Sunday, October 20, 2013

Spooktober: Bunnicula, The Vampire Rabbit (1982)

From the ABC Weekend Special comes an adaptation of James & Deborah Howe's Bunnicula, The Vampire Rabbit, produced by Ruby-Spears, which did most of the animated entries for the anthology series, which included some episodes that later spun off into The Puppy's Great Adventures.

Edit, 10/2/20: Had to change the video. This copy is a repeat broadcast from 1983, complete with commercials, and bumpers with then-hosts Willie Tyler & Lester:

Bunnicula's cast includes a mini-Battle of the Planets reunion of Alan Dinehart (also the voice director), Alan Young, & Janet Waldo. Young & Waldo are the unsuspecting parents who take in Bunnicula, prompting the family pets, Chester & Harold, to take action, thinking the worst. The story is told by Harold (Jack Carter, in a rare voice role).

 

 No rating. Never saw this the first time around.

4 comments:

magicdog said...

I saw this one way back in the day - it was part of the ABC Weekend Special. It was repeated I think two more times during that series' run.

I always thought it was ahead of its time - a vampire rabbit does seem a little odd. Rather spoofy like Duckula. I believe it was based on a book of the same name.

hobbyfan said...

Yes, it was, and I made mention of that.

Speaking of Weekend Special book adaptations, the two Miss Switch two-parters are coming up in the next few days.

Scoobyfan1 said...

@Hobbyfan: I know this is a very belated response to this(big surprise on my point, I know)... but Bunnicula is supposed to air on MeTV Toons as part of their Halloween programming this month...

According to their website, it's set to air on October 26th at 7:30 PM Pacific Time(as i've brought up many times, I live on the west coast, so i'm used to equating things with the Pacific Time Zone).

Unless there was another version of Bunnicula, they probably are airing this one; unfortunately, MeTV Toons is still not seen everywhere(right now, they're available on DirecTV, on one or two streaming providers, and over the air and cable in some markets; Seattle, where I live, has MeTV Toons over the air, but not on cable).

And from checking their website, it doesn't look like it's available in the Albany, NY area at the moment...

hobbyfan said...

Unfortunately, Spectrum Cable in Albany won't put Me-TV Toons on the digital tier at the present time, though things could change.