The Voice of Looney Tunes on the Horrors of Corporate Greed

Kawhi Leonard fan Eric Bauza plays Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck AND Elmer Fudd. (Really.) He can become Donald Trump. (Subconsciously, at least.) And he inhabits (at last) Wile E. Coyote in "Coyote vs. Acme" — a film that both is about and is itself the byproduct of extreme capitalism. The Filipino-Canadian voice actor turned Emmy-winning human heirloom chews on what it's like to get caught up in a Warner Bros. merger, the AI race... and a certain Clippers-Raptors trade. Further content: • "Coyote v. Acme" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1990/02/26/coyote-v-acme (The New Yorker) • Previously on PTFO: Will Forte Commits to the Bit https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/OTUzMzMyYmEtODRkZC0xMWYwLWFjNDUtODdjMDRmYWI1ZTA1 • Previously on PTFO: How to Find Your Voice, with Hank Azaria https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/OTUzMTljMTYtODRkZC0xMWYwLWFjNDUtZmI4NWM3ODA4YzI1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

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

• 0:06Speaker 01

  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.

• 0:13Pablo Torre?

  Right after this.

• 0:18Speaker 02

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• 0:45Speaker 03

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• 1:11Pablo Torre?

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• 1:55Pablo Torre?

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• 2:19Pablo Torre?

  Are you in your, are you in your, that's your, at home? Is that work?

• 2:24Speaker 04

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

• 2:43Pablo Torre?

  Oh my god.

• 2:45Speaker 04

  There's, there's a lot. There's a lot. It's like stepping into my, my brain, I guess.

• 2:51Pablo Torre?

  Your brain is-

• 2:52Speaker 04

  That's neither here nor there.

• 2:54Pablo Torre?

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

• 3:02Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Thanks for having us.

• 3:06Speaker 04

  I, when you, all the Looney Tunes-

• 3:08Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna say, when you-

• 3:09Speaker 01

  I mean, I mean, uh, thanks for having us, duck. That's what I was suppo- You moron, you messed it up already.

• 3:33Pablo Torre?

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

• 3:39Speaker 04

  Uh, yes, yes, I am. That's cuz I was, uh, born and raised in Toronto. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, eh?

• 3:47Speaker 05

  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.

• 4:00Speaker 04

  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.

• 4:11Pablo Torre?

  Oh, you guys, Toronto Raptors fans, they would've done anything to keep him in 2019.

• 4:17Speaker 04

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

• 4:25Speaker 06

  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.

• 4:35Speaker 07

  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.

• 4:44Speaker 04

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

• 4:51Pablo Torre?

  I should say that, like, I first reached out to you, I think. Uh, 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.

• 5:23Speaker 01

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

• 5:44Pablo Torre?

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

• 5:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:51Pablo Torre?

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

• 6:00Speaker 04

  As opposed to featured on Fear Factor?

• 6:03Pablo Torre?

  Yes, balut, balut, of course.

• 6:06Speaker 07

  So, did you have a baby duck as a kid? Really? What was the duck's name?

• 6:11Pablo Torre?

  I think it was Sally. I'm so young. Embryonic duck egg is like our introduction to mainstream television.

• 6:20Speaker 07

  If you are gonna throw up, I have a bucket for you.

• 6:23Speaker 04

  Oh, god.

• 6:25Speaker 01

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

• 6:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. You should be careful what we say around these guys.

• 6:34Pablo Torre?

  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 five. How do you explain this in sports terms for our sports audience? Who is on your personal roster?

• 6:51Speaker 04

  Oh, man, the top five, I mean.

• 6:53Speaker 01

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

• 7:00Speaker 04

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

• 7:06Speaker 01

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

• 7:15Speaker 04

  Uh, 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.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  But, uh, I don't know, last, who, who would be last? I don't know, uh, sheesh.

• 7:32Pablo Torre?

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

• 7:37Speaker 01

  I see, I see. The lights are on, but nobody's home, you see? I should've been first. I'm the, uh, I'm the bad guy in Coyote vs. Acme.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, uh, maybe we'll end with, with Foghorn, sure.

• 7:50Pablo Torre?

  You won three Emmy Awards for your voice acting. You've been nominated eight times.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  The last one I lost, and I lost to, uh-

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Daffy Duck lost to Plucky Duck.

• 8:00Pablo Torre?

  That's an injustice.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, you know, it's-

• 8:04Speaker 01

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

• 8:11Speaker 04

  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, previous to that were three Emmys in a row. What, one of, I think the third one, I, uh, I hosted that, uh, ceremony as well, which was insane cuz, you know, I'm telling these Donald Trump jokes in front of the cast of Fraggle Rock. You know, they love, the Fraggles, they Fraggles, they love me down there in the rock. I believe they call it the rock. Uh, the Fraggle Crew was laughing. They were laughing so hard. I was making Putin Putin jokes. That's what I was. Canadians love Putin, right? The french fries, cheese, and gravy?

• 8:56Speaker 04

  Uh, I could have Putin in my mouth all day. Yeah, that's, uh, 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 Fraggles loved it. They were like, oh my gosh.

• 9:09Pablo Torre?

  When you're alone, when you're at home,

• 9:13Pablo Torre?

  do you find yourself talking to yourself as these characters?

• 9:19Speaker 04

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

• 9:39Pablo Torre?

  Oh, man.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  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, I, I only direct you to the restrooms. "The boys' litter box room is 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, uh, they call me. The best part about this, though, was there was a, a movie that he had,

• 10:11Speaker 04

  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.

• 10:40Speaker 04

  He is there for, to pick up the slack. See, here's the thing, I, 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?

• 10:55Pablo Torre?

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

• 11:04Speaker 07

  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.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  Is evil.

• 11:24Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  Also Elmer Fudd, he's not on the top five. Ooh, that waskewy bowser.

• 11:47Pablo Torre?

  You realize, pretty soon into it, like, you know, oh, oh, this is about a lot more than just, you know, uh, Looney Tunes.

• 11:58Speaker 07

  You're looking at the guy who is taking on the biggest corporation in the world. They're suing us for every Acme product.

• 12:07Pablo Torre?

  There is a sense of horror in, in the film because it is about the horrors of capitalism, Eric. It's about the horrors of corporate greed. And, oh yeah. It's, it's the story of the film and then the story of what happened to the film and how it is. It couldn't be more relevant to the interests of this podcast. It, it blew my mind when I realized all of this is, is colliding in one thing. But, but this is, I want to explain to people for, 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.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  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 cells. Like I have original cells 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, the holy grail of, uh, animation cells, which is, uh, you know, um, that scene in Roger Rabbit where Bugs and Mickey are parachuting.

• 13:24Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 13:24Speaker 04

  They're with Eddie Valiant and.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Ew, jumping without a parachute kinda dangerous, ain't it? Yeah, you could, you could get killed.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  When I saw that as a kid, I was like, oh my God, Mickey Mouse just said killed. That's like, uh, 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, uh, not to say that I, I hadn't fallen for that when I was a kid. Cause I mean, I love those, uh, before Space Jam, there were two very popular, uh, Superbowl commercials that featured Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Of course you know this means war.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  And that's, you know, it was.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Eh, Jordan, eh, eh, Jordan.

• 14:15Speaker 04

  Who'd you expect, Elmer Fudd? But this is like, just like the other movie, the previous to this, the, the day the earth blew up. It just had Porky and Daffy. It just focused in on two of the Looney Tunes characters that we know are supposed to be, uh, you know, paired up together, Roadrunner and Coyote, like Sylvester and Tweety, or, 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.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  They, they knew each other's acts and, you know, they, they traveled in a van. Uh, Looney Tunes never really had.

• 15:04Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  Like a Bugs Bunny Foghorn cartoon or Sylvester Taz cartoon.

• 15:10Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, and, and the thing that I had never contemplated, right? Beyond even like the, 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. And so.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 15:27Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  Satirical.

• 15:38Pablo Torre?

  And, and it's a, a humor piece, a satire. And I went back and read it and it, it crystallized just this unbelievably funny premise, which is what if Wile E. Coyote, in specific, 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?

• 16:05Speaker 04

  Is there anyone in the whole world who cares what happens to the Coyote at all?

• 16:12Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 16:22Speaker 04

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

• 16:27Pablo Torre?

  A legal case, a legal case about monopolies.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  The funny thing is, is yeah, the entire time, the Acme Corporation, or even the logo, the name on a box is basically, is, is like a character, you know, like it, it's, it's been there the whole time. Not just in the Roadrunner and Coyote world, but, uh, it's been all, 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 products.

• 17:02Pablo Torre?

  Well, but this is, this is the thing is that it's, 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 like this tiny personal injury firm that's taking on Goliath.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  It's, eh, like you said, it, 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.

• 17:31Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, they need to get witnesses, they gotta convince people to testify, they're gonna show up. Spoiler alert, in front of a, uh, commission of, 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.

• 18:01Speaker 04

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

• 18:17Pablo Torre?

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• 18:50Speaker 06

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• 20:24Pablo Torre?

  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 gonna 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.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  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 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, you know? They they they might not have even known. And I guess that's this is the part of show business. And I'm sure you've been a part of this or witness to where projects, especially like the good old days of Pilots. Remember when they used to make Pilots?

• 21:35Pablo Torre?

  When they wanted to create new things?

• 21:37Speaker 04

  They what? Yeah, pilot season was such a big thing. People would fly in to audition for stuff and some of it would 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, three years since you said?

• 21:59Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 04

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

• 22:25Pablo Torre?

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

• 22:27Speaker 06

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

• 22:38Pablo Torre?

  That is literally a thing that

• 22:39Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:40Pablo Torre?

  that happened to try and deter people from picketing.

• 22:44Speaker 04

  Uh, we're doing construction. And then they 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.

• 23:01Pablo Torre?

  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. And 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, Cody vs. Acme, which apparently reportedly costs around $70 million.

• 23:45Pablo Torre?

  The budget resulted in the right test scores, resulted in certainly interest. And

• 23:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:53Pablo Torre?

  there was no explanation other than tax reasons.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  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?

• 24:10Pablo Torre?

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

• 24:15Speaker 04

  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? Because we've we've we've come to the finish line. Again, just like Coyote, we've come to that finish line. Or we've we almost got him. We almost got the Roadrunner. But every time, the the bird just slips through the fingers.

• 24:52Pablo Torre?

  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. I mean, I want to read this tweet that Phil Lord, who's one of the great 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

• 25:37Pablo Torre?

  with one of the other biggest movie studios in the world? Because it seems anti-competitive." End quote, referring, of course, to Warner Brothers and Paramount and the merger that is also, you know, 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 and that might inspire something that has to. I mean, I wonder if it struck you the way that it it appears to me from the outside.

• 26:14Speaker 04

  My theory has always been whether 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 the straw that broke the camel's back. Because if you if you know, there was Batgirl and then Scooby Doo. There was a Scooby Doo movie.

• 26:40Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 26:40Speaker 04

  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 onto that for a long time

• 27:21Speaker 04

  until we we definitely found out it was over and done with. And then they had no choice but to to kind of just say, oh, you know what? We're just kidding. We're not writing it off for taxes. We're gonna put it up for sale for $80 million. Uh, and, uh, non-negotiable. I mean, you put it up for a price that no one can match, then you're you're basically just saying, this is never gonna see the light of day.

• 27:49Pablo Torre?

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

• 27:58Speaker 04

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

• 28:26Pablo Torre?

  It's 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, again, this terrifying atmosphere where if you have enough money, you can do whatever you want.

• 28:40Speaker 04

  What I like, though, again, though, is 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 the art of making movies and and film and telling the story and making sure that it it follows through. And 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 not where it should be. You know, when I was young, streaming was just where you'd go fishing, you know? You'd you'd take your fishing pole to the stream. These are my dad jokes, but, uh.

• 29:25Speaker 04

  Again, Rabbit, you messed it up. You're messing up the center view. No one cares about you. They wanna talk about corporate greed. My area, my expertise. Money, I love it.

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• 32:41Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  Filipino-Canadian.

• 32:56Pablo Torre?

  I wonder.

• 32:57Speaker 04

  We're an endangered species, by the way.

• 32:58Pablo Torre?

  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 long, how did those cartoons fit into your relationship with your parents, maybe?

• 33:23Speaker 04

  Oh, man. Well, my dad was, and still is, like, such a, like 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 Looney Tunes. So his love for film and television and animated shorts, like, kind of brought me into it. And of course, we were introduced, if you're a kid growing up in the 90s, we were introduced to these

• 34:08Speaker 04

  animated shorts by way of the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show. So that was the 90s renaissance, the 90s resurgence of the Looney Tunes.

• 34:18Pablo Torre?

  That's my childhood. That is my childhood.

• 34:20Speaker 04

  Overchuck, Hoytens 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 thought I saw a ponytail. 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 insane, like, how it impacted me as a kid, but not just as a, as a voice over performer, but as an artist. I was in animation first, as a layout artist. I used to draw. I still draw, but not as, not as much as I used to. But, yeah, I would

• 35:02Speaker 04

  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 sale 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.

• 35:38Pablo Torre?

  You should have known those would be assets, assets, commodities, to monetize later.

• 35:43Speaker 04

  Again, you've seen my wall. Don't make me open this door.

• 35:45Pablo Torre?

  Behind the door is your childhood, it turns out. Yes.

• 35:51Speaker 04

  I said, "Son, when I leave this planet, you're gonna have a hell of a garage sale." That's gonna be... And I also talked to my son morbidly like that. "When I, when I trip, fall, and snap my neck, you're going to have a great garage sale."

• 36:07Pablo Torre?

  Wait, what does your son, what does your son think of all of this?

• 36:11Speaker 04

  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, 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, "Eh, what's up, ya?" And he goes, "Okay, go away now, go away, go away." Yeah, I'm like, "Wow, jeez. Okay, Your Majesty, your peanut butter sandwich is ready." Yeah. He's starting to kind of

• 36:40Speaker 04

  do, like, do voices on his own.

• 36:44Pablo Torre?

  Is he good?

• 36:44Speaker 04

  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 four little kids?" And I was like, "I wish I could show you this year, but I can't." I think I, we started watching that in high school, right? That was our, can't be showing your back.

• 37:07Pablo Torre?

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

• 37:14Speaker 04

  Looking to get my kid expelled this year.

• 37:16Pablo Torre?

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

• 37:48Speaker 04

  I always like to say, we're talking about characters that are now entering their 90th year. Daffy turns 90 next year, I think. And, you know, like you said, we talk about these characters like our oldest relatives at the, 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, or we can't stand them, but we're stuck with them."

• 38:16Pablo Torre?

  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, of their phone have the ability to do voices?

• 38:38Speaker 04

  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 in 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. If anybody should be getting compensated right now, it should be him, not me. I'm, I'm like the sixth 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,

• 39:23Speaker 04

  and I don't know if he would, he's very precious and, you know, sacred with his father's work, and I don't think he would allow that. And if you're talking about art, still, AI, you know, 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. I just want them for the commercials,

• 40:08Speaker 04

  to be honest. But, yeah, the old commercials.

• 40:11Pablo Torre?

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

• 40:28Speaker 04

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

• 40:34Pablo Torre?

  AI has looked up what hypertension is in there, like, this seems like something we should evolve, we should evolve past.

• 40:40Speaker 04

  Filipino high blood pressure is a different kind of high blood pressure. It's...

• 40:44Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 41:10Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 41:11Pablo Torre?

  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 caps convention.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Well, I for one aim 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, he's a pretty fun guy.

• 41:44Speaker 04

  I was trying to do the Kawhi laugh, but it, not as good.

• 41:47Pablo Torre?

  It came, it came through. It horrifyingly came through.

• 41:53Speaker 04

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

• 41:59Pablo Torre?

  Eric Pauza, 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.

• 42:10Speaker 04

  Likewise, sir. And on that note, I'll say, "Yeah, the, the, the, the, that's all, folks."

• 42:16Pablo Torre?

  God, you know how to fucking do that.

• 42:29Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

• 42:35Pablo Torre?

  And I'll talk to you next time.

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