Dave Willis

Willis got into television through a cartoon talk show. He was hired in 1995 at the Atlanta production house that became Williams Street, first writing for Cartoon Planet and then for Space Ghost Coast to Coast, where he met Matt Maiellaro, the collaborator he would build the rest of his career alongside. Adult Swim was largely assembled out of that room, and Willis is one of the people who assembled it.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force first appeared unannounced in the small hours of December 30, 2000, ahead of its official debut the following year, which is roughly the right way for it to have arrived. Willis co-created it and voices both Meatwad and Carl, and those two performances mark out the show's entire tonal range. Meatwad is a talking lump of ground beef with the voice of a small trusting child; Carl is the neighbour with the pool, the chest hair and a permanent grievance. Playing the sweetest and the ugliest character in a scene, opposite yourself, is a harder trick than the show's junk-drawer aesthetic lets on.

He co-created Squidbillies in 2005 and Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell, and has taken voice work elsewhere, most durably as Barry on Archer, a character built almost entirely from a strangled, seething delivery. Sealab 2021, Frisky Dingo and 12 oz. Mouse fill in the rest of the Williams Street map.