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\u201cWe all want to be like Bugs, but we\u2019re all really Daffy,\u201d said the voice actor Eric Bauza with a hearty laugh during a recent interview in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
For the past five years, the Canadian performer, 45, has played both the clever rabbit and the hyperactive duck. He has won two Children\u2019s & Family Emmy Awards for voicing these pair, as well as other characters, in the series \u201cLooney Tunes Cartoons\u201d and \u201cBugs Bunny Builders.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Over the years he\u2019s also summoned Sylvester, Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn and Elmer Fudd.<\/p>\n
In the director Peter Browngardt\u2019s \u201cThe Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie\u201d (in theaters March 14), Bauza voices both Daffy Duck and Porky Pig<\/a>. Distributed by Ketchup Entertainment, the first fully-animated original feature starring these characters to get a theatrical release is a zany, hand drawn, sci-fi romp in which buddies Daffy and Porky must defeat a malicious alien invader.<\/p>\n Sitting in a meeting room at the Garland Hotel in North Hollywood, and wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with Wilma Flintstone (Hanna-Barbera\u2019s \u201cThe Flintstones\u201d is among his favorite classic cartoons), Bauza recalled first watching \u201cLooney Tunes\u201d on Saturday mornings growing up in Scarborough, Ontario. The wacky violence and daring humor of those cartoons enticed a young Bauza.<\/p>\n As he recounted one of his favorite \u201cLooney Tunes\u201d shorts, \u201cLong-Haired Hare<\/a>,\u201d in which Bugs Bunny torments an opera singer, Bauza seamlessly shifted into singing in the voice of the famed animated wise guy, \u201cMusic hater and a rabbit hater too, apparently,\u201d he recited.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThey really shaped my sense of humor as well as my love for drawing,\u201d Bauza said about \u201cLooney Tunes\u201d while quickly sketching the face of Bugs Bunny, his favorite from the gang, on a notepad. \u201cHe had six whiskers if the cartoon is high budget, four whiskers if it\u2019s low budget,\u201d he said after completing the sketch.<\/p>\n Bauza has a deep knowledge both of Looney Tunes character history and the man who conceived most of their voices nearly 90 years ago: Mel Blanc.<\/p>\n \u201cMel Blanc is like the voice of God for me,\u201d Bauza said. \u201cHe\u2019s the blueprint. If you\u2019re replicating any of these classic characters, you have to refer back to him because he created not just their voices but their personalities.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Watching the special features on the \u201cLooney Tunes\u201d DVD box sets, which included Blanc\u2019s recording sessions and notes, was a key resource for Bauza as he studied the voices.<\/p>\n The child of Filipino immigrants, Bauza has been doing funny voices to make people laugh for as long as he can remember.<\/p>\n He thinks of the time a teacher in high school tasked him with delivering the morning announcements over the P.A. system, as a catalyst for his interest in voice acting. Bauza would relay the information in different cartoon voices, which his classmates found amusing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Yet, voice acting wasn\u2019t always Bauza\u2019s main aspiration. He first pursued a career as an animation artist. Following an internship at Spumco, the studio behind \u201cThe Ren & Stimpy Show,\u201d he worked for the Los Angeles-based animation outfit Six Point Harness.<\/p>\n He soon realized, however, that he wasn\u2019t finding creative fulfillment in those jobs and decided to focus full time on pursuing voice work. Being cast in the Nickelodeon show \u201cEl Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera\u201d secured him a visa to stay in the United States, along with membership into the Screen Actors Guild.<\/p>\n It was during the breaks in the recording sessions of the Cartoon Network show \u201cUncle Grandpa\u201d that its creator, Browngardt, first heard Bauza impressively do the Looney Tunes voices.<\/p>\n When Browngardt was planning to direct the series \u201cLooney Tunes Cartoons\u201d<\/a> for HBO Max in 2018, he immediately asked Bauza to audition. Committed to the part, Bauza brought carrots into the booth and ate them as he read for the role of Bugs Bunny.<\/p>\n \u201cBauza\u2019s auditions stood out because it wasn\u2019t just a straight impersonation of the voices Mel Blanc created,\u201d Browngardt said. \u201cHe was able to act within the voices in such a way where it was very funny and very entertaining just like Mel Blanc did it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The animation historian Jerry Beck, who created the website Cartoon Research<\/a>, agreed. \u201cEric embodies Mel at his prime, which is the 1940s when he was screaming and acting the lines in wilder and crazier ways,\u201d Beck said. \u201cEric\u2019s nailed that 1940s feeling.\u201d Beck also said that he thought Bauza\u2019s stint working as an animation artist empowered him with a unique advantage over other voice artists, because he understood the process.<\/p>\n For the movie, Bauza recorded all of Porky\u2019s lines first, since Daffy was more strenuous on his vocal cords. But what truly impressed Browngardt was how precise Bauza was keeping track of how his two performances would eventually cut together.<\/p>\n \u201cHe imagined the scene in his head while performing as these characters that are so well known and he made it all really believable,\u201d Browngardt said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The performer\u2019s first official job in this cartoon universe was voicing Marvin the Martian on \u201cThe Looney Tunes Show,\u201d which aired on Cartoon Network from 2011-13. \u201cOh, isn\u2019t that lovely, Earth creature?\u2019 he said as the extraterrestrial.<\/p>\n