Jeff Bergman
Jeffrey Allen Bergman (born July 10, 1960)[1][2] is an American voice actor, comedian and impressionist who has provided the modern-day voices of various classic cartoon characters, most notably with Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera characters. Bergman was the first to replace Mel Blanc as the voice of Bugs Bunny and several other Warner Bros. cartoon characters following Blanc's death in 1989. Bergman alternated with Joe Alaskey and Greg Burson before their respective deaths, and with Eric Bauza, in voicing several of Blanc's characters for various Warner Bros. Animation productions.
Jeff Bergman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Jeffrey Allen Bergman July 10, 1960 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Pittsburgh |
| Occupation |
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| Years active | 1986–present |
Notable credit(s) | Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Fred Flintstone George Jetson Yogi Bear Huckleberry Hound Cartoon Trump |
| Children | 2 |
Early life
Bergman was born in Philadelphia on July 10, 1960. Throughout his early childhood, he impersonated several celebrities and cartoon characters, his first impression being comic influence Ed Sullivan at the age of 6. At the age of 15, Bergman began doing impressions of various Looney Tunes characters. He studied theater and communications at the University of Pittsburgh where he first did voice work when he got involved with a student-run radio station and interned at KQV and WDVE radio stations in Pittsburgh.[3][2] While there, he made his first demo reel and was profiled in a story on KDKA-TV's Evening Magazine. The story was picked up on similar TV news magazines shows and helped land him his representation with William Morris Agency following his graduation from Pitt in 1983. During his time at Pitt, he encountered voice actor and comedian Mel Blanc, who was best known for voicing groundbreaking animated characters, such as Bugs Bunny, Tweety, and Barney Rubble. They met in Blanc's hotel room in 1981, where Bergman voiced Blanc's characters for him, earning himself a 45-minute session. Bergman credits Blanc with helping him gain his diploma two years later.[3][2]
Career
Bergman voiced the Pillsbury Doughboy following Paul Frees' death in 1986 to 2013. Bergman's work with Warner Bros. began in 1986, recording voices for The Bugs Bunny Show. After being rebuffed several times by Warner Bros. directors, he recorded a tape of himself as several of Blanc's characters, including Bugs Bunny. He took the tape to the production company and used a switch to toggle back and forth between his work and the original Mel Blanc recording. The producers were unable to tell the difference between the voices, and Bergman, at the age of 29, became the first performer to provide the voice of Bugs Bunny after Mel Blanc died on July 10, 1989 – Bergman's 29th birthday.[2]
His first performance as Bugs Bunny, as well as those of Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd, was in the 1990 animated short Box-Office Bunny, Bugs's first in over 25 years. Bergman later voiced Bugs and Daffy again in the 1990 TV specials Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue and The Earth Day Special (also voicing Tweety Bird and Porky Pig in the latter). He voiced Bugs, Daffy, Elmer and Yosemite Sam in the 1991 short (Blooper) Bunny, as well as several characters (including Sylvester the Cat and Foghorn Leghorn) in animated TV specials and newer animated series' such as Taz-Mania, Tiny Toon Adventures and The Plucky Duck Show. He also lent his voice to Bugs, Daffy and Porky in the animated sequences of Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
Outside of Looney Tunes, Bergman also voiced George Jetson in the theme park attraction The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera. Bergman later conceded that he had begun promoting himself as the new official voice of the Looney Tunes characters. Warner Bros. took exception to this and, to avoid repeating the stranglehold of Mel Blanc's exclusivity,[4] began using other voice actors such as Joe Alaskey (who was the first person to replace Blanc as the voice of Yosemite Sam in Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988), Greg Burson and Billy West.
Throughout the 2000s, Bergman kept himself busy by voicing various Hanna-Barbera characters, namely Fred Flintstone, in newer specials such as The Flintstones: On the Rocks, only rarely returning to the voices of the Looney Tunes in times when Alaskey and West were not available. In 2003, he voiced Bugs in a sketch on the NBC comedy show Saturday Night Live. Eventually, after almost 20 years, and after sporadically appearing as the Looney Tunes characters for nearly two decades, he returned as the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Sylvester the Cat, Pepé Le Pew and Tweety in 2011's The Looney Tunes Show. He also returned for the 2015 series New Looney Tunes, voicing Bugs, Foghorn, Sylvester and Elmer Fudd, as well as other minor characters such as Michigan J. Frog. He also voices some characters in Looney Tunes Cartoons; Eric Bauza voices Bugs and Daffy for that series, with Bergman handling Foghorn, Sylvester and Elmer Fudd.
Bergman also voiced George Jetson and Mr. Spacely in Jetsons: The Movie when their previous voice actors George O'Hanlon and Mel Blanc both died during production – he had been working at his local radio in Pennsylvania when he received the call to travel to California and complete the dialogue. Bergman is a recurring cast member on Family Guy, usually voicing Fred Flintstone and Sylvester the Cat, as well as The Cleveland Show and American Dad!. He also gave a voice sample for a character in the 2011 Spyro game, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure.
From 2000 until 2015, Bergman was also the voice of Turner Broadcasting's Boomerang.
Bergman had a recurring role as a radio intern Gus Kahana on the AMC comedy-drama Remember WENN, which aired in the late 1990s.[3] He also voiced Zap in Skylanders: Giants, Skylanders: Swap Force, Skylanders: Trap Team, Skylanders: SuperChargers, and Skylanders: Imaginators.
Filmography
Film
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue | Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck | TV short, first to voice after Blanc's death |
| The Earth Day Special | Bugs Bunny Tweety Porky Pig | ||
| 1990–1991 | Tiny Toon Adventures | Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Foghorn Leghorn Elmer Fudd Tasmanian Devil Yosemite Sam Sylvester Tweety Additional voices | |
| 1991 | Bugs Bunny's Lunar Tunes | Bugs Bunny | TV short |
| Bugs Bunny's Overtures to Disaster | Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Porky Pig Elmer Fudd Yosemite Sam Sylvester Papa Bear Mr. Meek | TV short | |
| 1992 | Bugs Bunny's Creature Features | Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Elmer Fudd Yosemite Sam | |
| The Plucky Duck Show | Foghorn Leghorn Daffy Duck | Episodes: "A Quack in the Quarks" "A Ditch in Time" "Slugfest/Duck Dodgers Jr./Duck Trek" | |
| 1995–2000 | Ace Ventura: Pet Detective | Additional voices | |
| 1996–1999 | Doug | Coach Spitz | |
| 2001 | The Flintstones: On the Rocks | Fred Flintstone Parking Guard Vendor | TV movie |
| The Jetsons: Father & Son Day | George Jetson Elroy Jetson Mr. Cosmo Spacely | ||
| 2002 | Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law | George Jetson Bakov Clown | Episode: "Shaggy Busted" |
| The Jetsons: The Best Son | George Jetson Elroy Jetson Robot Boy | ||
| 2003 | Saturday Night Live | Bugs Bunny Viet Cong Propaganda Skunk Grape Ape | Episode: "Queen Latifah/Ms. Dynamite" |
| Cartoon Network's Funniest Bloopers and Other Embarrassing Moments | Porky Pig Fred Flintstone Barney Rubble George Jetson Foghorn Leghorn Barnyard Dawg Henery Hawk | TV short | |
| 2004 | Johnny Bravo | Fred Flintstone | Episode: "Wilderness Protection Program/A Page Right Out of History" |
| 2005 | Being Ian | Additional Voices | Episode: "The Kelleys" |
| 2006–present | Family Guy | Fred Flintstone Sylvester the Cat Max Weinstein Victor Homer Simpson | |
| 2007 | Totally Spies! | Dr. Seth Douglass | 34 episodes |
| 2008, 2009 | Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy | Host Fred Flintstone | Episodes: "A Dog on the $25,000 Pyramid" "Fred and Barney Try to Get Into a Club" |
| 2010 | The Cleveland Show | Alda-nator Garrison Keillor | Episodes: "Love Rollercoaster" "Buried Pleasure" |
| 2011–2014 | The Looney Tunes Show | Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Sylvester Tweety Foghorn Leghorn Pepé Le Pew Girardi | |
| 2012 | Cartoon Network 20th Anniversary | Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck | |
| 2013–present | Teen Titans Go! | Tucker X, Ace Mulligan, Larry Burgess, Head of Gay Conspiracy, Horace Tutt, Jr. | 45 episodes |
| 2013 | Mad | Daffy Duck Elmer Fudd James P. Sullivan Dan Schneider | Episodes: "First White House Down/McDuck Dynasty" "Iron Bland 3/Monsters Community" "World War ZZZ/SHAZAM! & Cat" |
| 2014 | Rick and Morty | Additional voices | Episode: "Rixty Minutes" |
| Phineas and Ferb | Additional voices | Episode: "The Klimpaloon Ultimatum" | |
| Mike Tyson Mysteries | Elton John (Episode 3) Elon Musk (Episode 3) Robert Redford (Episode 4) The Phantasm (Episode 39) | Voice | |
| 2015–2020 | New Looney Tunes | Bugs Bunny Sylvester Foghorn Leghorn Elmer Fudd Michigan J. Frog Boyd (Season 2) | Voice[6] |
| 2016 | Uncle Grandpa | Bugs Bunny | Episode: "Pizza Eve" |
| American Dad | Additional voices | Episode: "Next of Pin" | |
| 2017 | Comrade Detective | Graffiti Cop #1 (voice) | Episode: "Bread Is Bread" |
| 2017 | Chuck's Choice | G'Dook, G'nooki | Main role; Episode: "The Good, The Bad and The UD" |
| 2017 | True and the Rainbow Kingdom | Robot Maximus | |
| 2018 | We Bare Bears | Narrator | Episode: "El Oso" |
| 2018–2020 | Our Cartoon President | Donald Trump Lou Dobbs Joe Biden Bill de Blasio John F. Kennedy | voice |
| 2019 | Amphibia | Jonah Additional voices | Episode: "Cracking Mrs. Croaker" |
| 2019 | The Loud House | Additional Voices | Episode: "Friended! with the Casagrandes" |
| 2020 | Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs | Fred Flinstone | Voice |
| 2020–present | Looney Tunes Cartoons | Sylvester Elmer Fudd Foghorn Leghorn Ralph Wolf | Voice |
| 2020–present | Rusty Rivets | Frankford | |
| 2020 | Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous | Mr. DNA | Voice |
| 2021 | Jellystone! | Yogi Bear Ranger Smith Huckleberry Hound Snagglepuss Wally Gator Mr. Jinks Mildew Wolf | Voice |
Video games
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure | Zap | |
| 2012 | The Expendables 2 Videogame | Barney Ross | |
| 2012 | Skylanders: Giants | Zap | |
| 2013 | Skylanders: Swap Force | Zap | |
| 2014 | Scooby-Doo and Looney Tunes: Cartoon Universe | Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Foghorn Leghorn Sylvester | |
| Skylanders: Trap Team | Zap | ||
| 2015 | Skylanders: SuperChargers | Zap | [7] |
| 2016 | Skylanders: Imaginators | Zap | |
| 2018 | Lego The Incredibles | Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible | |
| 2020 | Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War | Ronald Reagan |
References
- "Jeff Bergman," Behind the Voice Actors
- "Episode: 9: Jeff Bergman interview (Bugs Bunny / Daffy Duck in The Looney Tunes Show)". podfanatic. 2013-01-31. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
- Owen, Rob (2011-05-01). "Pitt grad voices Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck on Cartoon Network". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh, PA. Retrieved 2011-05-01.
- That's Still Not All Folks! 2009, by Joe Alaskey, page 96 ISBN 978-1593931124
- The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age SmackDown! Closing Credits
- "Buddha Bugs/Now and Zen". Wabbit. Season 1. Episode 1. September 21, 2015. Cartoon Network.
- Vicarious Visions. Skylanders: SuperChargers. Activision. Scene: Closing credits, 7:13 in, Voice Actors.
External links
- Jeff Bergman at IMDb
- Jeff Bergman at Voice Chasers
- "Jeff Bergman - TV.com". TV.com.
- "Jeff Bergman Credits". TV Guide.
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