Remembering Eric Bauza, December 7, 1979 to October 25, 2026
On Sunday night, Eric Bauza passed away suddenly. He was 46.
If the name doesn't ring a bell right away, I promise you the VOICE does. Eric was the modern voice of Bugs Bunny. And Daffy Duck. Tweety, Marvin the Martian, Foghorn Leghorn, Elmer Fudd... basically the entire Warner Bros. shield, packed into one human being. He was also Puss in Boots on Netflix, Baby Fozzie on Muppet Babies, Splinter on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Woody Woodpecker, Luke Skywalker in a whole shelf of LEGO Star Wars specials, and selfishly my favorites: The BEAGLE BOYS in DuckTales.
Over roughly 25 years, he racked up more than 400 credits. FOUR HUNDRED.
A lot of tribute posts drift into being about the person writing them. I'm going to do my best to keep this one where it belongs. This post is about Eric... what he did, how he did it, and what every voice actor reading this can carry forward from the way he worked.
Consider this one of my Legends posts. It just showed up decades too early.
The Kid From Scarborough Who Drew First
Eric was born December 7, 1979, in Scarborough, Ontario, just outside Toronto, the son of Filipino immigrants. His dad and his grandfather were classic cartoon fans, so Looney Tunes were basically part of the family furniture. He used to draw along with Mr. Dressup, the beloved Canadian kids' show host, and he credited Who Framed Roger Rabbit with teaching him two things at once: how to do voices AND how to draw. (Same movie that lit my fuse at seven, for what it's worth.)
In high school, a teacher put him on the morning announcements over the P.A. system... and Eric delivered them in cartoon voices. Every morning. I can only imagine the faculty lounge conversations. He later pointed to that as one of the sparks that pushed him toward voice acting.
But here's the part I really want you to sit with: VOICE ACTING WASN'T PLAN A. Eric set out to be an animation artist. During his third year at Centennial College (he graduated in 2000), he landed an internship at Spümcø, the studio behind The Ren & Stimpy Show, living in Los Angeles with his uncle while he did it. He became a production assistant on The Ripping Friends, which is where he picked up his very first voice role. Later he worked as an artist at the L.A. studio Six Point Harness, until he realized the drawing table wasn't where his creative fulfillment lived. So he went all in on the mic.
Then came the big one. In 2003, Eric took over the role of Stimpy from Billy West on Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon." Stepping into a role that iconic, after a performer that beloved, at 23 years old? That's a baptism by fire. And it was a preview of the rest of his career.
The lesson: Your "other" skills are not a detour. Animation historian Jerry Beck pointed out that Eric's years as an animation artist gave him a real advantage over other voice actors, because he understood the process from the other side of the glass. He knew what the animators NEEDED from a read. If you draw, edit, write, sing, do puppetry, whatever... that's not a distraction from your VO career. It's an EDGE. (As I said in my 12 Principles of Animation post, we are all part of the same machine.)
The Utility Player Years
Before anyone handed him the Looney Tunes keys, Eric spent well over a decade being THE guy you call. A sampling (and I mean a SAMPLING):
Foop on The Fairly OddParents
Storm Shadow, Destro and Tunnel Rat on G.I. Joe: Resolute
Lord Stingray on Superjail!
Dr. Psychobos and a small army of aliens on Ben 10: Omniverse
Tiger Claw on Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Belly Bag on Uncle Grandpa
Buhdeuce on Breadwinners
Drift on Transformers: Robots in Disguise
José Carioca AND Scrooge McDuck on Legend of the Three Caballeros
Master Frown on Unikitty!
Splinter (aka Lou Jitsu) on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Diddy Kong in The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Big Bob and Jimmy Pesto on Bob's Burgers
Then add Rick and Morty, Star Trek: Lower Decks, X-Men '97, Invincible, DuckTales, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls... and that's before you even open the video game credits.
One of my favorite BUSINESS details in his story: his role on Nickelodeon's El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera is what secured his visa to stay in the United States AND got him into the Screen Actors Guild. One booking. Two life-changing doors.
He also did stand-up at the Laugh Factory, briefly hosted a late-night talk show, and in 2022 hosted Stay Tooned, a six-part documentary series for CBC Gem about the cultural impact of cartoons... including an honest look at where some of the classics got it wrong. Loving something deeply and being honest about its flaws can absolutely live in the same heart.
The lesson: Nobody racks up 400+ credits as a one-trick pony. Range plus reliability IS the career. Eric was the definition of a utility player... the actor a director knows will walk in, nail the hero, the villain and three walla voices, and make the session FUN. The great "that guys" have always been my heroes, and he was one of the very best to ever do it.
How He Got Bugs (Bring Your Carrots)
Eric's first official gig in the Looney Tunes universe was Marvin the Martian on Cartoon Network's The Looney Tunes Show, starting in 2011. But the way he landed Bugs Bunny is a story I will be telling my actors for the rest of my life.
During breaks in recording sessions for Uncle Grandpa, Eric would goof around doing the Looney Tunes voices. Not auditioning. Not pitching. Just PLAYING. The show's creator, Pete Browngardt, was listening. Years later, when Browngardt was gearing up to direct Looney Tunes Cartoons for HBO Max in 2018, he went straight to Eric and asked him to read.
And Eric showed up committed. He brought actual carrots into the booth and munched on them while he read for Bugs.
He said he'd only auditioned for Bugs twice in ten years... but he'd been "doing" Bugs since he was nine years old. As far as he was concerned, he had been rehearsing for that role his entire life. Looney Tunes Cartoons launched in 2020, and with it, Eric became the first person of color to voice Bugs Bunny. Think about what that means to a kid watching at home who looks like him. That's a benchmark, and it matters.
The lessons (plural, because this story is LOADED):
The breaks are the audition too. You never know who's listening between takes. Your joy, your play, your energy in the room... people remember it.
Commit physically. Carrots in the booth isn't a gimmick. It's an actor finding the character through the body and the mouth. (Ask any puppeteer... the prop changes the performance.)
The long game is real. Eric's "overnight" Bugs Bunny took about 30 years of practice, a decade of near misses, and one creator who happened to remember a guy having fun on a break.
Following Mel Blanc (Without Photocopying Him)
Let's talk about the size of those shoes. Mel Blanc created not just the voices but the PERSONALITIES of Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, Sylvester and so many more. He was the first voice actor to get an on-screen credit, back when nobody credited the people behind the mic. Eric revered him as the godfather of the whole craft.
After Mel died in 1989, his characters were carried by a whole lineage of brilliant performers... Jeff Bergman, Bob Bergen, Joe Alaskey, Greg Burson, Billy West and more. In the modern era, Eric became the one who carried the MOST of that roster: Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, Marvin, Foghorn, Elmer, Pepé, Charlie Dog... in this year's Coyote vs. Acme he voiced nearly every male Looney Tunes character in the film. As Warner Bros. Television Group chair Channing Dungey put it in her statement, "He followed in the footsteps of giants like Mel Blanc." She added that Eric considered carrying on the Looney Tunes legacy one of the greatest honors of his life.
How did he do it? He STUDIED. He mined the special features on the Looney Tunes DVD box sets, which included Mel's actual recording sessions and notes. He watched about an hour of Looney Tunes every single day and called it his gym. (He also joked that all those years on the couch had finally turned into a job. Legend.)
But here's what set him apart. Pete Browngardt said Eric's auditions stood out because they were never straight impersonations... Eric was ACTING inside those voices, the way Mel did. Jerry Beck said Eric captured Mel at his wild, screaming, 1940s best.
Ask Eric for advice and he'd hand you the same truth I've been banging the drum about for years:
"It's all about the acting."
Doing voices is a blast, he said, and practice matters. But a character only works when there's something real underneath it, with genuine stakes... yes, even when the character is a rabbit. His tips for getting there: imagine you're talking to your best friend, and if you're playing a villain, tap into the memory of playing make-believe with toys as a kid... because that's really what the job is.
And my personal favorite Eric line, from a 2025 New York Times interview:
"We all want to be like Bugs, but we're all really Daffy."
(If that isn't the most honest description of a working actor's inner life, I don't know what is.)
One more craft nugget I LOVE: on The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, where he voiced both Daffy and Porky, he recorded all of Porky's lines first because Daffy was rougher on his vocal cords. And while he worked, he was tracking how the two performances would cut together, playing the whole scene in his head. That's session planning. That's protecting the instrument. That's a PRO.
The lesson: An impression is a photocopy. A performance is a portrait. Impressions might open the door, but INTENTION keeps you in the room. The sound comes LAST. The feeling comes first. Eric proved it with the most famous voices on the planet.
The Quiet Superpower: Voice Matching
Eric was also one of the industry's go-to voice-match artists. He was the title character in DreamWorks' The Adventures of Puss in Boots on Netflix, and the match for Antonio Banderas whenever Puss needed a voice and Banderas wasn't available, like for TV spots. On Bob's Burgers, he took over Big Bob (previously voiced by Bill Hader) and later Jimmy Pesto.
The lesson: Voice-match work is a legit, steady lane in this business. But the same rule applies... you're not copying a sound, you're CONTINUING a character. Act it.
The Muppet Connection
From 2018 to 2022, Eric voiced Baby Fozzie and Bunsen Honeydew on Disney Junior's Muppet Babies, earning three Daytime Emmy nominations for it. Taking on Fozzie, even a BABY Fozzie, is no small thing. That bear has been loved for fifty years, and Muppet fans can hear a wrong "Wocka wocka!" from across the room.
This is where Eric and I crossed paths. I got to meet him a couple of times through the Muppet world. We never got to work together (and I'll always wish we had), but I can tell you this much: he was a HUGE Muppet fan. Not a polite one. A real one. And he was, without exaggeration, one of the nicest humans in this entire industry.
The Hardware (And The Heart)
2022: The very FIRST Children's & Family Emmy ever awarded for Outstanding Voice Performance in an Animated Program, for Looney Tunes Cartoons
2023: A second Children's & Family Emmy, for Bugs Bunny Builders
2024: A third, for Teen Titans Go!'s Warner Bros. 100th anniversary episode
Plus five Daytime Emmy nominations along the way, for The Adventures of Puss in Boots, Muppet Babies and Looney Tunes Cartoons
2026 should have been a victory lap. Coyote vs. Acme, the hybrid film that was famously shelved and then rescued, finally made it to theaters, and Eric was one of its loudest cheerleaders, urging fans to go see it on the big screen. He was set to voice the Looney Tunes gang in a short attached to The Cat in the Hat, to play Daffy in Bye Bye Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical, and to voice the Shogun King in The Dragon Masters.
What Eric Leaves Us (A Toolkit For Voice Actors)
Your "other" skills are your edge. His art background made him a better voice actor, not a distracted one.
Study the masters like it's your gym. An hour a day. Recording sessions. Notes. Reps.
It's all about the acting. Impressions open the door. Intention keeps you in the room.
Commit with your whole body. Bring the carrots.
Protect the instrument. Plan your session so the hardest voice doesn't wreck the rest of your day.
Every room is the audition. Including the breaks. ESPECIALLY the breaks.
Range plus reliability is the career. 400+ credits don't happen by accident.
Be the person they want back. Colleagues like Grey DeLisle are remembering him as kind, funny and generous, and Eric credited his own career to a long chain of generous acts from the people around him. Generosity is a career strategy AND a way to live.
The Schoolyard
In that same 2025 interview, Eric said the dream in this business is to create a voice so iconic that kids everywhere imitate it on the playground. He'd originated plenty of characters people knew and loved, he said, but he hadn't yet made THAT voice... the one everybody does.
Eric... buddy... a whole generation of kids learned "What's up, Doc?" from YOU. Every preschooler building things with Bugs Bunny Builders. Every kid cackling at Looney Tunes Cartoons. Every family that laughed at Daffy in a movie theater this year. They're doing your voice on the playground right now. They just don't know your name yet.
So let's fix that.
His name was Eric Bauza. Say it. Share it. Teach it to the next actor who walks into your class wanting to "do voices." Then go watch something he made and laugh out loud... because that was the job, and he was one of the very best at it.
Our hearts are with his family, his friends, and everyone across the animation community who got to call him a colleague.
Thank you, Eric.
Nate Begle is a voice actor, audio producer, writer, director, puppeteer and VO coach.
