Eric Bauza, the voice actor who became the modern voice of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, has died. He was 46.
His family announced his death Sunday, Oct. 25, in a statement posted to his official Instagram account, saying he had passed away suddenly and that more details would follow. No cause of death has been released.
The news comes two months after Coyote vs. Acme reached theaters on Aug. 28, the Looney Tunes film that Warner Bros. Discovery shelved in 2023 before Ketchup Entertainment picked it up, and whose rescue Bauza publicly championed. He voiced a long list of its characters, including Bugs, Daffy, Tweety and Foghorn Leghorn, and told Nerdtropolis it was his first time voicing Bugs in a feature film. The press tour gave audiences a rare look at the man behind some of the most recognizable voices in animation.
Born Dec. 7, 1979, in Scarborough, Ontario, and of Filipino descent, Bauza got his start as an intern at Spümcø, the studio behind Ren & Stimpy, while studying at Toronto’s Centennial College, landing his first voice role on The Ripping Friends. His breakthrough came when he succeeded Billy West as Stimpy on Ren & Stimpy “Adult Party Cartoon.”
His Looney Tunes run built steadily: Marvin the Martian on The Looney Tunes Show and New Looney Tunes, then the lead voice of Bugs, Daffy, Tweety and Marvin on Looney Tunes Cartoons. He went on to voice Daffy, Porky, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn and Marvin in Space Jam: A New Legacy, Bugs in MultiVersus, Buster Bunny in Tiny Toons Looniversity, and Daffy and Porky in The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie. In 2022, the Toronto Star described him as the first non-white actor to voice Bugs Bunny.
Looney Tunes Cartoons earned Bauza the first-ever Children’s and Family Emmy for Outstanding Voice Performance in an Animated Program. He won again for Bugs Bunny Builders and Teen Titans Go!
Beyond the Looney Tunes, his range ran remarkably deep: the title role in Netflix’s The Adventures of Puss in Boots, Baby Fozzie on Muppet Babies, Splinter on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Woody Woodpecker, and both Big Bob Belcher and Jimmy Pesto on Bob’s Burgers.
Comics fans heard him all over DC and Marvel animation:
- the Flash and Mr. Freeze in DC Super Friends
- Ryan Choi in Justice League: Gods and Monsters
- Two-Face in the English dub of Batman Ninja
- Amadeus Cho / Iron Spider on Ultimate Spider-Man
- Zeke Stane in Iron Man: Rise of Technovore
- Adam Warlock on Guardians of the Galaxy
- Master Mold and the Sentinels on X-Men ’97
This is a developing story. The Nerd Wire will update it if Bauza’s family shares more information.
Sources: ComicBook.com, Parade, Nerdtropolis, Kotaku, Toronto Star. Top photo: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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