Bunnytown

Infobox Television
show_name = Bunnytown


caption = The title card for the Playhouse Disney series "Bunnytown".
show_name_2 =
genre = Children's
creator = David Rudman Adam Rudman Todd Hannert
director = David Rudman
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presenter =
starring =
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opentheme =
endtheme =
composer = Todd Hannert
Terry Fryer
country = Great Britain, USA
language = English
num_seasons =
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executive_producer = David Rudman Adam Rudman Todd Hannert
co_exec =
producer = Martin G. Baker Pete Coogan
supervising_producer =
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network = Disney Channel
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first_aired = November 3, 2007 flagicon|UK November 10, 2007 flagicon|USA January 13, 2008 flagicon|CAN January 27, 2008 flagicon|FRA March 21, 2008 flagicon|DEN flagicon|NOR flagicon|SWE flagicon|FINflagicon|POL April 7, 2008 flagicon|Japan
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website = http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/bunnytown/index.html
production_website = http://spiffypictures.com
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tv_com_id = Infobox TV ratings
showname = Bunnytown
usa_tv = TV-Y
gb_tv =
can_tv = C
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Bunnytown is a children's television program that airs on Disney Channel's Playhouse Disney block 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 Great Britain on November 3 2007, and in the USA a week later. It is produced by Martin G. Baker and Pete Coogan, who both previously worked for Jim Henson Productions. Canadian viewers got a premiere of this program on January 13th, 2008 on the Playhouse Disney channel sublet of pay-broadcaster Family. In France, the series began on January 27th, 2008, and kept its original title Bunnytown. The show is produced at Elstree Film Studios in London, England with many of the "Peopletown" segment exterior scenes done at Clarence Park and Verulamium Park in nearby St Albans.

Format

The basic format features between ten and twelve segments as follows:
*A running gag, played out in four parts. One example has 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 Red, a tall, fat man played by Andrew Buckley and a shorter, thin male, played by Ed Gaughan. This is done in the vein of Laurel and Hardy.
*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). She wears 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.

Bunnytown puppets, characters and sets

The bunny rod puppets are made from foam rubber and covered in fake fur. They 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.

Characters include types 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.

External links

* [http://puppet.wikia.com/wiki/Bunnytown Puppet Wikia: Bunnytown]
* [http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/bunnytown/index.html Bunnytown Official Site]