Eric Bauza will make his debut on The Simpsons on November 15, three weeks after his death at 46. The voice actor recorded two characters for the episode “Dream Scenari-Moe,” which airs that night on Fox: restaurateur Mr. Fong and newspaper editor Harry Metsali.
The Simpsons was one iconic show that had eluded Bauza until this year. Cesar Mazariegos, a co-executive producer on the series and co-showrunner of the episode, told Variety the writers reached out to him to play “two New-Yorky characters,” and that he recorded across two sessions.
“He Knocked It Out Of The Park”
Mazariegos described a session that sounds a lot like the Bauza his colleagues have been remembering all week. “He seamlessly dipped in and out of dozens of voices, both to give us options and just hilariously riffing while off-mic,” he said. Bauza also signed the show’s Wall of Fame and drew a Bugs Bunny on it, which is how the team learned he had started out as an animator.
“He was so funny, kind, creative and just immensely talented,” Mazariegos said, adding that Bauza “kept saying that he felt like the luckiest guy in the world.” The team had run into him at the Creative Arts Emmys in September, and executive producer Matt Selman had seen him at another event only the week before his death.
“He was absolutely someone we were excited to have come in again and again, and then we heard the news. It was such a shock,” Mazariegos said. “His passing just checks off so many boxes that make this such a devastating loss. To his young family, to a generation of animation fans, to an industry that’s being hobbled by greed and AI.”
A Disney Voice To The End
Bauza died on Sunday, October 25. His family announced the news on Instagram that day without giving a cause, and Variety now reports that his death was the result of hypertensive cardiovascular disease.
For many viewers he will always be the modern Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, but his Disney résumé ran just as deep. He voiced Fozzie Bear in Disney Junior’s Muppet Babies, the Beagle Boys in the 2017 DuckTales, Reggie in Kiff, and Harry, Sniff and Lloyd in Pupstruction, along with Marvel roles like the Sentinels in X-Men ’97. We looked back at that career when Bauza died at 46.
The Simpsons is produced by Disney’s 20th Television Animation, which makes “Dream Scenari-Moe” one more Disney credit on a list that already stretched across preschool shows and Marvel series. For fans, it will also be one of the last new performances they get to hear from him.
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