Thallium Buyer

A minor face in the crowd of Futurama's sprawling universe, the Thallium Buyer exists for a single transaction: he wants thallium, and he's there to get it. Voiced with Billy West's typical brisk efficiency, he's less a character than a punchline delivery mechanism, present and gone in the space of a joke.

West's genius is being able to make even a nothing role sound like it has a whole life behind it, and that's the pleasure here — a fleeting voice given just enough personality to land its beat before the show moves on to the next absurdity.