Someone who knows my affinity for bunnies, foul-mouthed puppets, and ridiculous, short-lived sit-coms gave me the 2-DVD set of Greg the Bunny. The few episodes I caught when the show originally aired never clicked with me, and I figured I’d make it through half an hour, tops. Little did I know I’d spend my whole day with Greg and his puppet pals. Sorry, “Fabricated Americans” to you overly sensitive types. The underlying theme of this behind-the-scenes look at a children’s show is that puppets live and breathe, coexisting with humans. A familiar premise to anyone who grew up watching The Muppet Show, but the concept is explored in much grittier detail here. The best episodes tackle the touchy issues of puppet racism and human-puppet relationships. Googly-eyed shenanigans abound, and we’re privy to plenty of slanderous quips about other famous felt-beings. (One scandalous rumor is that Bert and Ernie are actually straight.) Unfortunately for the show, Fox deemed the scripts a bit too daring and risqué (this from the network that brought us Married with Children) and exerted continual pressure to water things down. As the series progresses, it’s apparent that there was a constant struggle to find a balance between ribald and family-friendly material, as well as whether to exclusively focus on the exploits of puppets or humans. Overall though, the show is surprisingly well-written, fast-paced, original, and laugh-out-loud funny. It helps to have talented improvisers in the cast like Eugene Levy and Seth Green. Even guests Marilu Henner, Gary Oldman and Corey Feldman show a natural rapport with their foam rubber co-stars. Along with the entire first (and only) season, the DVDs include unaired episodes, plenty of interesting commentaries, and oodles of extras like puppet auditions, deleted scenes, and many easter eggs. There’s lots of background info on the evolution of the show and characters, starting with their humble roots on public access TV. Greg is an impressive package with heart and soul, and delivers much more than I expected from a program that never got its due.

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