The voice of Bugs Bunny is from Scarborough and he’s a HUGE Raptors fan

The seventh actor to voice Bugs Bunny is a proud Scarborough native — and a huge Toronto Raptors fans as well.

Eric Bauza grew up watching the Looney Tunes as well as the early Raptors teams of the 1990s, equally familiar with Marvin the Martian and Damon Stoudamire. As the new voice of Bugs Bunny, he’ll star in next year’s Space Jam 2 alongside LeBron James, and believe it or not, it won’t even be his first role alongside an NBA actor.

We had the chance to catch up with Bauza on his big break, as well as his Raptors fandom as well as his pride representing Scarborough. (Naturally, he had to put us on to the best beef patty in the GTA.)

Alright, so we’re here with Eric Bauza, the new voice of Bugs Bunny. How you doing, Eric?

Bauza: [Bugs Bunny voice] Ehh, what’s up, Celebre?

[normal voice] How’s it going, sir?

I’m doing great, how are you?

I’m great. Again, this overwhelming response to a Scarborough kid becoming an iconic rabbit has been... I’m surprised, but not really. I feel like, being from the city, we love to celebrate people that do well from where we’re from. We’ve often been seen as the underdog, if we’re talking sports — maybe the Toronto Raptors might ring a bell? We’ve held our ground, and look what happened. In 2019, we finally got one in there.

I feel like people in Toronto might be looking at this in the same way, with me representing the city of Toronto, the 416, now voicing [Bugs Bunny voice] the most popular rabbit in the world.

I get so much nostalgia just hearing that voice. It’s incredible.

A lot of my coworkers, when I told them I was doing this interview, they were like, he’s from Scarborough, he’s not from Toronto. So obviously, you take a lot of pride in being from Scarborough, is that correct?

Absolutely. Once a Scarberian, always a Scarberian. When the city was kind of merging into one big mega city, I didn’t erase the title of being from Scarborough. I think it’s like a badge of honour. It kind of makes me seem a bit tougher, although I’m not. [laughs]

Nothing beats a Warden station beef patty, you know? When I was in high school, that was the thing to eat. We would take the bus back to Warden station, they used to have a little place. I don’t even know if that bakery is still there, but they used to sell the best beef patties in the GTA.

[Ed. note: That bakery is still there!]

Anyone reading this article, listen, if you need a beef patty, go check this place out.

I hope it’s still there, man. Nothing beats a beef patty and a cocoa bun with some Canada Dry Tahitian Treat, that was the drink of choice.

That sounds perfect right about now.

Like you said when we were talking before the formal part of this interview, this isn’t something that just happened, brand new. You’ve been doing this for a while. How did this opportunity come about?

Well, you know, we’re living in that age of remakes and reboots. Looney Tunes was created in that golden age of animation. It was created in the 1940s! Bugs Bunny just celebrated his 80th birthday. [Bugs Bunny voice] Happy birthday to me!

People love this character. People love to see the Looney Tunes in any capacity they can. So, the first time I joined the Looney Tunes family, I voiced Marvin the Martian. I’ve been voicing Marvin for the better part of a decade, but within that decade, I’ve only auditioned for Bugs Bunny twice, which goes to show how many times they really reinvent or open up the character to new actors.

That’s crazy. Just two opportunities. If you want to take the sports parallel of it, it’s like, just reaching the Finals and you don’t know when you’re going to get back there.

You know, Looney Tunes cartoons, the one that premiered this year... It’s literally back to the drawing board. They went back to the 1940s. They’re not modernized in any particular way, same kind of old-school storytelling. Seven minute shortform, and sometimes even shorter, cartoons. They’re not from the future, they’re not selling Nikes, they’re not playing basketball with anyone.

It’s just Elmer Fudd versus Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird versus Sylvester, Coyote versus Road Runner. It’s classic Looney Tunes, and I think that’s why they wanted to open up the auditions again, to see a fresh take. That’s something I guess I was able to provide for them.

Can you take me through the moment where you got the call, or found out that you were going to be the new voice of Bugs Bunny? What was that moment like for you, and what do you remember?

First of all, it’s like, who really sets themselves up for that, right? Who really thinks, I’m going to be Bugs Bunny one day? It’s not a normal thing to say, even in an interview out loud. It still seems surreal to even say that, because the character is so much larger than life. It’s a character that will be around 80 more years after I’m gone. It’s amazing that the work of one guy — Mel Blanc, he’s the original guy — he poured his soul into these characters, and we’re still talking about them.

What was it like when I found out that I was going to voice this iconic character? It was like a dream come true. All this mystery and waiting and wondering if I would ever have a chance to voice this character finally coming into fruition for me. Again, it still feels surreal talking to anyone about it, but especially talking to someone from where I’m from about it, that in itself has come full circle. It doesn’t mean anything until TSN calls and says, hey, you want to talk about this? I’m like, you sure you don’t want to talk about curling or hockey, darts? I know basketball is over, but sure, let’s talk cartoon stuff.

[laughs] If we want to continue to make the sports parallels, it’s like the Raptors winning a championship. It’s one of these incredible stories, and one that I think people are already so proud of seeing someone from Scarborough do this thing that everyone grew up with. Not only is it an incredible story, but it’s just inspiring in so many ways.

Well, I promise to do the city proud. For any young Scarberian or Torontonian actor or actress watching that has a dream or goal that they want to either step into the shoes of an iconic character or create an iconic character, that if I can do it, you can do it too.

Who was the first person you told that you were going to be the new voice of Bugs Bunny?

It was either my mom or my dad, or my brother. It’s always just right to home. 416, you know, just hit speed dial, call the folks, tell them what’s up, hang up, call my brother, tell him. It’s important because I left home, specifically for something like this.

I’ve never thought of it from that perspective, and it makes sense to make the move just from that regard alone.

And now it’s not just for me, but it’s for my son, you know? I have a kid, this guy, if he’s going to be anything like me, he’s going to have crooked teeth and he’s going to need braces, so, you know, we gotta take care of him.

Well, if he’s going to be anything like you, he’s going to do incredibly well for himself too, so there’s also that aspect of it.

Fingers crossed. Won’t have to pay for college if he just goes right to work.

Exactly, there you go. I love it, I love it.

Well, we are a sports network obviously, and I wanted to get into your fandom. I imagine you’re a huge Raptors fan, how did that fandom come to be?

I’m a kid of the ‘90s. I grew up watching — we’re going to do sports and cartoons — I watched ProStars, which starred Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Bo Jackson. That was the ‘90s sports cartoon. NBA Hoops, I used to collect NBA Hoops basketball cards, the trading cards. Hostess Potato Chips used to have like, little basketball trading cards. I still have my Michael Jordan from a bag of ketchup chips, my little trading card. I’m a big collector of paraphernalia and sports cards and all that stuff.

When they announced that Toronto was getting a basketball team, I don’t know if I still have the newspaper clipping, but you know, my brother and I were super excited. They were naming the team and some of the team names that they had for Toronto, it was like, the Toronto Towers, the Toronto Tarantulas, the Toronto Tornadoes, and then like, oh, what was in theatres that month? Oh, Jurassic Park. What was a popular dinosaur? A raptor. Do we have raptors in Toronto? I don’t know, but let’s just call them the Raptors anyway, it’s cool. If [Steven] Spielberg thinks it’s cool, then it’s cool enough for Toronto.

But yeah, they named them the Toronto Raptors. We’re talking the Big O, Damon Stoudamire, like, the original team. I had the original Stoudamire sneakers, man. He was nicknamed Mighty Mouse, he had the Mighty Moose tattoo and they had that whole Nike commercial. Again, cartoons and the NBA somehow mix together well. That was it, and if we’re going to talk about cartoons and basketball and me being a kid of the ‘90s, Space Jam! The original Space Jam movie. I have animation cels here, actually hold on, let me go grab one...

Yeah!

[returns with framed illustration] So, this is an animation cel from the original 1994 commercial with Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan, selling Nike shoes together. That’s an original animation cel. Everything’s digital nowadays, but I own almost like a vast majority of the entire commercial. [picks up another illustration] Here’s one of Porky Pig in that same commercial. It’s just kind of crazy how successful, like, these were Super Bowl commercials, that sold, I think it was the Jordan 7s and and the Jordan 8s, for all the sneakerheads out there. It was 1992, 1994, and then two years later, they did Space Jam in 1996. That’s how obsessed I am. Even if I weren’t the voices of these characters, I would still own these animation cels.

When you mention paraphernalia and that kind of stuff, what is the one that means the most to you as far as sports paraphernalia goes?

I have a vast majority of Jordans. I collect sneakers, I wear sneakers, I’ll buy them and I’ll try to keep them pristine, but I can’t just keep these in a box. I gotta wear them! It came full circle for me in 2015. They released the Jordan Super.Fly 4s, they were worn by Blake Griffin under the Jordan banner, and they made a Blake Griffin, Bugs Bunny, Marvin the Martian shoe commercial directed by Jon Favreau.

I got to voice Marvin the Martian in that commercial. I just showed you these animation cels, and it came full circle, where they started re-releasing... these retro versions of the Marvin the Martian shoes, and then they released the Super.Fly 4s, which was an original Marvin the Martian-based Jordan shoe.

That’s so, so cool. Marvin was always one of my favourites growing up, too.

And the funny thing about Marvin is, he appeared maybe only four times in 30 years of original shorts. Bugs Bunny had hundreds and hundreds of shorts, Daffy Duck hundreds and hundreds. Marvin, again, only about three or four shorts, and he’s one of the most popular air fresheners ever sold at Canadian Tire.

[laughs] Makes for an incredible shoe as well, just the colourways you can do and all the different things like that. What was being in that commercial like with Blake?

It was funny, they had broke the news on TMZ. I didn’t actually get to meet those guys. Sometimes in voiceover, they ask you to be there just to read off the actor. In this case, it was definitely, we’re just going to record the voices and we’ll temp them in, we’ll animate, we’ll come back.

It was when that commercial was released, to actually see my voice coming out of a character that was traditionally and fully animated. The scale of the production on that was equivalent to a feature film. They got the Iron Man director to make this commercial, and you know, he’s going to demand quality and that everything moves very smoothly and everything’s perfect. To know that I was in an actual Jordan Brand advertisement for a shoe that was based upon the character I was voicing was something else.

Sticking with the sports-themed questions, the Raptors winning the championship, what do you remember most about that season as a fan? The Kawhi shot is obviously one of those moments, but is there something that stands out to you?

The 2019 season, I was here [in Los Angeles]... It was funny, I remember the night that they won. My son, he’s crashed on the couch, a four-year-old toddler, and I got the volume down. They win the championship, and before the game started, I promised my son that if they won tonight, that we would go get frozen yogurt. I gotta send you this picture, it’s like me and my son all decked out in Raptors gear in L.A. eating frozen yogurt, celebrating. I’m checking Instagram, seeing the city of Toronto going wild. Sitting on buses, climbing lampposts, and all friendly, no one was getting hurt. The drone footage of the city of Toronto was spectacular to see.

And then, seeing that parade — who could forget Plant Guy? Everyone loved Plant Guy from the 2019 championship wrap-up in Toronto. Again, it goes to show who we are as a city, you know? Could be viewed as the underdogs maybe, but even the good guy wins sometimes. That was one of the greatest things I got to witness as a Torontonian.

Just going back to something you had said, the parallels, they can be drawn from sports to any other kind of industry, you can take so many lessons from watching these athletes, from being at games, from following them on social media.

What inspires you and your own creativity and your own work?

Back in the ‘90s, we’re going back to the ‘90s again because that’s just where I live, there were so many great personalities. You know, Barkley, Rodman, Larry “Grandmama” Johnson, Shawn Kemp, Dominique Wilkins, Muggsy Bogues, Pippen, Jordan, Miller. There was so many great players, and everyone had a different style.

If you’re going to look at voiceover, there’s so many different people in voiceover that can do impressions. There’s so many of us even within the Looney Tunes family that only do certain impressions, like I can do Bugs Bunny or Tweety Bird, but I can’t necessarily do Taz or Yosemite Sam or Foghorn, so then we go to the next guy, that’s his specialty. Then, we come together and we’re a team. We’re the Tune Squad, you know what I mean? It’s a little silly, it’s a little out there, it’s a bit of reach to make that kind of comparison, but really, it kind of makes sense.

It does, it does. Very often, you’re working with a team. That’s what good teams do, they come together and pick everyone up and find out how to work together as a unit. So, I think it’s a perfect comparison.

Animation is a team. It takes a village, and it’s 100 percent teamwork. There’s writers, there’s musicians, there’s editors, there’s composers, there’s production assistants, people even at entry-level positions that, even without their help, you’re that much more lopsided without them propping you up. That’s how we get into the industry, right? We start at the bottom and we work our way up to the top. I started out as a PA, and now I’m here talking to a representative of TSN, something I never thought I would get to say.

I never in a million of years thought I would be talking to the voice of Bugs Bunny, so the moment is not lost on me either.

[Bugs Bunny voice] You know what, I live at Midland and Eglinton, doc, you can visit any time!

That’s the beauty of this is again, I’m just taken by the amount of curiosity that people have with Bugs Bunny. I’m the same way. I’m like, who’s voicing Bugs? I’d want to know.

My last question to you is just, what about this incredible opportunity makes you most proud? What kind of legacy do you hope to leave behind as far as inspiring others goes?

The legacy that I’d love to leave behind with this inheritance that I’ve stumbled into is that, you know, if you got a dream — you don’t even have to be an actor — if you have an aspiring dream to be the one thing that you’re very passionate about, just don’t give up. Don’t take yourself out of the equation, because then you’ll always sit there and wonder what if, right?

If you just keep at it and keep trying, you’re going to start to have these little milestones and these little stepping stones that may not seem like much to someone else, but it’s building you up. It’s building your foundation. Once you’re high enough within reach of that impossible goal, it’s there. You’ll be holding on to that dream before you know it.