Bugs Bunny - Voice Actors

Voice Actors

The following are the many voice actors who have voiced the character Bugs Bunny over the last seventy-two years:

Mel Blanc

Mel Blanc voiced the character for 49 years, from Bugs' 1940 debut in A Wild Hare until Blanc's death in 1989. Blanc described the voice as a combination of Bronx and Brooklyn accents; however, Tex Avery claimed that he asked Blanc to give the character not a New York accent per se, but a voice like that of actor Frank McHugh, who frequently appeared in supporting roles in the 1930s and whose voice might be described as New York Irish. In Bugs' second cartoon Elmer's Pet Rabbit, Blanc created a completely new voice for Bugs, which sounded like a Jimmy Stewart impression, but the directors decided the previous voice was better. Though his best-known character was the carrot-chomping rabbit, munching on the carrots interrupted the dialogue. Various substitutes, such as celery, were tried, but none of them sounded like a carrot. So for the sake of expedience, he would munch and then spit the carrot bits into a spittoon rather than swallowing them, and continue with the dialogue. One often-repeated story, possibly originating from Bugs Bunny: Superstar, is that Blanc was allergic to carrots and had to spit them out to minimize any allergic reaction — but his autobiography makes no such claim. In fact, in a 1984 interview with Tim Lawson, co-author of The Magic Behind The Voices: A Who's Who of Cartoon Voice Actors (University Press of Mississippi, 2004), Blanc emphatically denied being allergic to carrots.

Jeff Bergman

Jeff Bergman was the first to voice Bugs Bunny (and several other Looney Tunes characters) after Mel Blanc died in 1989. He got the job by impressing Warner Bros. higher-ups with a tape of himself re-creating the voices of several of Blanc's characters, including Bugs. He had rigged the tape player so that he could use a switch to instantly toggle back and forth between the original recording of Blanc and Bergman's recording of the same lines. Upon doing this, it was almost impossible for the producers to tell which voice was Blanc's and which voice was Bergman; thus his vocal ability was established and his career launched. Bergman first voiced Bugs in the television special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue and the first season of Tiny Toon Adventures. He also voiced Bugs in the 1990s Looney Tunes shorts Box Office Bunny, (Blooper) Bunny, and Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers. In 2011, Bergman returned to voice Bugs after an almost 20-year absence for Cartoon Network's The Looney Tunes Show. However, his voice for Bugs in The Looney Tunes Show is slightly different from when he first voiced the character.

Greg Burson

Greg Burson first voiced Bugs Bunny in later episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures. He was then given the responsibility of voicing Bugs in 1995's Carrotblanca, a well-received Looney Tunes short originally shown in cinemas alongside The Amazing Panda Adventure (U.S.) and The Pebble and the Penguin (non-U.S.); it has since been released on video packaged with older Looney Tunes cartoons and was even included in the special edition DVD release of Casablanca, of which it is both a parody and an homage. Burson next voiced Bugs in the 1996 short From Hare to Eternity; the short is notable for being dedicated to the deceased Friz Freleng, and for being the final Looney Tunes cartoon that Chuck Jones directed. Burson also voiced Bugs for his cameos on Animaniacs, as well as in The Bugs and Daffy Show, which ran on Cartoon Network and The WB during the 1990s. He died in 2008.

Billy West

Billy West has been in television since the late 1980s. His first role was for the 1988 revived version of Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil. West's breakthrough role then came almost immediately, as the voice of Stimpy and later Ren in John Kricfalusi's Ren & Stimpy. West has since been the voice talent for close to 120 different characters, including some of the most iconic animated figures in television history. Perhaps West's most notable film work came in the 1996 film Space Jam. Starring alongside Michael Jordan, West provided the voice of both Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. West would go on to reprise the role of Bugs in subsequent Looney Tunes productions, including his cameos on Histeria!, the Kids' WB! promotional spots, the 2006 Christmas-themed special Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas and the DVD compilations "Reality Check" and "Stranger Than Fiction", along with several Looney Tunes-centric CDs and video games. He also made a cameo appearance on Kid vs. Kat.

Joe Alaskey

Joe Alaskey, like Jeff Bergman, is well-known for his ability to successfully impersonate many Looney Tunes characters. In fact, Alaskey voiced Yosemite Sam and Foghorn Leghorn in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as original voice actor Mel Blanc had found it too hard on his vocal cords (which makes Sam and Foghorn two of the few voices created by Blanc to be voiced by someone else during his lifetime). Alaskey's first major performance as Bugs Bunny came in the 2003 film Looney Tunes: Back in Action, although he had tested performing the role in a few earlier projects, such as Tweety's High-Flying Adventure. While still best known for providing the voice of Daffy Duck, Alaskey has also gone on to do Bugs' voice in several subsequent Looney Tunes productions, including Daffy Duck for President (which was dedicated to the deceased Chuck Jones) and Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas, as well as several video games (concurrent with Billy West).

Samuel Vincent

Samuel Vincent served as the voice of Bugs in the Cartoon Network TV series Baby Looney Tunes.

Noel Blanc

Noel Blanc, Mel Blanc's son, voiced Bugs for the Tiny Toon Adventures special It's a Wonderful Tiny Toon Christmas Special. The elder Blanc claimed in his later years that Noel substituted for Mel in various cartoon studios, including doing Bugs at Warner Bros., while he was recovering from a near-fatal car wreck. Noel can also be seen doing Bugs' voice with his father in the documentary on the making of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.