Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Bunnicula"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.

Are you familiar with a 1979 novel called Bunnicula?

It's a personal favorite of mine. It focuses on a family whose cat and dog become convinced that their new pet rabbit is a vampire. Is he a vampire? Isn't he? The book doesn't make it clear.

Since its release, the book has spawned several sequels, but only the first one has ever been adapted into animation. Twice, in fact. The first time was a television special that aired as part of the ABC Weekend Special anthology series. It deviated from the book a little - namely, straight-up revealing that Bunnicula is a vampire and having a more exciting climax involving wolves. The second time was a 2016 TV series.

The Bunnicula TV series was developed for Warner Bros. Animation by Jessica Borutski, who also produced the show along with Maxwell Atoms. The show premiered on both Cartoon Network and Boomerang in February 2016, then moved to Boomerang entirely in 2017. After three seasons, the show concluded in 2018, but reruns continued to air on Boomerang until 2021. If you'd like to watch it yourself, you either need the Boomerang streaming app or must pay to watch it on YouTube.

The show is a loose adaptation of the books. Y'know how I said the television special deviated from the books? Well, this time you could probably count the number of similarities on one hand: a vampire rabbit who drinks the juice from vegetables instead of blood, a cat named Chester, and a dog named Harold. Aside from that...

- Much like the television special, it's straight-up confirmed that Bunnicula is a vampire.

- Chester was a tabby cat in the original book. Here, he's a Siamese (maybe they thought making him a tabby cat was "too cliched" or something?).

- In the books, the pets' owners were Mr. Monroe, Mrs. Monroe, and their two sons. Here, the sons are replaced by a daughter, Mina.

- Harold was at least of average intelligence in the book. Here, he's an idiot.

I'll be honest, these deviations all bothered me when the show came out, which is the main reason I never watched a full episode of the show despite liking the book. But I know just because an adaptation isn't exactly like the original book doesn't mean it's bad... I mean, Disney's adaptation of The Jungle Book had very little in common with the books but I still like THAT. So in the interest of fairness, I probably should give the show a watch to see if I enjoy it on its own merits.

I like the design they gave Bunnicula, so that's one good thing I can say about it.

We'll be watching the thirteenth episode, "Bride of Bunnicula", to see if Bunnicula is a fun show that just so happens to be a weak adaptation of a book I like... or another Scaredy Squirrel. Let's hop in (get it? 'Cause the show's about a rabbit?).

The episode starts off with Bunnicula (voiced by Chris Kattan), Chester (Sean Astin), and Harold (Brian Kimmet) looking for a squeaky toy of Harold's. And already I find myself reminded of just how much the show butchered Harold. He's basically just Runt from Animaniacs now. Why? Did they think making him dumber would make him a more interesting character?

And, I'm sorry, but with all due respect towards Sean Astin, the voice they gave Chester just doesn't fit that character design. It's not a voice that sounds like it would come out of a scrawny Siamese cat, it just sounds like some guy off the street. Surely Sean could've done something cartoonier or at least higher-pitched for the character (it's not like he can't do voices, he CAN), so I'm guessing this is on the voice direction he was given.

Okay, okay. I'll try not to be too negative here...

Allow me to summarize everything that comes out of Harold's mouth: "Duh, I'm a stereotypical
dumb cartoon dog! I make Odie from Garfield look like Mr. Peabody from the Rocky and Bullwinkle
show by comparison! Durr-hurr!"

The pets head into the kitchen to see if Mina (Kari Wahlgren) has the toy. What's Mina doing in the kitchen? Doing her best impression of a cartoon mad scientist. She's created a little Frankenstein's Monster wannabe out of vegetables for her school science project, and she thinks that with a little static electricity from Chester's fur, she can bring it to life. Clearly Mina is a few croutons short of a salad bar.

How convenient that Mina was able to find four radishes with fingers growing out of them.

Of course, since Bunnicula loves vegetables, he winds up attempting to drink the juice out of the vegetable monster thing's onion head. But that static electricity does its thing - and brings the vegetable monster thing to life.

Totally how static electricity works, right?

All together now... "IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!"

Chester is understandably freaked out by the fact that a being made of an onion, turnips and what looks like some kind of squash has gained sentience. Usually, when your vegetables gain sentience, that's a sign that you should throw them out. Or create a children's show about Christian values. But when Bunnicula gets a good look at the vegetable monster thing, he falls madly in love with it. I knew he loved vegetables, but this is ridiculous.

Meh, still a better love story than Bee Movie.

Chester points out to Harold how weird and wrong this whole situation is. "Oh, you can't put a label on it, Chester," Harold claims. "Love. It's like a rubber newspaper chew toy... beautiful, and hard to find. And when you find it, you never let it go. Or lose it again! BUNNICULA HAS FOUND HIS RUBBER NEWSPAPER TOY!"

Did I mention how annoying Harold's voice is? Again, no disrespect towards Brian Kimmet, but it gets so incredibly grating...

Why do I have the feeling that I'm going to be really sympathetic towards Chester?

We get a montage of Bunnicula and his new girlfriend spending time together while Chester looks weirded-out. Eventually, however, Chester learns that Bunnicula's girlfriend is very possessive of him. "STAY AWAY FROM MY BUNNICULA! HE BELONGS TO ME NOW!" she snaps as soon as he's out of hearing range.

Again, this is why you should throw your vegetables out after they gain sentience.

"You just don't understand our love!"

Chester tells Harold about Bunnicula's girlfriend being a psychotic monster, but unsurprisingly, Harold is no help whatsoever. But wouldn't you know it, Bunnicula's girlfriend... y'know what, I'm just gonna call her Onion-Head... has a secretly sinister agenda, and Bunnicula is under her evil love trance. She's planning to harvest Bunnicula's supernatural powers to create an army of vegetable Franken-zombie mutants and do Harold and Chester in so she can have Bunnicula all to herself. And as we see this going on, we hear Harold and Chester talking about how it's not like any of that could possibly happen.

Okay, positive thing - I'll admit this part is pretty funny, if only for Chester's claim that their lives are like some sort of bad horror movie.

Little do Harold and Chester know that Mina's dad has secretly been keeping uranium
in the storage shed.

Harold and Chester notice that the storm shed is glowing and head inside to find Onion-Head with her army of vegetable Franken-zombie mutants. Only Bunnicula can save them now, and he's under Onion-Head's spell, so that might not work out so well...

Where's the Were-Rabbit when you really need him?

On the bright side, Harold has finally found his squeaky toy. Chester tells him that he needs to throw the squeaky toy at Bunnicula to get his attention, but Harold is all "No! Getting torn apart by eggplant is a small price to pay for having my squeaky toy back!" because, as we've established, he's an idiot.

Blah blah blah, Chester throws the squeaky toy at Bunnicula's head, snapping him out of Onion-Head's trance. He saves his friends from the zombie veggies, and after taking them out with weed killer, Onion-Head starts chewing him out for ruining her evil plan. Did she really need to bring a bunch of produce to life just to take out Chester and Harold? Couldn't she have just shipped them off to Abu Dhabi or something?

"No, no, I wasn't looking at pictures of Lola Bunny online! I only have eyes for you,
Onion-Head!"

"DON'T YOU LIE TO ME! I checked your browser history!"

"YOUR FACE IS DUMB! AND YOU'RE BAD AT KISSING!" Onion-Head tells Bunnicula. "I'M GOING TO DATE A MILLIONAIRE!" Then she runs out of the storage shed and into the night. We get another joke about how dumb Harold is. Mina, meanwhile, has decided to do a model volcano for her science project... and by "model volcano", I mean something that I'm pretty sure is offensive to the entire state of Hawaii.

Apologies to Hawaiians everywhere.

And I'm guessing we never find out whatever happened to the rabbit-faced vegetable monster running around. Maybe she was found and captured by scientists, at which point Mina became a Nobel Prize winner for making such a huge scientific breakthrough by bringing a being made of produce to life. Or maybe Onion-Head DID date a millionaire. Is Bill Gates still single?

What's the Verdict?

I'm sorry. I went into the show with an open mind, but... honestly, I didn't care much for this adaptation of Bunnicula. Let me start off by saying what I did like... the animation is good, and some of the jokes are at least kind of funny. But so much of the show falls flat. And that's on two things: the humor and the characters. For every joke that landed, there was another joke that fell flat. Most of them basically amount to "Ha ha, Harold is dumb."

The characters, aside from Bunnicula, are completely backwards. The original Harold wasn't a rocket science, but he wasn't a complete moron. Making him a non-anthropomorphic Dudley Puppy doesn't make him a more complex character, it just makes him obnoxious. Chester was fun in the book because he was the panicky, over-imaginative one who leads Harold in all of these half-baked plans. Here, he's the sane one reacting to the weirdness around him. It just feels wrong, and the weak voice acting from Brian Kimmet and a poorly-directed Sean Astin doesn't help. As for Mina, I just found her annoying.

And just to make sure I didn't stumble upon one of the weaker episodes, I watched the episode that came right after this one. It was about Bunnicula and Chester going into the internet to stop a raven who feeds on the negativity that it creates. It was slightly better than "Bride of Bunnicula", but still suffered from most of the same problems (Harold being annoying, some really weak jokes). I was also disappointed that there wasn't more satire about the internet, considering how much negativity it DOES create (there's a reason I just deleted my Twitter account AGAIN). Ah well...

My advice? Just read the original Bunnicula book. You can find the TV special on YouTube if you'd like to watch an animated adaptation of it. The show really doesn't have much going for it.

Apologies for this being a shorter review than usual, the episode is mostly made up of that "Bunnicula's in love" montage so there wasn't a whole lot to talk about. My next review will hopefully be longer (and a lot more positive)...