Greg the Bunny: Warren is back!

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There was a bit of news about puppets and stuffed animals in June - Warren the Ape is coming to a telly near you! First there was robot-human relations and now there is puppet-human matters. More and more Fox cancelations are getting the thumbs-up? Do we dare hope for a Firefly revival? Back to the topic at hand. The show in question is a spin-off of Greg the Bunny and is going to follow a reality TV format. It seems like a good day to mention Greg the Bunny, isn't it?

Hmm .... who or what exactly was Greg the Bunny?

It was a hilarious comedy show which changed format and style depending on the channel it featured on. Keep this in mind because, more often than not, fans seem to congregate around one particular versGreg the Bunny: Fox seriesion. Sure there are devoted viewers of all the varying formats but I thought I would give a heads-up to the newbie – you might like one but not necessarily the other ones. I personally like the Fox one and the latter ones but even for me, it is a bit of paradigm shift between the two.

And so, what about its early beginnings? If you are asking about the birth of Greg himself, it was on cable telly and went by the name of Junktape. Greg was born to be a star as he was nabbed for a show on the Independent Film Channel. This one initially followed a grittier reality show format. Much like its latter version, this show also focused on parodies.

Then it was picked up by Fox and people saw a more family-friendly  version which saw alterations to the humor, puppets and show content format. The Fox show was a sitcom about a fictional children's telly show which was the workplace for all the puppets.

Well, all things on Fox come to an nasty end and thus, this show was canceled. It was not quite the end for creators of the show; they got a chance, on IFC again, to feature pop culture parodies using one or more puppets from the show.

Who was part of the show(s)?

The very first show featured big names like Seth Green, Sarah Silverman, Bob Gunton and Eugene Levy. What made the show noteworthy was the array of snarky characters in the form of the puppets. This included the following folks:

• aspiring actor, Greg the bunny puppet
• Warren DeMontague, the snobby star who is changing career paths from the stage to daytime television;
• Count Blah, a character actor; 
• Tardy the Turtle – meant to be a cameo but ends up winning over real-life viewers with his wacky mannerisms and goof-ups

The recent IFC show only featured Greg and Warren. This was mainly due to ruckus involving copyright of certain characters. And thus, lovable Tardy was gone forever. For the die-hard fans, this will be an interesting tidbit – apparently somewhere along the way, the puppet itself went MIA. Well, where other characters are concerned, there were one or two new faces on this show. The Wumpus and Pat Friendlies are the new additions.
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So what's the big deal about this Greg show?

Imagine this. You have a  puppet that makes humorous commentary on pop culture and/or movies. Due to certain socially enforced ideas, most people would expect a cuddly furry creature to be cute-funny and more relevant to children. So you can see how featuring a puppet can a shift in our way of thinking. Not to mention, it gives a bit more creative license in what you can do with the creatures.

The Fox show was a kind of extension of this but on a mellow, 'this will not offend anyone' sort of manner. There was a story and background details for each character which did limit social commentary to some extent. After all, there was more focus on humor through the plot or character traits in such instances. However, that did not detract from the various comedic situations created by the writers. A great example is the hilarious Sock Like Me episode which was a not so subtle comment on diversity.

What's the new reality show about?

From what I read here, it will follow the life of Warren using the typical reality show format. This can be interesting viewing, especially for those familiar with this iffy star. Warren is the arch-typical movie star who loves the glitz and glamor, the showy life and can be extremely vengeful. Did I mention that he is known for making silly gaffes? You can see how such a show can spice up our accepted notions of reality television.