Dumb Bunnies (1998)
First episode title: One Small Step
How familiar with the show am I?: I hadn't heard of it before.
Heard of Captain Underpants? The author of those books, Dav Pilkey, had previously written another book series called Dumb Bunnies, and this is the animated series of it. It's about a family - Momma, Poppa, and Baby Bunny - who are as silly as the title suggests.
As the episode begins, a cheerful narrator introduces us to Bunnyville. We get a panoramic view of the city, which includes a bunny version of the Statue of Liberty holding a carrot instead of a torch, and what looks like the Eiffel Tower and I think the Oriental Pearl Tower. (I thought of the Space Needle and the CN Tower first, but I don't think it's either of those, and at the time of this cartoon the Oriental Pearl was the third-tallest tower and very recently built.)
Our view moves down to street level, where we see bunnies hopping around town, bunnies delivering carrots, and a traffic light where the "stop" is a red paw held up, and the "go" is an orange carrot. (If a carrot is go, shouldn't the stop be a stick?)
Then we're told that Poppa Bunny is about to come home from his job at a university lab, at which point there's an explosion in a distant building and he comes flying out:
He's still holding the test tube that presumably caused the explosion!
Then we see Momma Bunny and Baby Bunny in the garden of their house. Momma is harvesting carrots, and Baby claims to have planted them all himself - he then starts planting some more fully-grown carrots, while Momma, following behind, harvests them right back again!
Baby Bunny's shorts remind me of Mickey Mouse.
Poppa crash lands in the garden beside his family members. The way they behave around each other feels genuinely sweet. There's also a nice little gag here where the three of them wave to the camera, Poppa accidentally spilling some of the stuff from the test tube onto his face because he forgot he was holding it.
Next, evening literally falls on Bunnyville, the dark sky slamming down in front of the light one, causing a cat to screech. The Dumb Bunnies are preparing to eat breakfast.
Narrator: Breakfast? For supper?
Momma: We already had supper for breakfast!
Baby: We had noodles!
I want to note here that Baby Bunny consistently pronounces breakfast as "breffkist". It's adorable. His voice actor, Dustin Lauzon, was apparently an actual child actor, and doesn't seem to have any other credits.
Next, Poppa makes pancakes:
For those who can't see that gif, he puts chocolate chips (still in the packet), frozen corn (ditto), and fresh carrots into a bowl, and then "mixes" them using a lawnmower. Yum!
Just then, Poppa realises they're all out of cheese. The whole family are unanimously shocked (including Poppa, reacting to his own statement), as they can't eat pancakes without cheese! As none of them know what to do now, the narrator suggests cutting to a short - this sort of thing happens three times in this episode, so I assume it's a regular occurrence throughout the series.
This particular short is a "Rhyme Time Bunnies" short. Baby Bunny is on a stage in front of a crowd of people:
Baby:
For breakfast-for-supper
I like pancakes with cheese
When my mom asks me "do you want some?"
I'll yell, "yes I do"!
Momma and Poppa, who are in the audience, cheer at this, but everyone else is underwhelmed. Baby realises his rhyme didn't rhyme and tries out different last lines, like "yes thanks", "yes shoelace", "yes ping-pong", and soon his parents start yelling out equally random suggestions. Poppa starts to wonder if nothing actually rhymes with "cheese", but finally Baby lands on "yes please" and gets a round of applause! I'd be impressed with any baby reciting a poem that well, to be honest.
Back to the main story, and now the Dumb Bunnies are outside the house, looking everywhere for cheese, including on the roof (Poppa finds a tennis racket in the chimney) and under the ground (burrowing as rabbits do)! Then they burrow over to their neighbours' garden, hoping to borrow a cup of cheese. Their neighbours are called the Uppity Bunnies, and they are not at all as silly.
We see here Sue Uppity, Bill Uppity, and daughter Prissy Uppity. The meal they're having is "carrots Newberg", drawing attention to the fact that this show's rabbits only seem to eat vegetarian food - makes sense for herbivores - but not always vegan, given the cheese. Anyway, Prissy would prefer noodles - she's the rebel of the family.
Just then, there's what sounds like a knock and a doorbell at the same time. Bill wonders who could be "knocking at the doorbell", but he and his wife clearly realise there's only one family that would do something like that. The two of them hide, but Prissy happily goes to the door anyway and lets the Dumb Bunnies in. Prissy's parents look worried, but they pretend to be pleased.
Sue: Oh, it's the Dumb Bunnies! Isn't this a perfectly... lovely surprise?
Bill: Yes!
Poppa: Oh, we're not surprised at all!
Baby: We knew we were coming!
Momma and Poppa each explain that they're here to borrow a cup of... FIRE! Turns out they've been spooked by the candle on the Uppitys' dinner table, and they both put it out with fire extinguishers from Momma's bag, covering the candles, the table, Sue, and Bill. Now that dinner is ruined, Prissy is excited to make noodles instead, and invites the Dumb Bunnies to stay. Prissy's parents let out a hilariously extended "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" before Bill nervously adds "problem", and they're relieved when Poppa reveals the Dumb Bunnies have already eaten supper.
Just then, Prissy makes a shocking discovery - she can't make the noodles, because they're all out of cheese. This confused me a little - it makes sense that the Dumb Bunnies would do something weird like have cheese with pancakes, but this is one of the Uppitys, so why would you have cheese on noodles? This might just be one of those weird things about Americans saying "noodles" when they mean spaghetti - when I hear "noodles" I think of things like chow mein or ramen.
Anyway, since there's no cheese around, there's no reason for the Dumb Bunnies to be there, so they take their leave. They decide to head into town to buy some - Momma gets a little bike out of her bag, Poppa gets on it, Momma gets on him, and Baby hangs off of her. What a convenient way to travel!
As they reach what I suppose is the town's main street, since it has all the shops on it, they go right past what is visibly a cheese shop called "Grande Fromage" and instead enter a clothing shop called "Chez Monsieur Lapin's". Not sure what's up with the French theme here, but we did see the Eiffel Tower earlier!
Salesman: We do not sell cheese here at Monsieur Lapin Maison de Fashion.
Poppa: You mean... you're giving it away?
As you may be able to see, the salesman is not very impressed with this leap of deduction. After a little bit more banter where the Dumb Bunnies try and see if any of the clothes are made of cheese, the salesman insists that they do at least need new clothes. At this, the narrator (whom the salesman seems surprised to hear) says that this reminds him of a story. The Dumb Bunnies are all prepared for story time - Momma gets blankets, pillows, and what I think is a nightlight out of her seemingly bottomless bag. This leads us into the second of the episode's shorts, a "Dumb Bunny Tale".
I love this first gag, by the way. We see a storybook open up in stereotypical fairy tale fashion, and the narrator says "Once upon a time, in a land far, far away... well, not that far away." and the book gets closer to the screen!
The tale is about a town called Fadlingham where everyone dresses in the "latest fashions". The fashions in question seem to be a mix of medieval, Tudor, and there's one guy who seems to be a pirate. Anyway, a "traveller" who looks like a hippie carrying a bindle shows up, and is laughed at for his "outdated and shabby" clothing. The fact that his outfit is actually from a more recent time than theirs goes unremarked on. (That's me remarking on it.)
No-one lets him into their houses except for "Ye Dumbness", i.e. the Dumb Bunnies dressed in exactly the clothes they wear normally. We're told not to judge a person badly for the way they dress, right before it turns out that the stranger was the long lost prince of Fadlingham and he gives the Dumb Bunnies a load of riches. I have a feeling, perhaps, that the narrator has an interest in making them the heroes of the story.
Anyway, the Dumb Bunnies get kicked out of the clothes store, as well as a hardware store, a shoe store, and a book store. While they're standing near what we can clearly see is a cheese store, Poppa Bunny comes to the conclusion that all their failures mean there must be a cheese shortage!
Next, we meet "Bunnyville's shadiest character, Sly Fox":
He quickly tries to sell them Australia, the Eiffel Tower, or the Pacific Ocean, but once they make it clear all they want is cheese, he quickly shoves them into an alleyway before they can notice they're right near a cheese store. He tries to sell them a single slice for a lot of money, but he plays it up too much - he claims it's the last slice of Moon cheese left on Earth, and the Bunnies would feel bad about taking the last slice, especially during a cheese shortage. They may be dumb, but they're very considerate! In fact, Baby suggests going to the Moon and bringing back enough cheese for everyone!
If they're going to go to the Moon, the only person they know to ask is Poppa's boss, Professor Bunsen. He's actually introduced as Professor Bunsen Bunny, so I'm not entirely sure whether Bunsen is a first name or surname here - the problem with species surnames. He says "fascinating" a lot and he's my favourite character. Anyway, he's just spotted a new comet in the sky, and is preparing to launch a rocket with a space probe, when he spots the Dumb Bunnies through his telescope (they're on top of it). They slide down into the room to greet him.
Bunsen helpfully gives them directions to the Moon - "up" - and they leave the university, satisfied. The narrator seems doubtful that even directions are enough to get to the Moon, but Baby proves him wrong by discovering an elevator! They all get in, not knowing that the elevator leads into Bunsen's rocket - and as soon as they get into it, it takes off!
Narrator: There go the Dumb Bunnies, on their way to the Moon in search of cheese (which the Moon isn't made of) to put an end to a great cheese shortage (which there isn't) in Bunnyville!
The Bunnies are floating around inside the rocket, unintentionally hitting controls. The messed up trajectory the rocket ends up taking ends up attracting the attention of Bunsen, who rechecks everything and finds the problem:
This is why he's my favourite character, by the way - his reaction even to something like this is to call it "Fascinating!" All the other characters don't like the Dumb Bunnies' antics, but he just finds everything about them wondrous, just like the universe he studies.
Bunsen overhears the Bunnies talking about their plans to gather cheese on the Moon, and doesn't know how to break it to them that the Moon isn't made of cheese and that the rocket isn't even going to the Moon. He goes to the telescope to check on the comet (the rocket's actual destination) and witnesses it suddenly change course. It soon becomes clear - it's not a comet, but a spaceship! (And looks a lot less round once it's clearly visible.)
The alien broadcasts a message to Earth, which is picked up by Bunsen's instruments:
Yobbo: Yoo-hoo to planet Earth! Yobbo here! Is your leader at home?
Bunsen's reaction is to scream and hide. I suppose his curiosity has its limits. But the assembled leaders of the country, gathered in a pentagon-shaped building, have also picked up the message, and take almost no time to decide to shoot missiles at the spaceship (what look like giant toy missiles, with plungers on the end). Yobbo uses a trampoline built into the spaceship to deflect the missiles (right back to that same building!) and declares that Earth needs to be taught some manners, as he parks his spaceship on the Moon.
But remember, the rocket with the Dumb Bunnies in it was locked onto the "comet", and at that moment, it crash-lands right on top of it! The Bunnies get out to explore the Moon ("That's one small step for a bunny, one giant hop for bunnykind!"), while Yobbo expresses his annoyance at his spaceship's paint getting scratched.
The Bunnies are now eating moon rocks, trying to work out why the "cheese" is so crunchy and dry. This is possibly a new low for them in terms of intelligence. Still, they conclude that it must be stale, and, once Baby spots Yobbo, they decide he might know where the fresh Moon cheese is kept.
Speaking of Yobbo, he has just removed the probe from his spaceship, and is preparing to whack the Earth with a giant baseball bat that impossibly emerges from his ship. But the Bunnies enter the ship, interrupting him, and when Baby complains he's hungry (it must have been hours since they sat down to eat their pancakes!), Yobbo mistakes the carrots Momma gets out of her bag for weapons.
Yobbo: I give up, I give up!
Poppa: Now, now, I'm sure being the man in the Moon is a hard job, but you don't wanna give up!
Baby: You gotta keep on trying!
Newly motivated, Yobbo prepares once again to knock the Earth out of the galaxy, while the Bunnies try to remember where they recognise the name "Earth" from. It seems to ring a bell.
Suddenly, Baby realises something, and tells Yobbo to stop! Yes, of course, he's realised that... they haven't played "What's Wrong With This Picture?" yet! Being a random little cutaway, I'm counting this as the third of the "shorts" like the two from the episode's other two acts, although this one is much, well, shorter. Baby shows Yobbo a picture of the Dumb Bunnies at home:
As Yobbo points out, everything seems to be wrong. Poppa is mowing the carpet, Momma is vacuuming "under the sofa" - that is, she's under the sofa and she's vacuuming the part of the floor that isn't - there's a doorknob on the floor and a chair on the ceiling, an upside down picture on the wall and a watermelon on a cabinet, and Baby is using a hose to wash a window that's hanging on a line, while the actual window on the wall appears to be smashed. But of course, all of this is expected where the Dumb Bunnies are concerned! Yobbo figures out that the thing that's "wrong" with the picture is the one thing that looks right - a vase with a flower in it. The Baby in the picture comes to life to replace the flower with a fishing rod, and all is well again.
Now that the game is over, Baby reminds Yobbo that he was about to knock the Earth out of orbit, but as he prepares to do so for the third time, Momma suddenly remembers that the Bunnies are from Earth! Yobbo obviously doesn't want to harm the Earth now that he knows his friends live there - you know, I'm starting to like Yobbo too - and he just sits down with them to have tea on the Moon instead.
And this is when Yobbo finally reveals his occupation - planet-to-planet cheese salesman! He gives the Bunnies all the cheese they want, and they are able to go home happy. What luck!
So, the three of them get home (presumably Yobbo gave them a lift), and it's the next morning by then, so their breakfast-for-supper has become just plain breakfast. And now, we finally find out why the cheese was so essential to a meal of pancakes:
Poppa: Okay, everybody put on their hats!
Baby: Mmm, pancakes just aren't the same unless you're wearing a cheese hat!
Yes, after all that, the Dumb Bunnies weren't even planning to eat the cheese! It took me a few viewings to realise that this was kind of foreshadowed back at the clothes shop when they asked if they had any clothes made of cheese, which just seemed like a typical gag at the time.
The cheese hats are an appropriate enough punchline to end the episode on, but it's not even done yet: the TV news tells us that today's weather is "cloudy with a chance of cheese", perhaps referencing a particular children's book that would sometime later become a film, and we see that Yobbo is beaming cheese down to the whole of Bunnyville from high in the sky! Bill and Sue look miffed about this, but Prissy is happily skipping in the "rain"; the clothes salesman and Sly Fox also look unhappy, but Professor Bunsen, of course, simply finds it "Fascinating!"