Billy West

While Billy West is probably best known these days for his work on Futurama, I didn’t really get into it until about 5-7 years ago.

Before that, I knew him for his work on Doug and Space Jam.

While he mentioned in the interview that his natural speaking voice is closest to that of Futurama’s Philip J. Fry, I always hear Doug when he talks.

While it’s further from his natural speaking voice than Fry is—after all, he knows what he is and isn’t doing to change his voice with every role—it’s likely that it’s simply nostalgia combined with hearing it so much from Doug in my formative years. Doug is one of the shows that, growing up, I used to watch all the time with my dad.

Space Jam is a similar story.

Growing up in the early 90’s in the suburbs of Chicago—and named “Michael”, no less—I was a huge fan of Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Pairing him with Bugs Bunny in a movie naturally made it one of my favorites

In fact, it’s one of 3 movie posters I remember having on my bedroom wall as a kid. I also used to rent it from the video store so often that my parents had to make a “no Space Jam” rule whenever I’d ask if we could go get a movie.

I have no idea why they never just bought me a copy, but they probably spent enough on rental fees for it to have bought it a few times over.

As I mentioned, I got to meet Billy at a convention a couple of years ago, but it was such a thrill to get to interview a guy who was such a major part of my childhood about the roles that made him such (to say nothing of my current love of Futurama).