Billy West on Fry
VIDEO

An actor well-known in animation circles, Billy West is one of an increasingly popular breed--actors heard but not seen. Tops in the voice-over business, some of West's most famous characterizations include those of "Ren & Stimpy," the voices of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in the feature film Space Jam and the official voice of Woody Woodpecker. West has also provided celebrity voice impersonations on The Howard Stern Show for years.

Some of his new animated projects include: Histeria!, Catdog, Mad Jack the Pirate, Voltron, Rayman and Spy Dogs. He is also George Jetson for Radio Shack, Babe Ruth for Brisk Ice Tea and the Red M&M for the new millennium M&Ms campaign.

A self-proclaimed Mel Blanc devotee, West recalls that even as a very small child he would listen to people's voices on the radio and imitate them...from Presley to Sinatra. Sitting in front of the TV watching Hanna-Barbera cartoons in the '50s, he would watch the credits for the names of the voice talent. "Much to my astonishment, it was usually only a couple of guys doing an army of characters. That really stuck with me," he recalls.

He declares that deep down, he's fulfilling his childhood dream. He braved a brief stint doing stand-up in 1978, but quickly realized that it wasn't the life for him when he discovered he could reach far more people on the air than in person. In 1988, he landed the role of Cecil in the cartoon Beanie and Cecil, which brought him to the attention of the creators of Ren & Stimpy, where his voice talents were used to portray the dim-bulb feline "Stimpy" and the psychotic chihuahua "Ren." It was at that time that he supplied an array of outrageous characterizations for The Howard Stern Show.