Jeff Bergman must have been feeling loony when he showed up unannounced at Mel Blanc’s hotel door.
It was late March 1981, and Bergman was a University of Pittsburgh junior with dreams of becoming a professional voiceover artist. So when he found out Blanc, the original voice of Bugs Bunny and many other “Looney Tunes” characters, was performing at David Lawrence Hall, he jumped at the opportunity to attend.
He somehow found out where Blanc was staying and “something compelled me” to knock on his door at 10 p.m. A voice that sounded vaguely like Barney Rubble from “The Flintstones” (who Blanc also voiced) came from behind the door, and Blanc came out in his bath robe. After Bergman explained he was a fan who had just seen his lecture, Blanc asked, “Are you Jewish or Italian?” Bergman said he was Jewish, and that was enough for Blanc to invite him in for a chat.
“That really was a watershed moment for me,” Bergman told the Post-Gazette. “That changed the whole trajectory of my life, that one 45-minute meeting with him.”
Blanc died on July 10, 1989, which happened to be Bergman’s 29th birthday. Three weeks later, Bergman auditioned for CBS’s “Tiny Toon Adventures” and after securing that gig, he took over the role of Bugs Bunny from Blanc. He’s been Bugs’ primary vocal actor ever since and will be voicing that wascally wabbit, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester the cat, Fred Flintstone and Yogi Bear in “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” out Friday in theaters and on HBO Max.
“When it became apparent two years ago that it was going to happen, I was so excited,” Bergman said of the sequel to 1996’s “Space Jam.” “I was like the horse that wanted to race. ... When I found out I would be Bugs, I was speechless. If you hang in there long enough and be persistent, good things will happen for you.”
The 61-year-old Philadelphia native cut his voice-acting chops at Pitt, where he earned a degree in speech and rhetorical communication. After nixing the idea of going into stage acting, Bergman got involved with Pitt’s radio station and landed internships at KQV and WDVE. While at WDVE, someone overheard him recording voices and said, “You should be performing!” Soon Bergman was writing and recording commercial spots for WDVE.
As a kid, Bergman was always “excited by anything I saw that was animated.” He remembers snuggling up with chocolate milk and cheese doodles to watch Saturday morning cartoons and having his mind blown when Bugs Bunny popped up in a Kool-Aid commercial.
Bergman also enjoys basketball and supporting his hometown 76ers, although “I would’ve been a Pittsburgh basketball fan if we had a team.”
Because he was in his 30s, he didn’t develop the same attachment to “Space Jam” as kids of the mid-’90s. That said, it did happen to intersect with two of his greatest interests.
“I think it was so new and not that many years after ‘[Who Framed] Roger Rabbit,’” he said. “To see live action and animation was extremely cool. And to see Michael Jordan as an actor in a movie was just crazy.”
After years of rumors followed by a lengthy casting process, Bergman got word in March 2020 that he would be playing Bugs in the “Space Jam” sequel. He met with director Malcolm D. Lee, but then the COVID-19 pandemic shut down in-person production and required everyone involved with “Space Jam: A New Legacy” to “put our technical big-boy pants on,” as Bergman put it. He estimated that 95% of his vocals were recorded remotely.
Not that Bergman needs anyone around to get into character. During his Zoom interview, he seamlessly slipped from Bugs Bunny’s cadence to having a full conversation between Sylvester and his feline son in their own respective voices. He even threw in a “yabba dabba doo!” in Fred Flintstone’s voice and Yogi’s catchphrase, “I’m smarter than the average bear.”
Bergman recently got to see a screening of “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” his first time in a movie theater since February 2020. He said his “head almost exploded” watching the transitions from 2D animation to 3D basketball action that included at least one representative from just about every intellectual property owned by Warner Bros. Any trepidation he felt about fans of the original embracing this new “Space Jam” immediately evaporated.
He was most impressed by star LeBron James, who he said “really gets into it” as an actor.
“This is a story about a father and a son,” he said. “There is a real element of empowerment and knowing you have to stand in your own power and own this and be passionate about what you want to do.”
All these years after that influential talk with Blanc in Oakland, Bergman still credits Pittsburgh for setting him on a path that led him to Bugs and “Space Jam: A New Legacy.”
“I just want to say thank you to everyone in Pittsburgh for the help you gave me starting my career. I love you all,” he said, adding in Bugs Bunny’s voice, “And that’s all folks! See you at the movies!”
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jaxelburgh.
First Published: July 15, 2021, 1:50 p.m.
Updated: July 15, 2021, 2:26 p.m.