Eric Bauza, modern voice of Looney Tunes stars, dies at 46
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Over a two-decade career, Eric Bauza amassed hundreds of voice acting credits for studios including Cartoon Network, Disney and DreamWorks.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Yan Zhuang
- Eric Bauza, an Emmy-winning voice actor known for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and other Looney Tunes stars, died at 46 in California from hypertensive cardiovascular disease.
- He built a two-decade career with hundreds of credits for Cartoon Network, Disney and DreamWorks, and won Emmys in 2022, 2023 and 2025 for his Looney Tunes work.
- Born to Filipino immigrant parents in Ontario, he said Mel Blanc was “the blueprint” for his work, but he still hoped to create a voice of his own.
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CALIFORNIA – Eric Bauza, an Emmy-winning Canadian voice actor who brought Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and other Looney Tunes cartoon characters to life, died on Oct 25 in California. He was 46.
His death was confirmed by his family in a statement on social media, and by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, which said he had died at home of hypertensive cardiovascular disease.
Over a two-decade career, Bauza amassed hundreds of voice-acting credits for studios including Cartoon Network, Disney and DreamWorks.
His best-known roles were those he voiced for Warner Bros’ Looney Tunes cartoons, including Sylvester, Tweety and Elmer Fudd.
At the inaugural Children’s and Family Emmy Awards in 2022, Bauza won for his Looney Tunes roles. He also won Emmys in 2023 and 2025.
Eric Bauza was born Dec 7, 1979, to Filipino immigrant parents and grew up in Scarborough, Ontario.
In an interview with The New York Times in 2025, he recalled watching Looney Tunes cartoons on Saturday mornings as a child and being enticed by their wacky violence and daring humour.
From a young age, he had been doing funny voices to make people laugh, he said in a 2021 interview with Complex, a youth culture magazine.
“That’s how I got my practice, just kind of testing my material and voices on my family,” he said.
His interest in voice acting was catalysed when a teacher tasked him with delivering the morning announcements over the PA system.
He did so in cartoon voices, entertaining his schoolmates.
He first pursued a career as an animation artist, moving from Ontario to stay with an uncle in Los Angeles, but soon realised that he was not finding creative fulfilment. He later decided to focus full-time on pursuing voice work.
He landed a role in the Nickelodeon show El Tigre: The Adventures Of Manny Rivera, which aired in 2007 and 2008 and secured him a visa to stay in the United States.
His first voice-acting role in the Looney Tunes franchise was Marvin the Martian on The Looney Tunes Show, which aired on Cartoon Network from 2011 to 2013.
On the Looney Tunes Cartoons series and in the 2021 film Space Jam: A New Legacy, Bauza voiced at least a half dozen characters in each project.
Describing his process for learning and practising the Looney Tunes character voices, Bauza told the Times that he often referred back to the materials of Mel Blanc, the voice actor who conceived most of the characters’ voices nearly 90 years ago.
“Mel Blanc is like the voice of God for me,” Bauza said. “He’s the blueprint. If you’re replicating any of these classic characters, you have to refer back to him because he created not just their voices but their personalities.”
In the recent film Coyote vs. Acme (2026), Bauza voices Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and others.
The film imagines Looney Tunes mainstay Wile E. Coyote taking the Acme Corporation to court for its defective products, which have repeatedly thwarted his pursuit of the Road Runner.
Bauza told the Times in 2025 that he hoped to one day be known for a voice of his own.
“In this business, the dream is to create an iconic voice that every kid in the schoolyard does,” he said. NYTIMES
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.