ERIC N. HOROWITZ

as Lester Potchki

Potchki -verb. To experiment, dabble, mess around with. "You are a great cook." "Thanks, I like to potchki." Pupik -noun.

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Eric N. Horowitz was born in Philadelphia, if you asked his parents they would look at each other and say where the hell did he come from.  His favorite day of the week was Saturday, because he could watch cartoons all morning. Later on in life he learned he could change his voice, he had heard comedian Howie Mandel do the voice of Ernest the Elf and that was it. Eric started mimicking everything that he would hear. His first favorite actors were Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. As he got older he wanted to learn more about voice over. Only problem was no one was around to ask or talk with. He didn’t want to be in front of the camera he wanted to provide voices and sounds for the camera.  However if the camera was pointed at him he would not resist doing a voice or making a face. Anything to make someone laugh. 

1994 was a tough year, Eric's father had passed away.  Just like his dad got to share Bugs Bunny with him, Eric got to share the Animaniacs with his dad. That same year Eric got to meet two big influences in his life, Rob Paulsen (Yakko and Pinky) and Jess Harnell (Wakko). 

After graduating from the Art Institute of Philadelphia with a TV/Film degree, he chased his dream by creating The Potchki Chronicles film with Rob. After making the film he moved to South Pasadena CA. in 2001 he  worked for Viacom on a show called Resurrection Blvd in Post production then a few other indie films over the years. While living in South Pasadena he got married in 2003 and had his son in 2005. In 2007 they moved back to Philly and had his daughter while continuing to work on the production side of the camera. When he got divorced, Eric decided being a dad to his two children was more important than production. 

In 2011 Eric learned about Voicebox Voice Over, outside of Philadelphia and started to take voice over classes which then lead to his two demos on his website. Eric started to listen to Rob Paulsen Talkin Toons podcast and he learned more about the cartoon voice over world. Then in 2014 one of the Talkin Toons shows had Steve Blum on it and Steve quoted  said his Toonami line about falling down 7 times and getting up 8. This just hit a switch in Eric’s brain and he started to follow Steves career. Then one day in 2017  BLUMVOX STUDIOS popped up on Erics Facebook page and he signed up to take classes with Steve Blum. Who is now one of his teachers and mentors. Eric has learned so much in the past two years from being part of Blumvox and in Steves classes. Along the way Eric met a few people that he became close friends with from around the country. 

Eric and Rob were talking about podcasts and some ideas for Eric to utilize his Voice Acting knowledge. We joked and said let's bring Lester Potchki out of his 20 year hiatus and we started writing. Well over a hundred pages of notes later, here we are.  

While working on this podcast for the past year Eric also had the fortune to listen to Chuck McKibbens book “Mel Blanc the Voice of Bugs Bunny.” To Eric’s surprise Chuck mentioned that he moved to Philadelphia. Eric jumped at the chance to look him up, email him and wait to hear back. Eric has been studying voice narration and commercial voice over with Chuck since June of 2019. 

From creating this world to meeting and chatting with professional voice actors at local conventions. This has been one hell of a ride and it just keeps getting better. 

I hope you enjoy the world Rob and I have created. It has made us laugh and we hope it can make you laugh.