Bunnytown

***Bunnytown*** is a children's television program that airs on Playhouse Disney in the United States and Great Britain, as well as more than seventy other countries.

## History

The program, created by David Rudman, his brother Adam and Todd Hannert, under their Spiffy Pictures banner, began airing in Canada on November 3, 2007, and in the USA a week later. It is produced by future Jim Henson Company employee Bill Barretta. UK viewers got a premiere of the program on January 13, 2008 on the Playhouse Disney channel sublet of pay-broadcaster Family Channel. In France, the series began on January 27, 2008, and kept its original title *Bunnytown*. The show is produced at Ontario, Canada with many of the "Peopletown" segment exterior scenes done at Clarence Park and Verulamium Park in nearby St Albans. It is rated TV-Y in the USA and C in Canada as per their respective countries.

## Format

The basic format features between ten and twelve segments as follows:

* A running gag, played out in four parts such as 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 fat ginger haired man and a smaller, thin dark haired male, played by Ed Gaughan and Andrew Buckley. This is done in the vein of Laurel and Hardy, who have the same style as Red and Fred. On the US broadcast they are known as "Two Best Friends".
* Another skit and/or song.
* **The Adventures of Super-Bunny**, created new for Bunnytown follows the format of Little Bad Bunny stealing carrots from Bunnytown, and Super-Bunny comes to the rescue.
* **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), best known for her wearing 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".
* Currently the Bunnytown segments, Two Best Friends (Red and Fred) and Super Silly Sports are being shown in bumper segments on Disney Junior and Disney Junior Night Light.

## Puppets, characters and sets

The bunny rod puppets (which 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) are made from foam rubber and covered in fake fur.

Characters include the many types of characters 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, a female bunny who is an astronaut, two cave bunnies and their pet dinosaur, an inventor, a farmer and his helpers and many more.