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.

3 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...