From asking Bugs Bunny whether carrots really help him see in the dark to discovering whether Tweety made the guest list for Taylor Swift’s wedding, I put Eric Bauza’s incredible collection of Looney Tunes voices to the test while talking Coyote vs. Acme, Mel Blanc and the extraordinary legacy of some of animation’s greatest characters.

There are interviews where you carefully work through a meticulously researched list of questions, hoping to uncover some profound new insight into an actor’s craft. Then there are interviews where you find yourself asking the Road Runner about the meaning of life and receiving twelve consecutive “beep”s in response.

My conversation with Eric Bauza very quickly became the latter.

Eric Bauza Let Me Interview the Looney Tunes… And I Asked Them the Really Important Questions

Bauza has inherited one of the most daunting jobs in voice acting, performing an extraordinary collection of characters that includes Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety and Marvin the Martian. He has also reached the point where switching between them appears to require approximately the same amount of effort as most of us expend deciding what to have for lunch. 

Naturally, then, towards the end of our interview on The Movie Dweeb, I realised that interviewing Eric alone would be a criminal waste of resources. There were several other celebrities technically sitting right there, and I had questions for every single one of them. Bauza happily agreed, and suddenly I was conducting what may be the most chaotic Looney Tunes press conference ever assembled. 

First up was Bugs Bunny, whom I asked whether eating all those carrots actually helps him see in the dark. Apparently not. “I do it more for the flavour, Doc,” Bugs explained, adding that he already has an eagle eye and simply enjoys the taste. Daffy Duck was next, and when I asked for the most famous person in his contacts, there could really only be one answer: himself. “I’ve never dialled myself before,” Daffy told me. “I’m surprised that doesn’t work. I always get a busy signal.”

From there, things became increasingly important to the cultural record. Elmer Fudd discussed Love Island, Foghorn Leghorn tackled the eternal question of why the chicken crossed the road, and Tweety revealed that his invitation to Taylor Swift’s wedding had apparently been lost in the post. I then asked the Road Runner for the meaning of life, which resulted in a string of beeps so profound that I can only assume enlightenment will arrive once I have correctly translated them. Finally, Porky Pig reminded me that “that’s all folks” doesn’t really mean goodbye forever; it is simply “see you next time.”

Eric Bauza on Coyote vs. Acme, Wile E. Coyote and John Cena

Of course, there was actually a reason Eric and I were supposed to be talking in the first place: Coyote vs. Acme, the live-action/animation hybrid that has experienced a journey to the big screen almost as ludicrously difficult as Wile E. Coyote’s attempts to catch the Road Runner.

Directed by Dave Green, the film sees Wile E. finally decide that decades of exploding rockets, faulty contraptions and suspiciously dangerous mail-order equipment are probably grounds for legal action. He teams up with accident lawyer Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte, to sue the ACME Corporation, while John Cena plays ACME’s slick lawyer Buddy Crane. After Warner Bros. controversially shelved the completed movie in 2023, it was eventually acquired by Ketchup Entertainment and resurrected for a theatrical release, arriving in UK cinemas on August 21, 2026. 

However, I had a much more pressing concern: why has Wile E. spent an apparent fortune on rockets, industrial-strength magnets and enough blueprints to bankrupt a small country when he could simply buy himself some fried chicken? Bauza had clearly considered the psychology of the Coyote far more deeply than I anticipated. “Wile E. Coyote is just a natural hunter,” he explained. “He needs to hunt.” He even suggested that perhaps Wile E. is essentially a catch-and-release fisherman and has no intention of eating the Road Runner at all, although, as Eric correctly pointed out, the knife and fork he has previously chased him with slightly undermines that theory. 

We also discussed the almost mythological determination of Wile E. and the film’s references to Sisyphus, which inevitably led to the question scholars have been afraid to ask: who would survive longer, Wile E. Coyote or Matt Damon’s Odysseus? Bauza noted that Odysseus may have spent ten years getting home, but Wile E. has been pursuing his own impossible mission for decades. I ultimately gave Wile E. the victory on the basis that the man is routinely exploded, flattened and dropped from cliffs before simply returning for work the following morning. 

Then there is John Cena, whom Bauza believes already looks suspiciously like he belongs in a Chuck Jones cartoon. Praising Cena’s enormous screen presence, Eric described his perfectly styled hair, chiselled jaw and suits as making him resemble one of Jones’ classic bully characters, before proposing something I now desperately need Warner Bros. to make: John Cena wrestling Bugs Bunny. I immediately asked Bugs for his trash talk, and Bauza slipped seamlessly into character: “You can’t see me, Doc.” My childhoods had officially collided. 

Eric Bauza on Following Mel Blanc and Protecting the Looney Tunes Legacy

For all the silliness, however, there is something remarkable about watching Bauza perform these characters. Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are not simply animated characters with recognisable voices; they are pieces of popular culture that have survived generations, and much of their identity is inseparable from the extraordinary work of Mel Blanc.

Blanc became known as ‘The Man of a Thousand Voices’, and his performances helped define Bugs, Daffy, Porky Pig, Tweety, Sylvester and countless other Warner Bros. characters. Taking on voices that millions of people have known since childhood therefore comes with an almost impossible challenge: honouring something iconic without simply turning your performance into an impersonation.

I asked Bauza exactly how he navigates that responsibility, particularly when nobody could (or should) try to replace what Blanc accomplished. His answer was fascinating because, rather than making it entirely about vocal accuracy, he brought everything back to acting, writing and direction. “I know I can get the notes,” Bauza told me. “But it’s how they’re rearranged that is up to the conductor.”

That distinction perhaps explains why his versions of Bugs, Daffy and company work so well. Recreating the sound is only part of the job; those voices have to serve whatever story is being told now. Bauza told me that he has to ensure whichever character he is playing is “set up and teed up for the purpose of the story”, with the writers and directors helping determine how those familiar notes should be arranged. It is less about doing a museum-piece recreation of Mel Blanc and more about keeping the characters alive. 

And that feels particularly appropriate for the Looney Tunes. Porky’s famous sign-off might say “That’s all, folks!”, but these characters have spent almost a century proving that it never really is.

From Animation Artist to the Voice of Bugs Bunny: Eric Bauza’s Incredible Career

What makes Bauza’s position in animation even more interesting is that his career did not actually begin behind a microphone. Born in Scarborough, Ontario, Bauza initially worked on the visual side of animation as a character layout artist before the impressions and voices he was constantly performing around the studio gradually became his profession. 

Since then, he has become one of the most prolific voice performers working in animation, with credits stretching far beyond Looney Tunes. His career has included The Adventures of Puss in Boots, Muppet Babies, DuckTales, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Rick and Morty, Teen Titans Go!, Tiny Toons Looniversity and plenty more, although becoming one of the principal custodians of Bugs Bunny and his friends is understandably a defining part of his work. 

That work has also brought serious recognition. Bauza won the inaugural Children’s & Family Emmy for Outstanding Voice Performance in an Animated Program for Looney Tunes Cartoons, followed by another Emmy for Bugs Bunny Builders. His performances across the franchise have required him to tackle Bugs, Daffy, Tweety, Marvin the Martian, Porky and others… Sometimes within the same project. 

Yet perhaps my favourite thing about speaking to him was how little any of that prestige seemed to have dulled his enthusiasm for these characters. This is a man who can talk thoughtfully about preserving Mel Blanc’s legacy one moment and, seconds later, become Daffy Duck because I desperately need to know who the most famous celebrity in his phone is.

And when our interview finally wrapped, Bauza asked where I was broadcasting from and told me he hoped I would get the chance to see Coyote vs. Acme. I had the very satisfying job of revealing that I already had (and that I loved it). His response was to tell me to watch it again with an audience and report back on what people “across the pond” thought of it. 

Considering everything this film went through simply to reach cinemas, that audience is finally getting its chance. Coyote vs. Acme arrives in UK cinemas on August 21, and, much like the Coyote himself, it turns out you can drop this thing off a cliff as many times as you like, but it will still find a way back. 

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