In this fantasy all of the puppets were really alive and happy Greg( voice of Dan Milano), who lived with his human roommate and best friend Jimmy ( Seth Green), was looking for a job. Jimmy got him an interview with his father, Gil ( Eugene Levy), the insecure and marginally competent producer/director of the struggling childrens tv series Sweetnuckle Junction. Gil and pushy network executive Alison ( Sarah Silverman), were so taken by Greg's charm and natural comedic skills that they gave him a job-as the show's new star. Then Gil found out that Greg , who had been looking for an office job , had never acted in his life. Much to his surprise and chagrin, Greg realized that he was responsible for the future of the cast and crew. The other regulars on Sweetknuckle Junction were foulmouthed Junction Jack (Bob Gunton), and sexpot Dottie ( Dina Waters), both humans, and puppets Warren and Count Blah ( voiced by Dan Milano, Drew Massey). ( Blah looked and sounded like the Count on Seseme Street.) Jimmy also got a job as a production assistant on the show. Greg The Bunny began as a New York cable access show called Junk Tape. In 1998 Greg became the host of the Independent Film Channel's Saturday Night Movie, which included comic sketches, parodies, and movie trivia. The show was created by Spencer Chinoy and Dan Milano ( who voiced all of the puppets in the cable versions). An Article from The New York Times COVER STORY; A Bunny Who Hops to a Different Drummer By ANITA GATES I DIDN'T have a chance to talk to Greg the Bunny in person. Scheduling and travel conflicts, I think. But I did spend some time with him by telephone from his new Los Angeles quarters, where he seemed elated about his move into the big time. His namesake series has its premiere on Fox on Wednesday night. ''I got two words for you: craft services,'' said Greg, using the insider show business term for food on the set. ''I have never seen so many jelly beans in all my life.'' (Purple and orange are his favorite.) And his confidence in his talent is building. ''I think you learn by doing,'' he said. ''And I've done a lot of doing and in doing all the doing I've done - I'm good. I'm De Niro good.'' The world Greg lives in is a little different from ours. The 3.2 million puppets who reside in his United States are very real and suffer from economic and social discrimination. They prefer to be called Fabricated Americans and often refer to humans as Fleshies. At the beginning of the first episode, Greg, who has a human roommate (Seth Green), is umemployed. he begs his roommate to help him (well, actually he just tortures him by repeating his name - ''Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy'' - roughly a zillion times until Jimmy breaks down and calls his father, Gil, the director of ''Sweetknuckle Junction,'' a cheesy children's television show). Gil, played by Eugene Levy, says O.K., the bunny can interview for an office job. But just as Greg is arriving at the studio, the ''Sweetknuckle'' people are looking for a replacement for Rochester, an aging white bunny who can't remember his lines. They mistake Greg for an actor and he's so adorable that he's hired. ''He's cute,'' says a network executive (Sarah Silverman), ''he's quick, and his improv is like Robin Williams.'' (Some people have already compared the new series to ''The Larry Sanders Show.'') Still, life isn't simple for Greg. In the second episode, Jimmy's new girlfriend brings over a huge dog who attacks Greg, and naturally the owner can'ts believe her pet could be violent. ''You must have been taunting him,'' she says. Greg looks at her and responds, ''Oh, you know, you should be a rape counselor.'' In another episode, Greg is approached by a famous, flamboyant puppets' rights leader. And, of course, when Greg's consciousness about his heritage is raised, he starts going by his Puppish name (''Greg is a name the flesh people gave you,'' he is told), objecting to jokes that make puppets look stupid and wearing an ancestral outfit on the set. When Gil objects to his making a political statement on the air, Greg asks, ''How can my puppet clothes not work for my puppet character?'' Obviously, ''Greg the Bunny'' is pretty political itself. When, in the third episode, Gil says, ''This is the Fozzie Bear verdict all over again,'' only 3-year-olds may be puzzled by the allusion. It will be interesting to see if network viewers see the show as refreshingly honest or as prejudice hiding behind humor. ''It's pure satire,'' said Dan Milano, Greg's voice and one of his creators. ''We're just having fun with it. I don't think there's a deeper meaning.'' ''But I would say if there were puppets in this world, this is what they would be suffering with,'' he said. ''The only jobs they could get would be kiddie shows and birthday parties.'' And eventually, he added, they'd just be ''going in and out of Betty Ford.'' Mr. Milano, 29, and a fellow New York University film school graduate, Spencer Chinoy, also 29, created Greg five years ago. After working at film and television production assistants' jobs that left them cold, Mr. Chinoy was teaching PhotoShop and Mr. Milano was doing administrative work for a Time Warner security department. The two young men were always taping weird things they saw on cable, and along with Sean Baker (who has since left the project) decided to put them together to make a public access television show in Manhattan. The way Mr. Milano tells the story, none of them wanted to be the host and he had done puppet shows for his family since he was a child so they invented Greg. Both he and the show, ''Junktape,'' became cult favorites, he said. IFC, the Independent Film Channel, took notice and gave Greg 5- to 10- minute cinema verite slots right before the evening movie. Then they went to Hollywood looking for new opportunities and Fox ordered 13 episodes. Greg's lovable, marketable personality developed through improvisation. ''He was neurotic and needy and desperate and perfect for public access,'' said Mr. Milano. ''And he loved the opportunity.'' Greg was going through hard times in the 1990's. ''Living in New York, I was doing street performances, trying to get my PAG card, the Puppet Actors Guild - juggling in the park,'' he said. ''Kids would try to pick me up and play with me. Dogs. Pigeons.'' (Mr. Milano deserves, ''If puppets are a mirror of humanity, it's the side that's afraid of getting stepped on.'')
Greg The Bunny aired from March until August 2002 on FOX.
Published: March 24, 2002
Not everyone is sure Greg will handle stardom well. ''I think he's bipolar,'' confides Steven Levitan, the creator of the sitcom ''Just Shoot Me'' who worked with the original creators to turn ''Greg the Bunny'' into a half-hour series. ''But I think he's a wonderful character. I strangely think that women will fall in love with him.''
If that's true, Greg wouldn't mind. ''I'm sort of between relationships right now,'' he confessed, although he did have ''a little tryst with Lamb Chop.''
''She looks damn good,'' he said of Lamb Chop, Shari Lewis's woolly 45-year-old puppet. ''I don't know who did her stitching.'' Human women are attracted to greg, too, he said, but then they only want to cuddle.
An Article from The LA Times
The Puppets Pull All the Strings on 'Greg the Bunny'
Television* In the new Fox show co-starring Eugene Levy, humans and 'Fabricated Americans' just naturally coexist.
March 26, 2002|JANICE RHOSHALLE LITTLEJOHN | SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
It was bound to happen sooner or later. After a plethora of sitcoms populated by single Manhattan twenty- and thirtysomethings looking for love in the worst of places, there had to be a series just waiting to get on the air that didn't subscribe to that same old guys-and-girls, sex-and-a-city formula.
Enter "Greg the Bunny," Fox's rambunctious single-camera comedy that hopes to give a fresh take on the buddies-in-the-big-city vibe. In this case, the friends aren't just women and men, but humans and puppets, or Fabricated Americans, as they are called in the show.
In the pilot episode, Greg the Bunny (credited as "himself" in Fox's press materials), a struggling puppet actor, has just landed his dream job as the star of the popular children's TV show "Sweetknuckle Junction." Greg's good fortune brings together the show's bungling director and producer, Gil Bender (Eugene Levy of "American Pie" and "SCTV") and his wayward son, Jimmy (Seth Green, formerly of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), who is the hare's hapless human roommate.
With a "Larry Sanders Show"- esque spin, the series explores a world where people and puppets coexist. It includes Greg's puppet co-stars Warren "The Ape" Demontague, a self-absorbed pill popper; and Count Blah, a roguish vampire bearing a close resemblance to that caped character from another, real-life children's series. (Executives at the Sesame Workshop had no comment on the resemblance.)
"Greg the Bunny" is the brainchild of Dan Milano and Spencer Chinoy, alums of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. The two created the character for a low-budget New York City public-access cable show, "Junktape," in 1997, later moving to the Independent Film Channel, where Greg performed comedy skits and film parodies between the indie flicks.
The 10-inch-tall, floppy-eared fur ball caught the attention of producer Steven Levitan, who was "looking for something different. And this is certainly not like any show I've ever done before," said Levitan, whose credits include "Just Shoot Me" and "The Larry Sanders Show."
"The hook should be that if you read the script, you shouldn't be able to tell the difference between the humans and the puppets," Milano said. "This could be a sitcom about the making of a show with an entirely human cast. It just so happens that our show is 50% puppets."
While wacky gimmicks appear to be the rage in the sitcom trade these days (including another Fox newcomer, the fantasy-laden "Andy Richter Controls the Universe," and the talking baby on CBS' "Baby Bob"), producers on "Greg the Bunny" contend their show is character-driven and does not rely on high-concept devices to draw laughs.
"They don't have to be silly and flying out of cannons--and I love that stuff," Milano said. "But in trying to do something different, we just want to play it straight, and that becomes the joke....
"When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the Muppets," Milano continued. "I knew they were worked by puppeteers. But I could completely accept them as living and breathing. We're just trying to support that here, to blur the reality and fantasy line."
The show's mature subject matter, meanwhile, sets "Greg the Bunny" apart from the likes of that family-friendly alien, "ALF" (although producers hope he'll make a guest appearance). Parents of small children should take heed that the show is not for kids.
"We need to make sure that people know that by scheduling the show at 9:30 p.m., we have indeed considered this more of an adult comedy," cautioned Fox Entertainment President Gail Berman. "If we were scheduling it at 8 p.m. and saying, 'Oh no, this is adult fare,' that would be problematic."
"That's this comedic minefield that everybody's [walking] right now, trying to figure out where that line is," Levy said. "We're trying to figure out how much of an edge we can put into the show, how much we can prod and probe into the relationships of humans to puppets, and even humans to humans. It's very tricky."
There are logistical concerns as well, especially for the human performers. "Everybody's got neck trouble," Green said of working with his miniature co-stars. "But you make concessions. You squat, or they stand on a box. You get used to it."
"The problem with puppets is that they have very big egos for small people. They have a bit of a Napoleon complex," Levy quipped. "The nice thing is that if you stand right over them, they're easily intimidated."
Fox officials are trying to distance the show from other Hollywood-oriented series that have proven to be ratings disappointments, among them Fox's "Action" and ABC's "Sports Night" and "Hiller and Diller," which also co-starred Levy.
"This really is a relationship show that happens to take place backstage of a puppet show," Berman noted, "so I think it's very different from the cynical view of show-biz kinds of stories."
While the show's characters represent a departure from the puppets viewers are accustomed to seeing, its fate is also being monitored by Jim Henson Television U.S., which recently signed a development deal with Fox for a new series featuring the Muppets. "I would love nothing more than for 'Greg the Bunny' to be a huge hit," said Henson Television President Juliet Blake. "I think their success can only help us."
"Greg the Bunny" premieres Wednesday night at 9:30 on Fox. The network has rated it TV-14-L (may be unsuitable for children under 14, with a special advisory for coarse language).
A Review from The New York Times
By CARYN JAMES
Published: March 27, 2002
GREG THE BUNNY
Fox, tonight at 9:30
There's a difference between a quirky idea and a good quirky idea, and that difference is conspicuous in this series about puppets who are alive. Greg, the bunny puppet, has a loser of a human roommate (Seth Green), who accidentally helps him become the star of a puppet television show, ''Sweetknuckle Junction.'' The ''Sweetknuckle'' puppets resemble ''Sesame Street'' characters, but they drink, pop pills and backstab just like humans, which doesn't automatically make them funny. Puppets need writers, too. Instead, ''Greg'' is a tossed-together mess of inside-showbiz jokes and crude humor. (Greg gets trapped in a toilet.)
The only happy accident here is that Eugene Levy plays Greg's boss, a smarmy, dissembling producer. Mr. Levy can find the humor in this character simply by raising an eyebrow, but his satiric take makes him look stranded in this strained, deadly show.
A Review from Entertainment Weekly
Review
Greg the Bunny
C -By Ken Tucker
Greg the Bunny has the most imaginatively silly premise around: It's about a kiddie TV show called ''Sweetknuckle Junction'' with a cast consisting of human actors portraying characters like railroad engineer Junction Jack (Bob Gunton), and puppets, including the title character. The puppets are treated by the actors, producers, and crew as though they were ordinary, walking, talking organisms. Add SCTV's Eugene Levy, still money in the bank for combining drollness with artful stupidity, as Junction's harried director-exec producer, ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'''s genial Seth Green as his slacker son, and the often riotously funny stand-up comic Sarah Silverman as a network exec, and you've gotta have something hilarious, right?
Wrong, I'm sorry to say. Every actor's skills are squandered on stereotypes. (Silverman's Alison is a particular disappointment; handing the role of a dense, tense TV executive to a performer so capable amounts to an insult.) Greg himself is a whiny little tuft of fur who lacks -- and I know how ridiculous this sounds -- personality. There are lots of ''seen 'em comin' 'round the Junction a mile away'' jokes about puppets as ''fabricated Americans,'' exploitive humans are referred to as the ''flesh-Man,'' and there's a directive from the series' fictitious network to ''find the next Elmo!'' In an effort to prove they're cutting edge, the ''Bunny'' writers toss in jokes that are less shockingly funny than joltingly off-putting. Says one puppet about a dog, ''If I wanted someone to lick my face and poop on my lawn, I'd get back together with Farrah Fawcett.'' Hey, I don't care if Farrah was wifty on Letterman -- that's just mean and gross. And that yuk is from the ''special'' episode scheduled to air on Easter Sunday; I think the Easter Bunny will have a few choice, withering words to say this year about ''Bunny.''
A Review from The Daily Free Press
'Greg The Bunny' Needs Some Help
Dave Conklin
Issue date: 4/4/02
Puppets are alive. These "fabricated Americans" inhabit Hollywood, working commercials, movies and television shows to keep the caviar coming, the wine flowing and their lining stuffed. Such is the premise of Fox's new "Greg the Bunny." I would have preferred watching "The Velveteen Rabbit," because at least that was upfront about making someone sick. Considering it stars Seth Green, I should have been better prepared.
"Greg the Bunny" is about television. The title character and his cast of misfit toys star in "Sweetknuckle Junction," a children's show. Staff meetings, episode tapings and star egos are all a part of the weekly exploits presented. This means a lot of television jargon and clever in-jokes. Sorry, I was thinking about "Larry Sanders." Rather than taking advantage of the self-referential nature of the setting, "Greg the Bunny" is happy to use television as merely a plot device that brings the uninspired characters together for adventures in comedic mediocrity.
I had hoped that "Greg" would borrow more from the UK's "Pets" than from ALF. Seeing Kate Tanner in the shower in the opening credits was never my idea of a good time. I suppose that the creators thought if you could make it past that horrific scene, you could probably sit through an entire episode. How horribly right they were. But now the aforementioned Alien Life Form is supposedly in the hands of government agents, about to be sliced up to reveal the midget inside. "Pets," however, is vulgar but funny, and the puppets inhabit a world all their own, where they live, interact, and offend each other. And because the word is being used so much as of late, I would be quite uncool if I didn't add that "Pets" is remember this irreverent. It uses the word "pugbox."
"Greg the Bunny," though, is more interested in being yet another sitcom on Fox with a new approach but without a laugh track. Or a laugh. Count Blah has abs. Warren is overweight, so when he bends over he rips his stitching. The turtle's name is Tardy. If the show gets any more inventive, maybe John Ritter will guest star as an actor pretending to be gay so he stay in a beneficial workers union. On the (human) actor side, Eugene Levy is only worth watching when he's in Christopher Guest movies. Otherwise, he's just being wasted. Sarah Silverman plays the network exec well, considering she isn't given much to work with. And then there's Seth Green. This part could have been played by any annoying young actor, but Green does an average job. He looks and sounds the part. I just wish he weren't so annoying. But maybe that's the idea. It's hard to tell. I suppose working with Mike Myers (who is single-handedly ruining my summers by inspiring the middle-aged to say "Yeah, baby,") contributed to this. Dina Spybey plays blond bombshell bimbo Dottie Sunshine. Bob Gunton is the veteran actor and dirty old man who stars as Junction Jack Mars. In all fairness to whomever is responsible, I will credit them this: giving the Count some black string as chest hair was a great touch. Or maybe that was hanging from the ribbon around his neck. I could not quite tell, so I laughed.
What is most depressing is the missed opportunity. This does not mean Fox should cancel the show. I think Greg and the rest of the Sweetknuckle Junction crew should go on hiatus for a few months while the show is retooled. What this show is missing is satire. Little touches like the Count's chest hair (or was it) and Gunton's Burt Reynold's impulses work. If the show were trying to argue that all actors are fabricated Americans, faking emotions for our own entertainment while their real emotions are gone unseen by all but those "in the industry," then I suppose Fox would really have something. But that's not what airs Wednesday nights. What I see is a program with untapped potential and Seth Green. No sir, I don't like it. And neither do Statler and Waldorf. Heckle 'em from the theatre box, boys.
An Interview with Greg The Bunny from Entertainment Weekly
Published on April 18, 2002
Stupid Questions
Hoppy Tales
10 stupid questions with Greg the Bunny. The plush prime time star tells EW about his anger management classes and Hollywood's anti-puppet bias
SHOW ME THE 'BUNNY' Greg talks about his dreams and aspirations
All AboutGreg the Bunny
By Liane Bonin
Muppets, run for cover. ''Greg the Bunny'' (Fox, Wednesday, 9:30 p.m.) is blowing the lid off of the secret lives of puppets (or, as they prefer to be known, Fabricated-Americans). EW.com talked with Greg about puppet prejudice, his pre-TV makeover, and why he really wants to direct.
How does a fabric bunny break into show business?
I always wanted to be an actor. All most puppets can get are circus fairs or kids' shows since Henson pretty much had a lock on the puppet acting community. So I became a street performer, wrestling pigeons for money. It was lucrative, but I'd have to use half my profits to get a TB shot.
Do you live in fear of red wine stains and chocolate?
No, but we tear very easily. I have a seamstress I go to when I need a little work done, and I had complete reconstructive surgery after signing on with the network. They replaced my buttons with eyeballs, gave me a movable lower jaw, that sort of thing. I'd love to share documentary footage of my surgery, kind of like Carnie Wilson.
Has the network recommended any other changes?
Anger management classes. It's good to be a cutie pie, and I think Fox finds me sweet and marketable, but it doesn't get me laid. And it's hard to maintain an image of a sweet adorable little bunny rabbit when you have to deal with all the egos in Hollywood.
Is there a bias against puppets in Hollywood?
I walk into a restaurant now and get a table, whereas before people would scream and kick me. But I think that's probably because I'm a celebrity. To most people I'm still just a sock, but a celebrity sock.
Are you ever mistaken for other celebrities?
Mostly the bunny on Captain Kangaroo. We both have that velveteen quality. And one time somebody thought I was Bjork, but it was dark.
How do your human co-stars feel about working with puppets?
Eugene Levy has puppet lineage, and he's not ashamed of it. You can see it in his eyebrows. Seth Green has gone to a lot of pro-puppet benefits. Sarah Silverman, she has a heart of gold. Very funny, very beautiful, very flatulent. Bob Gunton [Junction Jack] is the only one who's a little shifty. He's the kind of guy who'll step on you and say it's an accident, but he's such a good actor I can't tell if he's lying.
Can you address the rumors that puppets are actually controlled by humans?
There are some self-hating puppets who subscribe to that theory. There are churches devoted to The Arm and so on. But I'm here to tell you it isn't so. I'm not one for sodomy, and I think it's me who makes all my decisions. It's a matter of belief.
Has a human ever tried to ''master'' you?
Very often people go, ''Oh, you're so cute!'' and pick you up, and that's the first place the fingers go. You've just got to clench, and, if possible, bite.
Now that you have your own show, what's your next step?
I want complete creative control. I would love to direct. I will need a step ladder to do it, but I believe I have the vision.
Is there a Greg the Bunny doll in the works?
I spent the last four months at a bordello, and we're cranking out the little suckers. They've all got my eyes and my voice. It's been a hell of a lot of fun, and all on Fox's dime.
To watch some clips from Greg the Bunny go to http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=greg+the+bunny&aq=f
For The Official Website for Greg the Bunny go to http://www.gtheb.com/
For a Website dedicated to Greg the Bunny go to http://web.archive.org/web/20030207221430/www.gregthebunny.org/home.html
For the official Seth Green Website go to http://www.sethgreenonline.com/
For a Website dedicated to Sarah Silverman go to http://sarahsilvermanonline.com/
To watch the opening credits go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lv2vWIkJmc
