Early life
In his childhood, Bergen would often spend hours watching and taping cartoons, imitating voices as well as creating characters of his own. He once told his parents that he wanted to voice Porky Pig, to which his mother objected.
As a teenager in 1978, he phoned Mel Blanc after researching in phone books. He crashed a recording session for the live stage show version of Bugs Bunny in Space, pretending to be Blanc's assistant, and watched him in action. Upon the realization that he needed training and for his voice to change, he began studying voice-over with coaches in Los Angeles. He took acting lessons with Daws Butler at his weekly voice-over workshop. He also met June Foray during a live reading of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends while attending an ASIFA-Hollywood show at a mall in Woodland Hills. In March 1980, Bergen appeared as a contestant on a Teen Week episode of Wheel of Fortune, winning prizes including a watch. After two years at a Meisner acting conservatory and three years of improv study with The Groundlings, he was able to secure an agent at age 18 and pursue his dream, while working as a tour guide at Universal Studios to make ends meet.
Career
In 1990, Bergen joined a handful of actors voicing the Looney Tunes characters, beginning with Tiny Toon Adventures. He is the current voice of Porky Pig, and has also voiced Tweety, Barnyard Dawg, Henery Hawk, Hubie and Bertie, Marvin the Martian, Ralph Wolf, Sylvester Jr., Speedy Gonzales, and Wile E. Coyote, alternating the roles with Jeff Bergman, Mel Blanc's son Noel Blanc, Joe Alaskey, Greg Burson, Jim Cummings, Maurice LaMarche, Billy West, and Eric Bauza. Warner Bros. had been splitting up the various voice-acting roles to prevent any one of them from being a singular successor. Bergen had previously voiced Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck for ABC Family Fun Fair, an annual stage show for disabled children in the 1980s.
Bergen provided the voice of Arsène Lupin III for the Streamline Pictures dubs in the late 1980s and early 1990s: The Mystery of Mamo (directed by Sōji Yoshikawa), The Castle of Cagliostro (directed by Hayao Miyazaki) and Lupin III's Greatest Capers (two TV episodes from series two directed by Hayao Miyazaki). He also played the part of No-Face in the 2001 Academy Award-winning movie Spirited Away, and Kai and Masaru in the Streamline-dubbed version of the anime classic Akira. He is also responsible for the voices of Luke Skywalker in over a dozen Star Wars video games as well as the Robot Chicken episodes Episode I, II and III; Wembley and the World's Oldest Fraggle in Fraggle Rock: The Animated Series, the animated versions of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Link Hogthrob in Little Muppet Monsters, and additional characters in the 1987–89 seasons of Muppet Babies. He also voiced Wind-Up in Skylanders: Swap Force, Skylanders: Trap Team and Skylanders: SuperChargers.
He has also been the announcer for many promos and commercials on Disney Channel from 1997 to 2001.
In 1998, Bergen hosted Jep!, the children's version of Jeopardy!, on Game Show Network. He appeared as himself in interview segments of the 2014 documentary I Know That Voice, and in a 2017 episode of the ABC game show To Tell the Truth. On May 2, 2024, Bergen was revealed to be an announcer for MeTV Toons.
