Greg the Bunny is an American television sitcom that originally aired on Fox in 2002. It starred Seth Green and a hand puppet named Greg the Bunny, a character originally created by the team of Sean Baker, Spencer Chinoy and Dan Milano. Milano and Chinoy wrote and co-produced the Fox show with Steven Levitan. The show was spun off from The Greg the Bunny Show, a series of short segments that aired on the Independent Film Channel, which were based on the public-access television cable TV show Junktape. A spin-off show, called Warren the Ape, premiered on June 14, 2010, on MTV.

Plot

In the FOX show, Greg was the co-star of a children's television show called Sweetknuckle Junction. Like The Muppet Show, Greg the Bunny treated puppets as though they were real creatures within the reality of the show. Although in this show, they were treated as a racial minority (who prefer to be called by the politically correct term "fabricated Americans"), sometimes struggling against second-class citizenship.

Characters

Humans

Puppets

Many puppets have been used on the show. The ones exclusive to the show have been designed and built at Animated Engineering McAvene Designs. Several that appeared on the FOX show were reused from the children's direct-to-video series The Adventures of Timmy the Tooth, such as some members of the Gingivitis Gang appearing as background crew members.

Background and production

Junktape was a half-hour, bi-weekly public access series created by Sean S. Baker, Spencer Chinoy, and Dan Milano. Airing on New York City's Manhattan Neighborhood Network, Monday nights at 11:30 pm, the show eventually got the attention of the Independent Film Channel and was given its own series of regular segments starring one of the main characters from Junktape, Greg the Bunny. The Greg the Bunny Show on IFC involved Greg and other characters introducing independent films being screened by using skits that parodied the films. The Fox show made its debut in March 2002 and its last episode aired in August 2002, with two episodes unaired. Its failure was largely ascribed to the showrunner and networks' seeming cluelessness as to the direction they wanted the show to take. The network promoted Greg the Bunny as a puppet show for adults, but within the show itself, they insisted on toning down its edgier aspects. The creators felt these changes caused the show to lose something, and gave it much more of a traditional sitcom feel. The showrunner and the network also wanted to focus the show more on the human cast, while the creators maintained that the puppets were the heart of the show. Despite these problems, the series acquired a significant cult following, and was eventually released on DVD in 2004. In August 2005, the series returned to IFC, in a series of short segments, spoofing both old and new films, including Annie Hall, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, Blue Velvet, Easy Rider and Pulp Fiction. The cast for these segments primarily features puppets Greg and Warren Demontague, with appearances from Count Blah, new character Pal Friendlies, and returning character The Wumpus. Howver, Tardy the Turtle and Susan were unable to appear, as they belong to FOX.

Episodes

The episodes appear in production code order on the DVD release.

Unaired pilot

Series (2002–2004)

IFC shorts (2005)

Greg the Bunny returned as a series of 12-minute shorts that aired on IFC, starting in August 2005.

IFC shorts (2006)

Home media

The original "Greg the Bunny: The Complete Series" DVD was released October 19, 2004. The IFC series was partially released as "Greg the Bunny: Best of the Film Parodies" October 24, 2006. The remainder of the IFC series released as "The Passion of Greg the Bunny: Best of the Film Parodies, Vol. 2" May 6, 2008.

Appearances in other shows