PopSyndicate.com

When people ask me to put together my own High Fidelity-style top ten favorite television shows ever, one that always makes it easily into the upper tier is the short-lived Fox show Greg the Bunny. Starring Seth Green, Eugene Levy, and Sarah Silverman, the comedy was about a world where puppets were sentient beings and just another minority. Greg was an innocent bunny puppet who accidentally got himself cast into the lead role of a childrens educational program, where he was surrounded by a cast of misfit puppets.

It lasted about a dozen episodes before being canceled. Such is my lot in life.

Sometime after the cancellation, Greg’s creators brought the concept to the Independent Film Channel, where it was retooled into something fairly different. Here, the episodes would be more free-wheeling and would often parody popular films (Pulp Fiction, Easy Rider, etc.). And it was very R-rated.

The second volume of the Greg the Bunny film parodies, this one entitled Passion of the Bunny, has been released by Shout Factory, and, well, it just makes me miss the original show even more. It contains six of the aforementioned episodes, each one targeting a different film. In “Plush: Behind the Seams,” (a take-off of the VH1 show Behind the Music) Greg and Warren the Ape try to create a rock album on their day off, with Greg driving the producer crazy in the process. In “Wacky Wednesday” Greg and Warren switch minds like in Freaky Friday...the only problem is Warren is standing trial for murder at the time. The main attraction is, of course, “Passion of the Easter Bunny” in which Greg attempts to create his magnum opus – the story of the Easter Bunny, shamelessly ripping of Gibson’s film.

While some of the humor and charm of the Fox series is retained, it really seems true that you just can’t go home again. This reincarnation tries too hard to be edgy, and Greg loses a lot of his charm when he doesn’t seem so innocent. Warren is about the only thing that made it through the transition intact; even Count Blah is sparingly used and never funny.

On the other hand, the disc is absolutely loaded with special features. “Fur on the Asphalt” was the pilot of the new show pretending to be a reunion special of sorts from the original. Green and Silverman appear in cameos, and it’s a fair transition from one version to the other. There’s also another Plush music video (the music of which is actually damned good), outtakes from the original-original Greg show, back when it was on public access, short webisodes and a gag reel that is nothing but puppet-on-puppet sex, most of it oral. The crew members even chip in some commentaries. Other extras include deleted scenes, a making-of short, a photo gallery and Warren’s film “Supper With Friends.”

There’s some humor to be found here, and it’s worth a view for those who miss the Greg of old, but it just isn’t what it once was. Passion of the Bunny is good for what it is, but it can’t touch the Fox incarnation.

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