Greg the Bunny

Greg the Bunny

A puppet sitcom that aired on FOX in 2002.

The Set-Up: In a world where puppets (or fabricated Americans) and people coexist, there is a children’s show called Sweetknuckle Junction. Unemployed Greg the Bunny convinces his roommate, Seth Green, to get him a job at Sweetknuckle Junction, where Green’s father works as a director. Green’s father is played by Eugene Levy. Sweet wittle Greg gets a lead acting gig along side some seasoned, less innocent puppets and performers. Among them Shawshank Redemption’s Bob Gunton, Count Blah, Warren Demontague, and Tardy the Turtle. Network producer Sarah Silverman oversees the production.

Typical episode: Disharmony sweeps through the set of Sweetknuckle Junction. Sweet wittle Greg the Bunny attempts to rectify the situation, but only exacerbates it. Eventually, everyone makes up and all is fine again. Along the way, there are jokes about puppets having sex with people.

Typical puppet dialogue: “I think I just tore myself a new one.”

Typical human dialogue: “Talk about a g-spot. He found the whole damn alphabet.”

Guest stars who appeared on the show: Gary Oldman and Corey Feldman. If that doesn’t define the divided nature of the show, nothing does.

My favorite episodes:

• 1.8 “Jimmy Drives Gil Crazy” This episode puts to rest the recycled plot of Seth Green not getting along with his father, Eugene Levy. It is during this episode, I finally started to find some of the jokes funny. It delved into some childhood traumas and gave Corey Feldman a job for a week. Some sample dialogue:
  
• * Greg: “Corey Feldman! I thought you were in rehab!”
  
• * Corey Feldman: “That was Corey Haim.”
  
• * Greg: “What did I say?”
  
• No matter what progress this episode makes with the funny, it turns sappy at the end.
  
• 1.11: “The Jewel Heist” I found this to be the first (and only) consistently funny episode of the series. Seth Green starts dating a girl with a vicious dog. Greg and the dog don’t get along. It features a paint ball subplot. A lot of shows I like utilize “the paint ball episode.” Why is that? Where did this trend start?
  
• 1.13 : “Blah Bawls” This episode focuses on Count Blah, who is apparently mourning the death of his wife (first time that’s been mentioned on the show). Meanwhile Warren can’t get over his ex-wife (again, news to me). I like this episode because A) It focused on the puppets and their lives, B) it features Tardy the Turtle more than most episodes and C) It was the last.
  

Least Favorite:

• 1.1 “Welcome to Sweetknuckle Junction” The first episode is clumsily executed. It sets up the contrived story of how Greg joins the show. It barely shows the other puppets. And it just isn’t funny. Besides, all the following episodes seem to operate under the conceit that everyone has been working together for a long time. Like there’s a long history between them.
  

How many episodes were produced? 13. Only eleven aired.

Is there much continuity? No. Each episode reboots. Issues that existed in one episode are gone in the next. Greg has a mad crush on Dottie in only a single episode. Green’s crush on Silverman exists for two. Conflicts only arrive long enough to be dealt with by the end of each episode. And characters will change their entire personality from one episode to the next.

Around episode seven, Greg’s button eyes are replaced with more realistic eyes. No one seems to notice.

Why was it canceled? According to Wikipedia, the show runners couldn’t decide what direction to take the show in. I can definitely see that on the DVD.

Was there closure? None. There is nothing to close.

Any unattended issues? N/A

The verdict: This show feels like a fake show. It obviously longed to be more adult, but remained firmly planted in bland sitcom territory. It falls back on its obvious allegory too much without being clever. It is sporadically funny, but most of the characters are too inconsistent to create any running jokes or connection with them. It moves back and forth between toothless satire and broad slapstick. Too many jokes are overly punctuated. And the canned plots don’t help it any.

The best thing on the DVD is a home movie/short film called “Tardy Delivery ” starring the underused Tardy the Turtle. Tardy, who only started getting screen time about half way thru the series, was by far my favorite character on the show. Always sweet with an awesome laugh/scream. If the show had been about Tardy (“Crayons taste like purple”), I might have liked it. As it is, the show is dull as hell.