it's sort of a kid wouldn't think that the voice is a mechanical thing. That's right. And so that's kind of- When I first listened to Les Paul as a musician, I didn't know those recordings were recorded at half speed and then brought up the full speed. It sounded like Barry's dancing in between the speakers. It was too fast to- Right. To even process. But I thought there is a man out there that can do that. And if he can do it, I'm looking at the same bonds in my hand. I have to do the same hand as me. His pinky, everything works great. And I would go to try it and it would be like, you'd feel like you were going up an escalator that's off. Right. You know, suddenly you're like, my Achilles aren't working. Yeah. I'm a caveman. So, but I learned all that stuff, but yeah, where was I? I was going to- You're up to the Stern Show. Yeah. You left the Stern Show. You're up Hollywood. You first get here. And but I had been doing Ren and Stimpy. Right. From New York. From New York. It was in 1991. Yep. And you just started as Stimpy and then you were able to do both later. Well, Jack Chris Fallusi, I had worked for him on Beanie and Cecil. And he heard me doing that Larry voice. And he always thought that would be perfect for this new character. He had this brain dead cat. Right. Right. You know, this big sloppy cat that was you know, like a child. Right. And the Larry Fine voice. And I said, I can't have him. A cartoon sound like a depressed old Jewish guy. I would argue you can. You know, amo, my unharniest guy. So, so. But that's what people love about this. So, I sped him up. Yeah. And he was childlike, but I just kind of clung to that, that placement. Right. And it was just Larry sped up, you know, and he's like, "Hey, Red, will you button me?" And that's the first character you did that you got and probably had toys that had your voice on them. That's right. Which must have been weird. It was creepy because they didn't have that down either. Yeah. There was a string that you could pull. Yeah. And it was a hairball thing. It'd be over. So weird to have a toy that's your voice. $14. I deal. You got to do radio. Like the big dumb radio voice on that show a lot too, because you did all that. Yes. Well, I auditioned for Matt Graining. And I show up at the audition. There's 200 people there. And I go, "Oh, geez." You know, and then I see Ryan's styles. And I go, "He's going to mop the floor with this audition. What am I even here for?" Right, right, right. When I stuck it out and I went in and I read for a bunch of characters, I even read for Bender. Really? Yeah. I did fry as my own voice when I was 25. You know, it's like, "Oh man, I just broke a string. Now what am I supposed to do?" You know, the amp just blew. I mean, talking about stuff I would have been talking about at 25. And, you know, greetings from the year 3000, it still sucks. Have you, do people recognize you by voice? Yes, now they do. Now they do because of fry. No one did for years. I mean, are you like, "God, I'm going to Starbucks." And suddenly the guys get the eyes of love for you. It's never women. It's all these guys. Well, except one lady that was serving a barista recognized my voice just from ordering. And then the other guy who saw me a week earlier, he goes, "I told you." He's going to come in here. And all of a sudden, she's got a tape. She wants to be a voiceover. Oh, right. Do you get that all the time? People like hand this to somebody. You know what? That would be like an asshole paradise. You know, it's like, "Well, I happen to be one of the best in the world. I can help you." You know, this brack girl from the mid to last year. Let me take you under my wing. No, that's creepy shit. You take your thumb and forehead. Since we don't have a microphone here, I want to... You know, I'm sure it's happened. I'm sure it's... No, that's Cosby shit. Oh, you know what? You don't feel Cosby's favorite word is? Allegedly. I bet Jimmy Stewart, not a big fan of Cosby. No, but he's unwatchable now. Cosby? Yes, he has ruined that big dead dog eye with all kinds of milk in it. And we think. Allegedly. He's probably custard or something. But he looks like lint now. Like lint? All his hair is like lint, and the lint lint is all over his beard would have been. I'm the sentient dryer lint of millions of sweaters. But that's 50 years worth of sweaters formed into a Bill Cosby effigy, and took over the role. Oh my god. So, but that's my take on him, you know. I mean, where there's smoke this fire, there always is. Especially when you've seen like 20 rounds of smoke. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there had to be a couple of fires. Yeah. Yeah, the CO2 detectors are going. Yeah, right. So unfortunately, we're just about out of time. Oh no, let me run through the voices for you. Okay, go through it. Okay. Running snippy was snippy was, you know. Hey, Ren, wanna magic nose goblin? I picked them myself. Green, please. And he'd be like, "Will you shut up, you fool?" I said, "So cute!" What seems like it hurts to do? No, it doesn't. Okay. See, that one, I wasn't suited to do anything else as you found out. I knew so many kids in school who injured themselves doing Ren impressions. Oh man. There was a lot of injuries. Well, it was like Peter, Laurie, and Burrough lives. Right, right, right. Showed his periphery, mixed into one, and he was south of the border, so there goes the accent. And while he's got a Danish last name. Right. Exactly. Yeah. That's America. You just described America. Yes. Right. Yes. We are, we're in the United Nations. You were melting. We're a crab pod. Never mind melting pot. You know when one crab gets it together to climb over the others and he's coming up the side of the thing and he puts his claw over. This crab is a genius and he's going to go fuck all these crabs. And just as soon as he's getting ready to pull himself out of there, a claw comes from the bottom and goes. And I'm a cannibal, by the way. It's a crab pod. Yeah. Oh, and then I did dug, cartoon dug at the same time for nictones, like Ren and Stimpy. Yeah. And he was painfully shy, 11 and a half year old, and this is my dog Porkchap. Did Porkchap as well? I did the bad kid too, who was based on a real antagonist, a kid that I knew. He was pointy. He was pointed to your shoulder, his nose came to a point, his hair was pointy, his shoes were pointy. And you know, it's like, hey, funny, you loser, I'm running for office, so food for this. Let the record show he pointed to his coach. That cartoon was so sweet. It was really sweet. It's a very sweet cartoon. And then I do the devil's work when Ren and Stimpy and the Stern show at the same time. And I'll balance that. But anyway, I went on to, I did, crips, I'm trying to think, oh yeah, with Futurama, I never thought I would get to work with Matt Granny, whatever. I admired him from afar and I said, God, I wish I could work with that guy. Simpsons was such a close. Oh, after I auditioned, I found out they were going to give me like three roles. Really? Yeah. And I went, like, what is that? Yeah. And one was for Fry, and I did that. And then, um, Zoidberg, Dr. Zoidberg, I looked at the character, he's portly, he's got all kinds of cool meat hanging out of his face. You know, and I figured he would be impaired. So I thought of all the old Borscht belt comedians that, like, George Jessel, who sounded like he had a marble mouth. And then the other guy, Lou Jacobi, you know who he is. He was in the first Arthur move. Anyway, what's it like to have all that money? It's like super collided them. Yeah, yeah. That's a way to go. Cold fuse everything. Oh, yeah. And, uh, and Zoidberg, you know, it's like, um, you know, young lady, bring me a sandwich from the dumpster. And leave the nuggets on it. I'm scoggling. Like that? We are, uh, we are just out of time. I apologize with that. Okay, I'll, you wrap up your business, and I'll just agree with you in different voices. Okay. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming. Thank you and put news, everyone. Bad news. This is, I want to thank Ryan L.A. and all you guys for coming out. That's right. I'd like to thank you too, because, uh, she's a bit of a shipper, all right? I'm gonna fly her brains out of death. And, uh, thank you guys, uh, again, it's Steve again, it's Councillor Parker, thank you for listening. Thanks for coming out. And thanks to Billy West for coming down here, talking us, and so much. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, everybody. Enjoy the rest of the festival, everybody. Cool. And there you have it, Billy West, the one and only, a lot of fun. Could have talked to him for three hours if we didn't have time constraints, but, uh, it was great. It was great. So hopefully we'll have more live events in the next year. Please email me at candidatecannery.com or at TVguidenscounselor@gmail.com. Go join our mailing list at TVguidenscounselor.com. You can go on our Facebook page. Let me know if you want me to try to come to your town, if there's a guess that you would like to see, if you have a question, anything like that. Happy to answer it. I am thankful that you guys listen. And also, uh, when I was out in L.A. for the ride festival, I appeared on Doug Love's movies last week. So if you, for some strange reason, want to hear more of me, I'm on that episode is with TJ Miller and Ari Spears and Jonah Ray. It's a very fun episode, so feel free to check that out as well. And Wednesday we'll have an all new non-live edition of TVguidenscounselor, and we will see you then. They had a thing called mini poo on, uh, Route One in Saugas. There's too much to this man. [ Laughter ]
