Bunnytown
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 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (December 2007) |
| Bunnytown | |
|---|---|
 The title card for the Playhouse Disney series "Bunnytown". |
|
| Genre | Children's |
| Created by | David Rudman, Adam Rudman, Todd Hannert |
| Directed by | David Rudman |
| Composer(s) | Todd Hannert, Terry Fryer |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
David Rudman, Adam Rudman, Todd Hannert |
| Producer(s) | Bill Barretta |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Disney Channel |
| Original airing | November 3, 2007  November 10, 2007  January 13, 2008  January 27, 2008  March 21, 2008      April 7, 2008  |
| External links | |
| Official website | |
| Production website | |
Bunnytown is a children's television program that airs on Playhouse Disney in the United States and Great Britain, as well as more than seventy other countries.
The program, created by David Rudman, his brother Adam and Todd Hannert, under their Spiffy Pictures banner, began airing in Canada on November 3, 2007, and in the USA a week later. It is produced by Bill Barretta, who would go to work for Jim Henson Company. UK viewers got a premiere of this program on January 13, 2008 on the Playhouse Disney channel sublet of pay-broadcaster Family Channel. In France, the series began on January 27th 2008, and kept its original title Bunnytown. The show is produced at Ontario, Canada with many of the "Peopletown" segment exterior scenes done at Clarence Park and Verulamium Park in nearby St Albans. It is rated TV-Y in the USA and C in Canada as per their respective countries.
[edit] Format
The basic format features between ten and twelve segments as follows:
- A running gag, played out in four parts such as bunnies getting ready to race, but instead disco dancing in the first part, then sleeping in the second part, followed by flying in the third part, and then finally racing in the last part, with the payoff that a rubber band is at the finish line, and they fly back to the starting point.
- A song.
- Red and Fred, a silent comedy/slapstick pratfall team in Peopletown made up of a fat man and a smaller, thin male, played by Ed Gaughan and Andrew Buckley. This is done in the vein of Laurel and Hardy, who have the same style as Red and Fred.
- Another skit and/or song.
- The Bunnytown Hop, done by a rock-and-roll band inspired by mega groups such as Earth Wind and Fire.
- Super Silly Sports, also held in Peopletown, hosted by Pinky Pinkerton (portrayed by Scottish-born actress Polly Frame), best known for her wearing a pink Alice band in her blonde bouffant hairdo along with a matching neck scarf and sportsjacket over a white tennis dress, along with pink and white striped above the knee socks. An example of this spoofing of sports contests and their telecasts within is a staring contest between an 11-year-old boy and an Idaho Potato (because both of them have "eyes"). Pinky's signature exclamation is "Oh me, oh my!" done multiple times.
- Another skit, followed by a song.
- Following the payoff of the running gag, all of the bunnies gather to sing the closing song It's A Bunnytown Life.
[edit] Bunnytown puppets, characters and sets
The bunny rod puppets (which take up to eight puppeteers to operate with a trigger at the bottom to move their mouths and invisible marionette strings to work from above on all other parts) are made from foam rubber and covered in fake fur.
Characters include the many types of characters found in pop culture and storybooks. Included are a king and his court (supposedly the leaders of Bunnytown as they live in a castle), pirates, a superhero bunny (Superbunny) and his archnemesis Little Bad Bunny, an astronaut bunny (Spacebunny Suzi), two cave bunnies and their pet dinosaur, an inventor Einstein-like bunny, a farmer (Farmer Gramps) and his helpers, Underwear Bunny, and many more.
