Bunny Maloney

> 🎵🎶 *Lovely Bunny Maloney, lovely Bunny...
> Lovely Bunny Maloney, lovely Bunny...* 🎵🎶
>
> **Olivia Ruiz**

***Bunny Maloney*** is a 2009 French CGI animated television series created by Studio Tanuki, directed by Stéphane Stoll and produced by Maia Tubiana. It was based on a 2002 pilot called The Attack of the Giant Red Octopus (French: Pinpin le Lapin: L'attaque de rouge geant). The series chronicles the adventures of a pink anthropomorphic rabbit named Bunny Maloney and his friends.

The television series was cancelled on February 28th, 2010 after one season, due to low ratings.

In France, Bunny Maloney was broadcast for the first time on March 29th, 2009, on the TV channel, Canal+ Family, and then on France 2, and later on Canal J.

The show's theme song is sung by Olivia Ruiz and Mathias Malzieu.

## Synopsis

The series stars the titular Bunny Maloney, who is a pink anthropomorphic rabbit, and he is often blundering and over-confident. He lives in an apartment with his friends: Candy Bunny (another pink rabbit constantly wearing a red scrunchie, who is also his girlfriend), Jean-François (a blue dog-like creature of an unnamed species with a long tail, who can only say his own name). They also have a small, light blue pet owned by Candy of an unknown species named Potchi, who also serves as the ProtecTeam's mascot, and Bunny's fish (each colored red, cyan, yellow and magenta). They live in Bunnyville, a town that is the target of the infamous Professor Débilouman, their sworn enemy, assisted by Modchi, a mauve creature who is smarter than Débilouman.

In almost every episode, as members of Bunnyville's ProtecTeam, they fight Débilouman aboard their robot (called the Bunnyganger-28) with the help of an intelligent brown badger named Stan Ookie, and Débilouman's submarine (called Tsunami) will sink from either missiles aimed at it (either from the ProtecTeam, or backfiring by accident) or by a button somehow getting pressed on its control panel, serving as a running gag as seen in every episode.

The series also includes popular culture and Japanese culture, such as manga and anime in its design, followed by manga iconography and instances of text being written with Japanese language.

## Voice cast

### French voices

* Martial Le Minoux - Bunny Maloney
* Élisabeth Ventura - Candy Bunny
* Marc Duquesnoy - Professor Débilouman, Louis Picollin
* Corinne Martin - Charlotte
* Laurent Pasquier - Stan Ookie
* Vincent Violette - Modchi
* François Jérosme - Noacak

### English voices

* Matt Wilkinson - Bunny Maloney
* Jules de Jongh - Candy Bunny
* Tom Clarke-Hill - Jean-François
* Walter Lewis - Professor Débilouman, ROBOT
* Keith Wickham - Stan Ookie, Modchi
* Phillipa Alexander - Charlotte, Secretary Octopus
* Dan Russell - Additional Voices

## Goofs/Errors

* It's slightly, if not *very* clichéd:

* A majority of the characters holding idiot balls only for the sake of comedy, which can be annoying once in a while.
* The couple of the two main bunnies try to execute the "nice girl, rude guy" trope, when Candy has notable flaws that can make her as unsympathetic as Bunny.
* In general, the show tries to make Candy look superior to Bunny by treating her as the "straight woman". Throughout every episode, especially those where she's one of the focused characters, she's bossy, temperamental and abusive at worst.
* Also applying to the said couple: "*Abuse is funny when it's woman on man!*", which blatantly happens in a majority of episodes. It can get incredibly cringy and even uncomfortable to watch, *especially* when Candy still can get pissed off as all hell at Bunny at the end of "Bunnies are from Mars" (which sort of involved them getting mad at each other).
	+ In "Text Message Madness", Candy nearly ***kills*** Bunny with rockets for a fake message talking of a breakup.
	+ There's also some gags like in "Think Extinct", where she threatens Bunny with a ***shotgun*** at one point.
	+ Also, **why couldn’t they just break up?** Apparently the show *tries* to excuse this toxic relationship by essentially saying "even if it's super problematic, they still love each other anyway. so it's okay!"

* While it's passable, the CGI animation with cel-shading can be bad at times.
* The characters, despite cute-looking, are very simple looking. Bunny and Candy were supposed to be bunnies but they look more like Funko Pop vinyl figures with a few bunny traits.
* Limited facial expressions on most characters, which can be cringeworthy at times as well, like in one episode Bunny makes some weird face after he fell over when he saw Charlotte.
* The characters, which can range from being ridiculous or not being established enough:

* Bunny, who can be unintentionally unsympathetic and is even considered a jerk according to the plot.
* Candy, who can be annoying due to her mean personality.
* And maybe even sometimes Jean-Francois or Louis (if they count for arguably being sort of useless throughout the show).

* Then there are some incidental characters such as:

* Charlotte, Candy's best goat, cow or sheep friend, who is portrayed dull and really lustful, but mainly wants Bunny to be her boyfriend. (How does she want him even though he *already* had a girlfriend?)
* Ben Tonari, Jean-Francois's slightly strange best friend (who doesn't even have a notable or good personality in general), who only can speak some weird language, sorta like gibberish. He's also of an unknown species despite his human look.
* Noacak, a giddy-up dictator with an unknown species who leads an army/group of soldiers, but doesn't actually help Bunny and the ProtecTeam per episode, making him more careless. (It's also rather baffling that Bunny decides to join his army...)
* Marc and Ting, who are the "product advertising" guys, and the only "product advertising" guys ever in the show, which sounds pretty generic. (Not to mention Ting has an unfortunate design looking like Asian caricatures. Their names are also play-on words of "marketing".)
* And who could even forget Debilouman himself (the antagonist). He is considered a horrible professor and a pathetic villain as he frequently thinks he can get his plans executed perfectly (despite his lack of common sense), whose partner Modchi confirms that he is better than him.

* Speaking of characters, some of them aren't really expanded beyond on at least a *few* traits. Stan Ookie especially, cause while he is one of the tolerable characters, he's just a recurring character who can't show the most of his personality.
* Some of the humour is just plain unfunny and bland, centering on adult jokes at all. We also have occasional gross-out humour.

* There's also a running gag where Candy breaks the fourth wall. And yet, she gives off unfortunate notes such as how men are the reason women turn into nags, comparing addicts to children and treating them with "tough love" (as she has a ***whip*** in her hand) and also technically said pet abuse is okay.

* The theme song, which is sung by the same woman in the English version, and it sounds stupidly indecipherable.

* Speaking of which, it also lazily uses episode footage as well.
* The theme song’s tune doesn’t even match the actual show itself, it sounds Hawaiian and too heartwarming compared to the show’s mean-spirited and action-packed tone.

* **Misleading Lyrics:** The opening theme song made us think Bunny Maloney is the "lovely bunny" and "charming rabbit", when he’s an unlikable jerk in the actual episodes according to the plot itself.
* Jean-Francois, who can only speak his name (similar to Pokémon talk), can also be pretty annoying and useless sometimes, though he’s still likeable comparing to the rest.
* The risque humor didn't help cause this show was based on a more mature pilot simply titled "*The Attack of the Giant Red Octopus*".

## Trivia

* The writing is decent.

* It can actually be funny sometimes.

* The soundtrack is seemingly good.
* The theme song is catchy, despite the lyrics.
* The character designs are quite cute and decent, even if they're very simple-looking.
* The lighting at times can also look cool.
* The Softimage CGI animation with cel-shading is mostly good. The background designs are also arguably a little complex, but decent.
* Some awesome action scenes.
* The voice acting is decent in both countries. Props to the fact that MoonScoop has its English dub being cast with British people.
* At least it isn't as bad as the original pilot.
* Stan Ookie and Jean-Francois are likable characters.