Virtuoso voiceover artist Billy West pipes up with a podcast

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Odds are, the voice of Billy West is ringing in your ears. Or rather, voices. A leading voiceover actor, West has spoken up for title characters in "Doug" and "Ren & Stimpy," for latter-day revivals of Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker and Popeye, for a broad swath of the "Futurama" crew, even Red M&M. Now West has brought his virtuosic yackety-yak to his own podcast, speaking for himself on "The Billy West Show," with five editions posted on his website and iTunes of a series he hopes to build on every couple of weeks.

The freewheeling format unleashes West with his vocal cast of thousands, accompanied by the singular voice of Jim Gomez, a veteran director-animator and, here, a stabilizing influence who keeps this whole enterprise from flying away.

Offering a seamless 30 minutes or so of sketches, mock-interviews and other foolishness, "The Billy West Show" aspires to be "ALMOST good college radio," says West, while it draws on classic comedy influences including the 1960s-era Firesign Theater.

The episodes are recorded in the repurposed garage of West's home nestled on a cozy cul-de-sac in the Hollywood Hills.

With the garage door opened to a perfect L.A. morning recently, West and Gomez are hashing out a future episode amid a crush of audio equipment, keyboards, vintage jukeboxes, a carpenter's work bench and a riot of random artwork on the walls.

The show gives West free reign to draw on his encyclopedic treasury of voices, dialects, sound effects and pop-culture references.

When was the last time you heard a perfect imitation of Paul Harvey advertising Kava coffee?