An Evening of 1000 Voices with
Billy West (Futurama)
and Tom Kenny (Sponge Bob)
Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 8pm
Track 16, Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Avenue, Bldg C-1
Santa Monica, CA
William Richard “Billy” West as born in Detroit but raised in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, Billy launched his career in the early 1980s performing daily comedic routines on Boston’s WBCN. He left the radio station to work on the short-lived revival of Beany and Cecil. He was also a writer and cast member on The Howard Stern Show during the early to mid 1990s, where he gained nationwide fame with his impersonations of Larry Fine and late Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott.
West is best known for his voice-work on Ren & Stimpy, Doug and Futurama. His favorite characters are Philip J. Fry (Futurama) and Stimpy (Ren and Stimpy), both of which he originated. West’s most notable film work was in Space Jam (1996) providing the voice of both Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. He has provided the same voices for other Looney Tunes films and video games. West is also a guitarist and singer-songwriter with a band called Billy West and The Grief Counselors.
Thomas James “Tom” Kenny is an actor, voice actor and comedian, is noted for his long-running-role as SpongeBob SquarePants in the television series of the same name, as well as the live-action character Patchy the Pirate, Gary the Snail and the French narrator based on Jacques Cousteau. He is also the narrator of Cartoon Network’s The Powerpuff Girls.
Aside from voice acting, Kenny starred in the short-lived Fox sketch show The Edge, and was a cast member of the HBO sketch comedy program Mr. Show, where he worked with Jill Talley, whom he subsequently married. He currently voices the Ice King in the Cartoon Network animated series Adventure Time with Finn and Jake, and voices additional characters on Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, another Cartoon Network show. As of 2007, he has also hosted the show Funday Night at the Movies on TCM, which encourages children to watch old movies.
West and Kenny will be in conversation with Kristine McKenna. She is a widely published critic and journalist who wrote for the Los Angeles Times from 1977 through 1998. Her profiles of artists and musicians and criticism have appeared in Artforum, The New York Times, Artnews, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post and Rolling Stone Magazine, and she was the recipient of a National Endowment Arts Administration grant in 1976. In 2001, a collection of her interviews, Book of Changes, was published and followed by a second volume of her interviews,Talk To Her, in 2004.
Tickets:
$20
$95 includes pre-event reception, 6:30-7:30pm