One Banana. Two Banana, Three Banana, Gore! Fleagle, Drooper, Bingo, and Snorky, the beloved children’s television hosts from Hannna Barbera’s 1968 saturday morning variety show The Banana Splits Adventure Hour are back to bring you some , gore filled, nightmare fuel in The Banana Splits Movie. SyFy, with Blue Ribbon Content and Warner Bros. Home entertainment, offers us the tale of animatronic musicians from a children’s show who take extreme measures to make sure that the show goes on forever, no matter what the body count. Last month, while on assignment from Bleeding Cool at San Diego Comic Con 2019, the voice of all the Banana Splits- Eric Bauza joins me to spill the blood, I mean beans.
The jovial Eric Bauza(The Looney Tunes Show, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ), voice of all the Banana Splits, is a true joy to interview. Each answer contains a different character’s voice and sometimes it is hard to keep up. The Toronto born Bauza got his start playing dimwitted Stimpy on Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon and has now worked his way up to the official voice of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and is even rumored to be the new voice of Oswald The Lucky Rabbit. Today he sits down with a very large coffee to tell us about The Banana Splits Movie. After taking a big sip he tells me that the original Banana Splits are some of his biggest influences in the voice acting world.
“Allan Melvin, Don Messick, Daws Butler, Paul Winchell- these are like the Mount Rushmore of voice over, just missing June Foray and Mel Blanc.”
Eric tells me his thoughts when he heard the premise- “I was hell’s yeah. You’re going to take children’s characters and make them into a horror movie?” I was all on board. Warner Brothers, they have a tremendous library of amazing characters and we’ve seen them re-invent these characters a number of times. I think that they’ve tried to do a kids version of Banana Splits again, they definitely tried to do an internet show. I believe this was just the last step. Turning them into murderers.”
Voices include Tigger, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Paul WInchell, Dr. Quest, and whoa, I lost count. Bauza also tells about his prep watching the old series, why costumed characters scare him, comparisons to Five Nights at Freddy’s, tricks to separating the Banana Splits different voices and a lot more. There is the play button, don’t be shy. Push it.
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
Banana Splits: Behind the Horror
DIGITAL AND BLU-RAY COMBO PACK SPECIAL FEATURES
Banana Splits: Behind the Horror
Terror on Set
Breaking News! The Banana Splits Massacre
The Banana Splits Movie is available now Digitally and on Blu Ray and DVD 8/27