Transcript of The Voice of Looney Tunes on the Horrors of Corporate Greed

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

Uh, for me? You know, what do I know? I'm just a cartoon duck. I only know how to get kicked out of studios, not run them.

Right after this. Are you in your— are you in your—

your—

that's your— at home? Is that work?

This is— I like to call it my Sherman Oaks bomb shelter. This is the home studio. It's in the garage office. You can see my insane collection of garbage. And that does not even include the Michael Jordan Bugs Bunny posters from the '90s. Oh, my God. There's a lot.

There's a lot.

It's like stepping into my brain, I guess. Your brain is neither here nor there.

I think it's exactly Right here. Um, your brain is what— was what draws me to you, Eric. Uh, thank you for doing this, by the way.

Absolutely. Thanks for having us. Like when you— all the Looney Tunes.

I was gonna say, when you—

I mean, I mean, uh, thanks for having us, Doug. That's what I was supposed— you moron, you messed it up already.

I did want to get this out of the way first, uh, Eric. Are you a Raptors fan?

Uh, yes. Yes, I am. That's 'cause I was, uh, born and raised in Tirana. Tirana, Ontario, Canada, eh?

We wanted the chips with the dip, and it looks like that's exactly what we got.

Kawhi Leonard dipping out.

Leaving us for the LA Clippers. And fans, they only had one thing to say: thank you, Kawhi.

You know, the whole while he had a decision to make about returning back to the West Coast, Toronto just like smothered him. Like, he couldn't go outside without a helicopter following.

Oh, you guys, Toronto Raptors fans, they would have done anything to keep him.

Oh, absolutely. That was— that, that entire That, that whole team that was like, you know, you're never gonna get that again.

Seems like leaving LA is the theme of the day as the Clippers have agreed on the framework of a deal with Toronto to send Kawhi Leonard back to the Raptors. The expectation around all sides is that this deal will end up happening at the end of the day, Hannah. But this just in, that deal is now on hold until the NBA's investigation is over.

If all what they're saying is true, Then I can't wait to fly home for some home games, for sure.

I should say that, like, I first reached out to you, I think I DM'd you in February of 2024, you know, long before, long before I reported anything to do with the Toronto Raptors, long before the movie that you're— that you star in came out. And the initial reason was just simple, and that's, I don't even know why I have a podcast if I'm not gonna reveal to the world that Bugs Bunny is Filipino.

And that's right, I'm going to start talking like Bugs Bunny, but he's my uncle, and I'm going to convince Warner Brothers to animate him with lumpia instead of a carrot. I think that might be— they were like, what's that? And I was like, Can we copyright— can we own the lumpia? Warner Brothers asked that question.

I feel like it belongs to the people. Lumpia belongs to the people is my personal philosophy.

Yeah.

I have a whole multi-part series about why Filipino food should be more popular in America, particularly.

As opposed to featured on Fear Factor?

Yes! Balut! Balut, of course! So did you have a baby duck as a kid?

Really?

What was the duck's name?

I think it was Sally. I was so young.

Embryonic duck egg is like our introduction to mainstream television. If you are gonna throw up, I have a bucket for you.

Oh God.

I personally am offended by this. I resemble that food. Yeah.

You should be careful what we say around these guys.

Well, I wanna continue to talk to these guys. Let's just say you're the general manager of all of the characters that are in your head. Like, who— give me your starting 5. How do you explain this in sports terms for our sports audience? Who is on your personal roster?

Oh, man, the top 5.

I mean, you know, I— you would think it's Bugs Bunny, but I have the most fun playing Daffy.

And runner-up earth creature is Marvin the Martian. Isn't that lovely?

And of course, Bugs Bunny. You gotta have, you know, you gotta have the number one duck on the planet.

And then if you're gonna go outside of the Looney Tunes universe, I mean, Woody Woodpecker, that's like another Mel Blanc go-to. But I don't know, last, who would be last? I don't know. Sheesh.

Foghorn Leghorn isn't making the cut? You're leaving him on the bench? What are you doing?

I see.

I see the lights are on, but nobody's home. You see, I should have been first. I'm the bad guy in Coyote vs. Acme. Yeah. So maybe we'll end with Foghorn. Sure.

You've won 3 Emmy Awards for your voice acting. You've been nominated 8 times.

The last one I lost, and I lost to—

Daffy Duck lost to Plucky Duck.

That's an injustice.

Yeah, well, you know, it's—

if you're gonna pass the torch off to someone, it better be someone that bears your resemblance. Yeah.

Uh, this is for all the ducks! Uh, yeah, it was a nice trip to New York. I still got to eat some delicious food while I was over there, and, uh, uh, previous to that were 3 Emmys in a row.

What—

one of— I think the 3rd one I hosted that ceremony as well, which was insane, 'cause, you know, I'm telling these Donald Trump jokes in front of the cast of Fraggle Rock. You know, they love the Fraggles. The Fraggles, they love me down there in the Rock. I believe they call it the Rock. The Fraggle crew was laughing. They were laughing so hard. I was making poutine Putin jokes. That's what I was— Canadians love Putin, right? The French fries, cheese, and gravy. I could have Putin in my mouth all day. Yeah, that's what I said. And then I was like, wait, I shouldn't be saying that until I get my green card approved. But, um, yeah, they— the Freckles loved it. They were like, oh my gosh.

When you're alone, when you're at home, do you find yourself talking to yourself as these characters?

More in traffic or driving. That's usually when— going to a session, if I have to do warm-ups or, uh, especially if it's like a voice match. I'm the voice match for Antonio Banderas for Puss in Boots for DreamWorks.

Oh, man.

So when you go to the theme parks, I'm the one that goes, fear me if you dare, and the baño is this way. Yeah, I only direct you to the restrooms. The voice leader box room. It's over here. And don't forget to drink your leche. Yeah, so, like, I do all that. When Antonio's too busy being handsome and rich, they call me. The best part about this, though, was there was a movie that he had released, independent film, and there was a reporter, it was BBC, and they're like, you know that there is a Netflix animated show and there was a Toronto performer doing your voice. Does that bother you in any way? And he's like, No, no, no, no. That only means I created such a popular character. I do not have to be there for him to exist. It was basically like, I am Santa and Eric is Mall Santa. He is there for— to pick up the slack. See, here's the thing. I cannot hit the bullseye, but I can come close. And that's all Universal needs is someone to just get right in the pocket. And then when they find out it's me, they're like, oh my God, it's you!

The notion though, the reveal that it's been you this whole time is what brings us to Coyote vs. Acme.

Have you ever set a big stack of TNT on the road hoping to blow up your nemesis, but the detonator itself explodes? Have you ever pulled the ripcord of your parachute and only a bunch of silverware comes out, it's not your fault. ACME is evil.

When I got to see this, and I, I loved it— spoiler alert, I fucking love this film— short of, short of the humans, you play pretty much everybody, or close to it. Your Bugs, your Daffy, your Foghorn Leghorn, your Elmer Fudd. Also, Elmer Fudd just slept on the bench, apparently.

Oh yes, also Elmer Fudd. He's not on the top 5, Ooh, that waskowy Bowser.

You realize pretty soon into it, like, you know, oh, oh, this is about a lot more than just, you know, uh, Looney Tunes. You're looking at the guy who is taking on the biggest corporation in the world.

They're suing us for every ACME product.

There is a sense of horror in, in the film because it is about the horrors of capitalism, Eric. It is about the horrors horrors of corporate greed. And—

Oh, yeah.

It's the story of the film, and then the story of what happened to the film and how it is—

Oh, yeah.

It couldn't be more relevant to the interests of this podcast. It blew my mind when I realized all of this is colliding in one thing. But this is— I want to explain to people for whom this is just a thing they're learning about for the first time, this is like the best film of its kind since Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Uh, that is, that is insane, because I— you're talking to a guy that, uh, has used his son's college fund to buy, uh, as many Roger Rabbit cels. Like, I have original cels from the film hanging in my living room. Uh, I think during COVID we all went a little stir-crazy buying things online, and one of those things for me was the, uh, I like to call the Holy Grail of animation cels, which is, you know, that scene in Roger Rabbit where Bugs and Mickey are parachuting.

Yes.

They're with Eddie Valiant and—

Jumping without a parachute, kind of dangerous, ain't it?

Yeah. You could get killed. You guys got a spare? When I saw that as a kid, I was like, oh my God, Mickey Mouse just said killed. That's like— That's like the F-word in Disneyland. So that's the funny thing. And I think that's what's going to surprise people is that it's not your corporate nostalgic cash grab shoe commercial. You know, not to say that I hadn't fallen for that when I was a kid, because, I mean, I love those. Before Space Jam, there were 2 very popular Super Bowl commercials that featured Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny.

Of course, you know, this means war.

And That's, you know, it was Air Jordan and Air Jordan. Who'd you expect? Elmer Fudd? But this is like, just like the other movie previous to this, The Day the Earth Blew Up. It just had Porky and Daffy. It just focused in on 2 of the Looney Tunes characters that we know are supposed to be, you know, paired up together. Road Runner and Coyote, like Sylvester and Tweety, or Elmer and Bugs for that matter. A lot of people think, oh yeah, it's Looney Tunes, it's like the Muppets. But the Muppets actually did hang out together. The Muppets actually had a show together. They knew each other's acts, and, you know, they traveled in a van. Looney Tunes never really had—

Right.

like a Bugs Bunny Foghorn cartoon or a Sylvester Taz cartoon. Yeah.

And the thing that I had never contemplated, right, beyond even, like, the universe of Looney Tunes and the way that all these characters might interact with each other, is the centrality of ACME as the corporation.

Yes.

And so, the brilliance of this is in the proposition of a question. And I know This originated with, I believe it was a 1990 New Yorker piece that first framed this up.

Yes. Satirical.

And it's a humor piece, a satire. And I went back and read it and it crystallized just this unbelievably funny premise, which is, what if Wile E. Coyote in the Pacific sued ACME for this pattern of dangerously defective products that he keeps on buying like he's addicted to it despite the catastrophic failures? of said products.

Is there anyone in the whole world who cares what happened to the coyote at all? Yeah, I do.

And it's just like, what would it be like if he hired Will Forte as his attorney? And then we're off and running.

It's all central to, like you said, Coyote versus ACME.

A legal case. A legal case about monopolies.

The funny thing is, is yeah, the entire time, the ACME Corporation, or even the logo, the name on a box is basically— is like a character, you know? Like, it's been there the whole time, not just in the Road Runner and Coyote world, but it's been all over Warner Brothers. For whatever reason, that was like the kind of nameless name brand that exists in this world, and they make—

Awful, awful premise. Well, but this is the thing, is that it's a story about, okay, how do you hold a monopoly in check? What are the traps of consumerism? How can capitalism be regulated? And it's told through the lens of this tiny personal injury firm that's taking on Goliath.

It's like you said, it kind of hearkens back to that Roger Rabbit world where we coexist, with these characters. So, they have to go through real-life court drama sometimes.

Yeah, they need to get witnesses. They gotta convince people to testify. They're gonna show up— spoiler alert— in front of a commission of politicians. There's a question I have, though, about how it must have felt to make a film that is trafficking in this kind of commentary. Only to discover that the film itself is getting eaten by the thing that it's about.

Sure enough, we get the call, and it was just, uh, it's just been a roller coaster ride ever since.

I'll just explain it for people who don't know. I mean, in late 2023, Warner Brothers decides to permanently shelve— that was their decision at the time— they're going to permanently shelve this movie, which was done and was testing really well according to reporting. And the stated reason, Eric, was they wanted to take the tax break rather than distribute it.

Yeah. For me, you know, what do I know? I'm just a cartoon duck. I only know how to get kicked out of studios, not run them.

It's like a case where you might even think they weren't even probably looking at any specific titles. They may have just plugged in a number that worked for the big H&R Block tax document preset thing where you put You put some numbers in, and if it balances you out, then that's it. They might not have even known. And I guess this is the part of show business, and I'm sure you've been a part of this or witnessed to, where projects, especially like the good old days of pilots. Remember when they used to make pilots?

When they wanted to create new things? Yeah!

Pilot season was such a big thing. People would fly in. to audition for stuff, and some of it would get made. Some of it was passed and then put on a shelf, not for tax purposes, but maybe they just acquired it. But in this case, I mean, we're coming on, what, 3 years since you said—

Yeah.

That was like— I remember the last day I worked on this movie was the day before the writers' strike. And then when we found out that we were shelved was the same week that the actors' strike ended. So we had that big, long, hot, sweaty summer where Universal Studios cut down their own trees so we wouldn't have any shade.

Which is literally a thing that happened, by the way.

Striking actors and writers claimed the company was trying to stop them from protesting by removing all the shade amid blazing temperatures. NBCUniversal says the work was routine landscaping.

That is literally a thing that happened to try and deter people from picketing.

Uh, we're doing construction! And then they put fences on the sidewalk, and then we had to walk on the road, and they're like, eh, we're gonna trim the trees! And by trim the trees, I mean completely, like, destroy. It was crazy.

Well, I cannot think of a less romantic reason to do anything than tax reasons. But this is a— it's, it's at this point a trend among studios. I mean, Warner Brothers in 2022 infamously shelved Batgirl due to tax reasons.

Yeah.

And to— for those who don't know, the reason you do that apparently is you avoid further costs. You avoid distribution costs, marketing costs, as you were referring to. You help your quarterly earnings report look better, and then you can write it off. Because it is apparently a thing that did not work for you, even though in the case of this film, CODA vs. ACME, which apparently reportedly cost around $70 million, the budget resulted in the right test scores, resulted in certainly interest. And yeah, there was no explanation other than tax reasons.

Yeah, I mean, it is what it is. And again, I don't— I don't know. And then why they decided to take, you know, Ketchup's offer.

Ketchup Entertainment, which bought the film in the end. Yeah, after immense backlash, by the way.

Our heroes. I've grown so used to seeing the Ketchup Entertainment logo in front of the Warner Brothers logo for my movies now. Thank you, Ketchup. I just touched upon, like, my reaction to being written off for taxes, and then fast forward to when Ketchup acquires it for distribution, you know, I go, is this real? Is this happening? 'Cause we've come to the finish line. Again, just like Coyote, we've come to that finish line, or we almost got him. We almost got the Road Runner, but every time, the bird just slips through the fingers. Exactly.

Well, when you realize the arc, I didn't realize how many years it's been since you worked on it. But I imagine that one of the feelings that you might have is informed by what is, it turns out, a solution posited in the film, as well as one that I have become very inspired by in real life, which is a public reaction. The public demanding something.

Yeah.

I mean, I want to read this tweet that Phil Lord, who's one of the great know, Reddit producers in Hollywood. He made Spider-Verse and all these other things. He had written, quote, is it anti-competitive if one of the biggest movie studios in the world shuns the marketplace in order to use a tax loophole to write off an entire movie so they can more easily merge with one of the other biggest movie studios in the world? Because it seems anti-competitive, end quote.

Yeah.

Referring, of course, to Warner Brothers and Paramount and the merger that is also lingering in the air of the American economy. We wait for the resolution of that. But the idea that people might, again, whether it's on a picket line or whether it's just as consumers, say, this isn't okay, and that might inspire something, that has to— I mean, I wonder if it struck you the way that it appears to me from the outside.

My theory has always been whether we get on the big screen or we stay on a shelf for tax purposes, we will definitely at least be a chapter in some filmmaker's handbook, you know, that has been printed 2023 and beyond. Because it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Because if you know, there was Batgirl and then Scooby-Doo. There was a Scooby-Doo movie.

Right.

Scooby-Doo Holiday Hunt. And it was the sequel to the animated Scoob movie before that. And it was, from what I know, locked picture. And literally, they were dropping the last frame of music to make the score complete. And that's when they got the call. Like, they literally ended their Friday— finishing the score of the film. And that's when they got the call. And then I think our attitude was, no news is good news. And we hung on to that for a long time until we definitely found out it was over and done with. And then they had no choice but to kind of just say, oh, you know what? We're just kidding. We're not writing it off for taxes. We are going to put it up for sale. For $80 million. And non-negotiable. I mean, you put it up for a price that no one can match, then you're basically just saying, this is never going to see the light of day.

I like how you— again, I don't even know if it's ever truly conscious what you do, but I like how your non-negotiable had Trump in it.

Non-negotiable. $80 million. That's chump change where I come from, really. $80 million? Come on. We call that a Tuesday. You know, these Canadians, they're taking all the American jobs. We got to look out. They're very polite people. Very polite. But we got to look out. Snowbacks, I like to call them. Snowbacks. Anyways. Yeah, I mean, yeah, when you can't help but seep in when you talk about logistics and making deals.

It's relevant to the whole thing, frankly. The idea of there's a merger and they're seeking permission and they're trying to create And again, this terrifying atmosphere where if you have enough money, you can do whatever you want.

What I like, though, again, though, is the idea that Ketchup really just stepped up to the plate and saw this opportunity of, you know, it's not just about the Looney Tunes anymore. It's just the art of making movies and film and telling a story and making sure that it follows through in that, like, we're living in a world where a Batman cartoon by Bruce Timm and J.J. Abrams lives on Amazon.com, not, you know, not where it should be.

You know, when I was young, streaming was just where you'd go fishing. You know, you'd take your fishing pole to the stream.

These are my dad jokes, but—

Again, rabbit, you messed it up! You're messing up this interview. No one cares about you. They want to talk about corporate greed. My area, my expertise. Money. I love it.

Why this is so appealing to me is that I fell in love with Looney Tunes as a kid. And in case it's not abundantly obvious, I am Filipino-American. You are Filipino-Canadian.

Filipino-Canadian.

I wonder—

We're an endangered species, by the way.

I mean, and that's— I'm calling for a complete and total shutdown of all Filipino-Canadian businesses until we figure out what's going on. But I'm curious, like, how did the cartoons that we're now talking about for so So long. How did those cartoons fit into your relationship with your parents, maybe?

Oh, man.

Well, my dad was, and still is, like, such a cinephile. He loves movies. He loves Westerns. He loves— you know, he would just tell me when him and his dad in the Philippines growing up would go to the theater and watch cartoons. You know, Popeye, of course, was a huge one, and Mighty Mouse, like, old movies. Looney Tunes. So, his love for film and television and animated shorts kind of brought me into it. And of course, we were introduced— if you were a kid growing up in the '90s, we were introduced to these animated shorts by way of The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show. So, that was the '90s. Renaissance, the '90s resurgence of the Looney Tunes.

That's my childhood. That is my childhood.

Over Chuck Coyton's lights, this is it, we'll hit the heights, and oh, what heights we'll hit! On with the show, this is it! So like, ooh, I ta-da-ta, putty tat! I'm gonna eat that bird if it's the last thing I do! Yeah.

I go in and out of Looney Tunes Tourette's, so it's, uh, it's insane. like how it impacted me as a kid, but not just as a voiceover performer, but as an artist. I was in animation first as a layout artist. I used to draw. I still draw, but not as much as I used to. But yeah, I would record these animated shorts on VHS. Look it up, kids. VHS. But I would pause the VHS cassettes and draw the poses that were on the screen. I would send away for the Chuck Jones Art Gallery sell catalog, and it would have like, like little frames of animated scenes, like from your favorite cartoons. But now they're worth like thousands of dollars. I should have— you know, when I was 10, I should have bought them when I was 10 years old.

You should have known those would be assets. Commodities. It's a monetized label.

Again, you've seen my wall. Don't make me open the shed.

Behind the door is your childhood, it turns out.

Yes. I said, son, when I leave this planet, you're going to have a hell of a garage sale. That's going to be— and I also talk to my son morbidly like that. When I trip, fall, and snap my neck, you're going to have a great Wait, what does your son—

what does your son think of all of this?

Oh, I always say that he's like my little, my little manager at the schoolyard. He's 10 years old, and when he's with his buddies and I'm on my phone like a responsible parent, uh, you know, sitting there, he's like, hey Dad, come over here. And I'm like, yeah? And he's like, do the, do the, do the voice, do the thing.

And I go, what's up, Doc?

And he goes, okay, go away now. Go away. Go away. Yeah. I'm like, wow.

Geez.

Okay, Your Majesty, your peanut butter sandwich is ready. Yeah, uh, he's starting to kind of do, like, do voices, uh, on his own.

Is he good?

One of which, you know, I gotta tell you, he has a really good Eric Cartman, even though he's never watched an episode of South Park. He, he, he wants to watch that show so bad. He goes, Dad, can we watch that show with the 4 little kids? And I was like, I wish I could show you this year, but I can't. I think I want— we started watching that in high school, right? That was our— can't be showing that in high school.

Mr. Hankey. You can't meet Mr. Hankey before you've gone to high school as a general principle, I think.

Looking to get my kid expelled this year.

But the connection with the connective tissue here, like the reason why this stuff matters and the reason why animation still has— again, it was sort of like awakened when I was watching Coyote vs. Acme. It's because it's this thing that has lasted so long that it does multigenerationally resonate. It's rare. It's rare to have this thing that feels like— sports has it, to be very clear. Sports has this in spades.

Oh, absolutely.

But it's an inheritance. It's an heirloom that you pass down to your kids.

I always like to say we're talking about characters that are now entering their 90th year. Daffy turns 90 next year, I think.

Crazy.

And, you know, like you said, we talk about these characters like our oldest relatives at the Thanksgiving dinner table. You know, it's— these are people that we sit across from at dinner and go, oh, God. Either we like them or we can't stand them, but we're stuck with them.

How do you feel about the concept then of what artificial intelligence promises to do to not just how to create animation, how to create quote-unquote art, but also to do what you do, to just make everybody at the tip of their phone have the ability to do voices?

I think right now, presently, I think it only really affects the people that have those iconic voices. Like in the case of, like, James Earl Jones giving his blessing so long as his estate receives royalties, that they could use his likeness and voice as Darth Vader for future Star Wars projects. You know, someone like me, it's not gonna affect my voice. Mel Blanc created Bugs Bunny. Let's not forget, you know, like that.

Right.

If anybody should be getting compensated right now, it should be him, not me. I'm like the 6th person to do Bugs Bunny, not the first one. But then, you know, where do you even start in that situation? You know, his next of kin, I know his son is still alive, and And I don't know if he would— He's very precious and sacred with his father's work, and I don't think he would allow that. And if you're talking about art, still, AI, if you want it to be really fine-tuned, it only can recreate what it's been given, and it hasn't lived that lifetime of having to get up every Saturday morning to watch the Bugs Bunny and Tweety, having to get up early enough to pop in the VHS I mean, I have that. I have, like, endless episodes of Inspector Gadget. I have so many animated series on VHS if anyone's interested in buying them. Uh, I just want them for the commercials, to be honest. But, uh, yeah, the old commercials.

But even that, even just all of the references and the source material you have, like, at some point, AI's gonna try to eat everything, but AI literally has never eaten lumpia. AI is not gonna have that particular background that you bring to this, which is amazing. your own as well as someone else's.

It's because AI knows that lumpia will clog its arteries, and that's not— AI is smart.

Yeah, AI has looked at what hypertension is, and they're like, this seems like something we should evolve— we should evolve past.

Filipino high blood pressure is a different kind of high blood pressure.

It's— It really is. It really is. Look, Eric, at the end here, I could talk to you forever. I think it's pretty clear, but at the end here, I am I'm trying to imagine all of these fandoms that you have, all of these source materials that you consult, all of the humanity and the emotion you bring to this stuff, which is often quite unhinged, let's be honest. You have an unhinged Bugs Bunny.

That's true.

I'm imagining what it'd be like if Bugs or Daffy were asked to weigh in on Kawhi Leonard returning to the Toronto Raptors. Except for perhaps some annoying asshole reporter who keeps on talking about cap circumvention.

Well, I for one am for it. I'm a big fan of the Claw. I mean, I loved him back here at the Clippers, but let's be honest, he, uh, he's a pretty fun guy.

I was trying to do the kawaii laugh, but it came— it came through.

It horrifyingly came through.

Maybe that was AI. I don't know. And I'm sure when he sees me next, he's going to choke— choke slam me through a table.

Eric Bauza, congratulations on finally getting to see your art in movie theaters, out among the people where it belongs. It's been a real pleasure, man, to hang out with you.

Likewise, sir.

And on that note, I'll say, yeah, that's all, folks.

God, you know how to fucking do that. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.