‘Futurama’s Nixon Voice Was An Act of Personal Revenge

Even though the idea of a repugnant U.S. President cheating death and seizing control of the world 1,000 years from now may not seem all that funny anymore, Richard M. Nixon is still Earth’s Commander-in-Chief in the world of Futurama.

Nixon, who exists as a severed head in the 31st century, was first introduced to the Futurama-verse back in Season Two’s “A Head in the Polls.” And he popped up a few times in the recently-released 13th season of the show, including in the climate change-focused “The World Is Hot Enough,” in which Nixon hosts the Climate Research Organization Kegger, AKA “C.R.O.K.”

America’s 37th president may not seem like the most topical of satirical targets, but voice actor Billy West recently explained that he has a very good reason for wanting to dunk on Nixon. 

During an interview with WIRED, West, who also voices Fry, Professor Farnsworth and Zapp Brannigan, admitted that his Nixon impression doesn’t “sound anything like him.” That’s because some of West’s more outlandish inflections were informed by the first televised presidential debate. “I saw the debate between Nixon and Kennedy in (1960). And Kennedy looked like a game-show host, and Nixon looked like a sweat hog,” West recalled. “I said to my mom, ‘Mom, he looks like he’s going to turn into a werewolf.’ And so that’s why I howl like a werewolf doing Nixon.”

And West, like many others, came to really hate Nixon during the Vietnam War. “That bastard drafted me in (1970) by the way,” West proclaimed. While he was rejected by the army due to his hypertension and flat feet, West still clearly holds a grudge over his near-deployment. “To this very day, the Nixon library runs a continuous loop of all the Nixon stuff I did on Futurama,” West boasted. “In his library! So I won.”

While it’s unclear if any footage was ever shown as West suggested, there are indeed multiple framed images of Futurama’s Nixon located in the “Popular Culture” section of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. The location also contains Nixon’s burial site, until his head gets harvested and reanimated at some point in the next 1,000 years. 

Apparently, the library acquired the art back in 2011 despite previously asking the show to stop making fun of the disgraced president (a request that the show's producers obviously ignored).

Sadly, it seems as though the George Washington Presidential Library has yet to include any exhibits celebrating the time America’s first president hawked used cars with Abraham Lincoln.