Anyone who has watched a new Looney Tunes cartoon in the last decade and a half has almost certainly heard Eric Bauza. The 46-year-old Canadian, heir to Mel Blanc’s most famous roles, died unexpectedly on Sunday in his house outside Los Angeles.
Relatives broke the news in an Instagram post. According to the county coroner’s office, high blood pressure had damaged his heart, and the death was ruled natural.
A Filipino-Canadian who grew up in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, born in late 1979, Bauza did not start out behind a microphone. His first job in Hollywood was designing characters, and he moved into acting in the early 2000s, beginning with “The Ripping Friends”. Over roughly 400 credits he became one of the busiest voices in animation, turning up in “Avatar”, “Rick and Morty” and the Mario films, where he played Toad General.
Still, it was the Warner cartoon family that made his name. On top of the rabbit and the duck, the stuttering pig, the yellow canary, the hapless hunter Elmer and the loud rooster Foghorn all spoke through him, and he took several of those parts in this summer’s hit “Coyote vs. Acme”. His work on kids’ shows such as “Teen Titans Go!” earned him a trio of Emmy statuettes. When he died he was getting ready to play Daffy once more in a planned musical, “Bye Bye Bunny”.
Channing Dungey, who runs Warner’s TV business, remembered him as a rare talent who carried on a legendary tradition and brought joy to millions. As a boy he used to copy the cartoon voices at home, and years later he said the jokes needed no translation anywhere on earth.
