Eric Bauza, Voice of the Looney Tunes, Dead at Age 46
Late at night on October 25th, I was scrolling through my Discord servers before going to bed when a friend of mine told us something heartbreaking: we had lost Eric Bauza. And I came close to crying myself to sleep.
WHY ERIC?!?
Even if you don’t know who Eric Bauza is, if you know the Looney Tunes, you’ll know his voice. For the past fifteen years, he has been the vocie behind the majority of the male cast of the Looney Tunes. From Bugs to Daffy to Porky and even Sylvester and Tweety, he did them all. People called him the modern-day Mel Blanc, aka the legendary voice actor who brought the Looney Tunes to life in the golden age of animation. And he was phenomenal at it. He could hold entire conversations between his various characters. And with him only being 46 years old, I think most of us expected to have him around for a long, long time.
Which only made it harder to comprehend when, shortly before midnight on October 25th, Bauza’s family announced that he had suddenly died.
As soon as I heard the news from my friend, I almost immediately wanted to deny it. But when I saw that post on Instagram, I knew it was true. What made it even worse, though, was the fact that he was perfectly fine and posting about a convention he went to just two days earlier. It wouldn’t be until early the next morning that we learned what caused his death: Hypertensive Cardiovascular Disease. In other words, high blood pressure. That left me pretty shaken up.
The worst part, though, wasn’t just learning about his passing. It was how everyone else was reacting to it. If you go to his family’s post on Instagram and look at the comments, you’ll see almost every big name in the voice acting and animation business. From the creators of shows like Phineas and Ferb and The Owl House to voice acting legends, almost everyone I follow on social media were pouring their hearts out. I even saw Justin Roiland offer his condolences, and no one’s heard from him since the allegations! I had to actually fight back the urge to cry as I tried to sleep since I had my day job in the morning.
The next day wasn’t easy, either. I was sad about losing Peter Cullen, but at the same time, I had been mentally bracing myself for it for a while. I could tell from his performance in Invincible earlier that year that he was running out of time. Eric, on the other hand, was only 46 and had decades ahead of him. To say it rattled me would be an understatement!
I miss Eric already
I am deeply heartbroken over Bauza’s passing, and my heart goes out to his family, especially to his ten-year-old son. No one should have to lose a parent at that age! I want to give my condolences towards the many people who worked alongside him and called him a friend. And lastly, I want to make clear that I respected the man, not only as a voice actor, but as a person. I was deeply appreciative of him speaking out for the release of Coyote vs ACME, and while doing the voice of Daffy Duck no less. Your legacy will live on, Eric, and to borrow a comment I read on YouTube, I hope you and Mel Blanc are in the afterlife cracking jokes and making each other laugh.
And to whoever is chosen to eventually take over Eric’s roles, be it a single person or multiple people, I wish you the best of luck. That’s all, folks!
Wait…WHAT DO YOU PATRICK STEWART’S DEAD, TOOO?!?!?!
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