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Lon Chaney might have been The Man of a Thousand Faces, but master mimic and voice actor Jeff Bergman has been of of the busiest and most reliable actors working in the animation business for the past three decades, having inherited many iconic roles after the death of The Man with a Thousand Voices, Mel Blanc.
Though his name is probably not instantly recognizable, his brilliant cartoon characterizations have graced the animation industry for nearly 35 years as the mouth of Warner Bros.’ toon favorites like Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd and countless others in the vast Looney Tunes stable. In addition to his TV work, including vocal roles for Hanna-Barbera characters and providing the intro to Boomerang’s block of vintage cartoons, the Philadelphia-born actor also worked on 2021’s Space Jam sequel starring LeBron James.
Beginning with the passing of the legendary Mel Blanc in 1989, Bergman eased into his dream gig doing vocal work for Warner Bros. with the blessings of Blanc’s son, Noel Blanc, who was bowled over by Bergman’s uncanny sonic similarities to his legendary father. Recapturing their cartoon youth is something many fans are forever longing for, and Bergman is only too happy to aid in that joyous endeavor with his roster of zany cartoon verbalizations.
As Cartoon Network’s Tiny Toons Looniversity premieres on Saturday, September 9 with Bergman reprising Bugs Bunny as a prankish professor, Animation Magazine caught up with the ebullient performer to discuss his prolific career breathing personality into some of the most beloved animated characters of all time. We also learned about a new project Bergman is developing called Looney Legends in Conversation, which hopes to offer up tales of Mel Blanc’s Hollywood life and his Big Bear Lake cabin that was a focal point for iconic celebrities like Elvis, Lucille Ball and Roy Rogers.
Mel Blanc first introduced the world to Bugs Bunny back in 1940 and provided his voice for almost 50 years. Bugs and his unyielding resourcefulness, confidence and disdain for authority represents an optimistic model of American spirit and ingenuity that remains relevant today.
“I love Bugs and all his qualities, but it’s who he’s paired with,” Bergman tells Animation Magazine. “If he’s paired with Yosemite Sam or Elmer Fudd or Daffy Duck, they’re the boneheads, they’re the fall guys. Bugs always comes out on top. There were a couple of episodes with Wile E. Coyote. Now, that was interesting, because Wile E. Coyote is trying to get the better of Bugs, but Bugs still comes out on top. Chuck Jones once said, ‘We all aspire to be Bugs Bunny, but Daffy is ultimately who we are.’ Bugs is an alpha character and so is Daffy, but Bugs is the winner. He’s fun — but also like Tweety a little bit, kind of devious at the same time.”
The secret recipe for Bugs Bunny’s signature shtick requires a certain ear for language to create that wisecracking hare’s brainy delivery and sarcastic intonations.
“Without getting too ethnic, there’s a haimish quality to it, a Lower East Side Jewishness,” Bergman notes. “One journalist said to me, ‘Jeff, don’t you think the Disney characters are Christian and the Warner Bros. characters are Jewish?’ I think there’s a little truth to that. There’s a certain grittiness with that New York accent that somehow transcends time.”
In accepting the honorary mantle by taking over for Blanc, there were obvious apprehensions and pressures to carry on that half-century of audible handiwork, a harrowing situation that Bergman describes as being thrown into a pool without any water.
“I think in one of my first sessions after Mel had passed, I’m working with Chuck Jones, the man who created Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner and reinvented Daffy Duck. I walk in for a three-minute title sequence for Gremlins 2 and he’s got a stack of storyboards. He described in detail every single storyboard and exactly how he wanted the lines read. What I learned from him is his keen understanding of the antagonist and protagonist. It’s certainly in shorts like What’s Opera, Doc? and Show Biz Bugs. Chuck was so smart and intellectual when it came to those characters.”
When pressed to reveal which Warner Bros. cartoon superstars are his favorites to enliven, Bergman struggles to name one in particular.
“I think because Mel Blanc created them all, they’re all so much fun,” Bergman says. “But I would say Bugs, Daffy, Foghorn, Sam and Sylvester, because there’s so much of Mel in those characters. There’s bravado, vulnerability, sweetness — and they’re mischievous. And I think he was a lot like that and I could sense it when I met him. He was a real jokester.”
Classic Warner Bros. cartoons of the ’40s and ’50s were made for mature audiences, screened before the main attraction at theaters alongside a newsreel and shorts. Due in part to their sophistication, these iconic Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes films still hold up decades later.
“I think there’s a darkness to them, a noir feeling,” adds Bergman. “It’s the opposite of corny, and corny doesn’t always hold up. They were for adults with their intellectual humor. That’s why as a child I resonated more with Hanna-Barbera — Huck and Yogi and Quick Draw and Wally Gator. I liked Huckleberry Hound because I had a cousin who sounded like that who lived in Tennessee. Once I got to be 16 or 18, I maneuvered to Looney Tunes because it had a different sensibility.”
Looney Legends in Conversation is a special project Bergman and Noel Blanc are currently collaborating on to resurrect stories of Mel Blanc’s colorful life and legacy.
“33 years later we reconnected after I won a Blanc Communications bomber jacket that Mel had made for Kirk Douglas at a Mel Blanc auction at Julien’s,” Bergman recalls. “Noel and I started having conversations and became more and more friendly. I pitched him an idea about, what if he and I sat down and started to talk about all the things that had to do with Mel, what voices were sped up, the recording sessions and what it was like for him? He was totally game for it. So I talked to a producer colleague of mine in the U.K. and he helped create Looney Legends in Conversation, where it was a sit-down with Noel and I talking about the industry.
“We went out to Big Bear to the cabin and guest house that Mel had built in 1945. People like Lucille Ball and George Burns and Jack Benny would come up to get away from the glamour of Hollywood. My wife and I went up there, and we’re on the porch where Roy Rogers and Elvis Presley all sat, and you could feel this electricity. It was crazy. The cabin is like a museum.”
Bergman and Blanc hope the proposed project can evolve into a series of interviews centered around happenings at Mel’s Big Bear cabin because it became a place of refuge for celebrities.
“There’s so much history and memorabilia from Mel’s life there. Everything from working with June Foray to Joe Barbera to Al Jolson to Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart. Noel lived on Rodeo Drive across the street from Gene Kelly in a house owned by Bobby Darin. We could just ride around in a limo together and do the Hollywood tour, too. I’ll do the voices while he tells all the history. He’s got a story for everything. There’s so many interesting ways we could go with it.”
And just as that sweet stuttering swine Porky Pig loves to exclaim, “That’s All Folks!”
Tiny Toons Looniversity premieres Saturday, September 9 at 9 a.m. ET/PT on Cartoon Network. All 10 episodes of the first season will be available on Max beginning September 8. The first full episode is available now on YouTube (watch it below).
Don’t miss the November ’23 issue of Animation Magazine, where you can read all about bringing back the Looney Tunes kids for a new generation of fans.
