After one of the strangest journeys to the big screen in recent Hollywood history, Coyote vs. Acme has finally arrived — and AccessReel caught up with Eric Bauza, the voice behind some of the most iconic Looney Tunes characters, to talk about the movie that almost disappeared forever.
The live-action/animation comedy sees Wile E. Coyote finally decide that decades of exploding rockets, defective catapults, malfunctioning gadgets and painful encounters with gravity are enough.
His solution? Sue ACME.
Will Forte stars as billboard accident lawyer Kevin Avery, who takes on Wile E.’s case against the corporation, while John Cena plays ACME’s formidable lawyer Buddy Crane.
At the centre of its Looney Tunes world is Emmy-winning voice actor Eric Bauza, who has become one of the modern custodians of characters including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety, Marvin the Martian and more.
AccessReel caught up with Bauza ahead of the film’s Australian cinema release to talk about the extraordinary road Coyote vs. Acme took to audiences, what it was like watching the film when everyone thought it would never be released, and where he’d take the Looney Tunes universe next.
Watch our full interview with Eric Bauza above, or read the conversation below.
“We Called It the Funeral Screening”
ACCESSREEL: Eric, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us. I have to start by saying I loved the movie. I’ve watched it twice now — once through the screener and then again when we hosted a screening the other night. It was genuinely one of the most fun films I’ve watched in a while. It’s got heart and soul as well. When you finally got to sit down and watch the finished film, what was going through your head?
ERIC BAUZA: Well, let me tell you, at that time it was when we thought we were cancelled — when we were written off for taxes.
We called it the “funeral screening.” That’s what it was called, because we thought it was going to be the end.
But then there was that big uproar over that weekend. It was announced that we were written off for taxes on a Friday, then all this commotion happened Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and then we were watching this screening on the Tuesday with a little bit of hope.
But we were also watching the movie for the first time, so it was a very nice experience and somewhat bittersweet. We were kind of dangling by a thread — or dangling by a dynamite wick if we were the Coyote.
And here it is. It’s just this great movie.
It wasn’t an obvious nostalgia grab. It wasn’t like a 90-minute-long shoe commercial with a basketball player in it.
It was just a good story — almost like an exposé into characters that you thought you knew for 77 years, but here’s this other multi-layered onion underneath it all. I think it surprises people in the end.
Finding the Heart in Wile E. Coyote
ACCESSREEL: Will Forte is one of my favourite actors on the planet, so when this was originally announced I was immediately interested. But the story genuinely surprised me.
We’ve all watched Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner for decades, but you never really think about that other side of the story. Without getting into spoilers, you reach a point in this movie where suddenly you’re thinking, “Oh shit — the feels.”
ERIC BAUZA: Exactly.
I’ve had several people come up to me at various screenings. I was in Melbourne for about a week and watched it at two back-to-back screenings at the film festival there.
People genuinely get choked up about this movie, and I love it.
It doesn’t surprise me that these characters can strike a chord that deep with what is, on the surface, just a simple chase story.
Because of the ACME Corporation, this poor Coyote hasn’t had a meal in 77 years!
Why Has Nobody Sued ACME Before?
ACCESSREEL: The premise is so good. For anyone who doesn’t know, Wile E. has finally decided: “Right, I’m suing ACME.”
When you first heard the idea, did you immediately think, “How has nobody thought of this before?”
ERIC BAUZA: Yeah, because if you think about it, the ACME Corporation — whoever they have been for all these years — has always been part of not just Road Runner and Coyote, but Looney Tunes in general.
That name has appeared in every pairing of Looney Tunes you can imagine.
At least once in an Elmer cartoon with Bugs, or Yosemite Sam, or Daffy and Bugs.
They’ve appeared so much that ACME is almost its own character at this point.
What Happens When You Have to Argue With Yourself?
ACCESSREEL: You voice a ridiculous number of Looney Tunes characters. When several of them are in the same scene, are you basically having an argument with yourself?
ERIC BAUZA: Well, I attribute that to being in all sorts of Los Angeles traffic!
When you’re by yourself on the freeway, you have no one else to talk to but yourself.
We record the characters separately, just to make sure the voices remain separate from each other.
The tricky part is trying to remember how you acted against that other character that you’re about to perform.
But I chalk that up to good directing, good writing and my countless hours — perhaps even decades — of couch potatoing and watching Looney Tunes.
At this point, for me, it’s like knowing your oldest relatives. You just know how they would react, or the musicality of the voice that helps viewers ease into the situation.
Because these are situations, lines of dialogue and full scripts that Mel Blanc never read. Nobody has ever read these lines before.
So you’re kind of thinking, “Oh boy, this could go north or this could go south real fast.”
You just have to trust your gut instinct and the people around you. They don’t want you to fail.
When Life Started Imitating the Movie
ACCESSREEL: There’s a strange parallel here. The movie itself is about the little guy taking on this massive corporation — and then the film had its own fight just to reach an audience.
Has everything that happened changed what the movie means to you?
ERIC BAUZA: If anything, the marketing had already been built in for us, so thanks, Warner Brothers!
They kind of did us a favour by taking something away from people who really, really wanted to see it and making them wait a long time, only to bring it to theatres three years later.
Who knows how the movie would have done if it had just gone through the regular process and the machine? I think it would have done well, but it became such a thing.
The same thing happened with the Sonic the Hedgehog movies. The first iteration of Sonic came out and it was terrifying!
People said, “Give him normal eyes. Give him cartoon eyes. Make him look cute.”
And now how many Sonics are we in?
Same thing with Deadpool. That test footage was leaked and people said, “We want that.”
I hope this not only benefits the Looney Tunes, but intrigues an entirely new generation of fans to look for the original stuff and really get to know these characters the way we all grew up watching them.
Audiences Are Still Excited to See Looney Tunes on the Big Screen
ACCESSREEL: At the screening we hosted the other night, we had a real mix in the crowd — older people and younger people — and some of them were just so stoked to see Looney Tunes on a cinema screen.
ERIC BAUZA: Right. In any capacity.
But when it’s done right, and when there are jokes that are teed up almost too perfectly, it’s hard not to laugh.
ACCESSREEL: Everyone actually applauded at the end of our screening. I’ve hosted hundreds of screenings over the years and that does not happen at every movie.
ERIC BAUZA: That’s like a Cannes Film Festival moment!
You give it its respect and its flowers while it’s still here because, again, this was never supposed to be seen by anybody.
Eric Bauza’s Dream Bugs Bunny Movie
ACCESSREEL: You’ve obviously done a lot with these characters, so let’s say you’re handed the keys to the entire Looney Tunes universe tomorrow.
Unlimited budget. Nobody can tell you no.
Which character gets the next movie?
ERIC BAUZA: I would love to have another Bugs Bunny film.
But it’s like The Cannonball Run or It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Almost like a chase movie.
Maybe it starts out like an Elmer cartoon, but it gets even bigger than that. Suddenly Yosemite Sam wants in.
Maybe there’s a bounty on Bugs’ head.
Almost like a John Wick or Quentin Tarantino movie, but Looney Tunes. You never know who’s coming next.
You shoot all these sequences out of order and then they all kind of come together at the end.
Honestly, I think this movie creates a bridge towards something for maybe a PG-13 audience.
Looney Tunes have always been a little tongue-in-cheek, breaking the fourth wall and maybe a bit more meta. They recognise that they’re stars on a movie set on the Warner Brothers lot.
Maybe that’s where it begins.
It could almost be like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Someone’s chasing after something.
ACCESSREEL: I like that premise. Maybe you need to pitch it, mate.
ERIC BAUZA: Well, hey, you never know.
If you can write a good script, let’s go. Let’s take it on the road.
Which Looney Tunes Voice Is the Hardest?
ACCESSREEL: A couple of quick ones to wrap up. Of all the characters you do, which voice is actually the hardest to perform properly? Which one takes some effort?
ERIC BAUZA: Oddly enough, Marvin the Martian isn’t that lovely.
It is a weird, froggy kind of voice and it’s hard to keep that up for four hours — or four Earth hours. That’s about 12 Martian hours!
That’s a taxing voice.
Tweety as well, because they still have to pitch this up even higher. I’m already doing a self-pitch.
I believe for Tweety, Mel Blanc was almost in the Bugs Bunny register.
So if Bugs is around here, all you have to do is drop the New York accent and start talking like a baby, and that’s Tweety Bird.
Then they pitch it up, kind of like they do with Trey Parker’s voice on South Park.
With a movie that once appeared destined never to reach an audience, Bauza clearly isn’t taking Coyote vs. Acme finally arriving on cinema screens for granted.
And judging by the reaction at our own AccessReel screening — including that rare round of applause as the credits rolled — audiences may be just as happy to finally have it.
ACCESSREEL: Thanks very much for talking to us. I hope the Australian release goes extremely well. It’s perfectly timed with the school holidays, and the people who saw it with us absolutely loved it. Hopefully we get to see plenty more.
ERIC BAUZA: Yeah — that’s all, folks!
Coyote vs. Acme is now showing in Australian cinemas.
Watch the full AccessReel video interview with Eric Bauza above.
