Somehow, Greg the Bunny creator Dan Milano was able to retain the central characters from the canceled FOX series and strike out on his own on the Independent Film Channel. GtB is a series again now in 15 minutes segments, wedged between animated feature Hopeless Pictures and The Festival. But if you're expecting to see the old GtB with the Sweetknuckle Junction and Eugene Levy, you may be a bit disappointed. This is a different show but no less hilarious. For one thing, only Greg, Warren and Count Blah appear in this new version now. Seth Green makes occasional but rare appearances. Obviously, FOX retains the actual puppets used from the original series, so Greg and company look quite crude and raggedy. The characters speak of the FOX years in the past tense as if they were fired actors. Now they're' actors-for-hire. With an "A Team"-like intro, the premise of the show is spelled out. Each episode is a parody of a cult movie. "Fargo", "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Natural Born Killers", "Auto-Focus" are some of the movies that have been parodied. I'm not sure how long this format will hold but it works.
The other big difference is that because this is on cable, the humor is much more on the raunchy side. Nothing seems to be off-limits. Sex, crude language, violence. This was my greatest fear for this series. The FOX series worked because the envelope was pushed to the limit. A puppet show with adult themes. Since it was a network show, they had a certain threshold. Since it was the maverick FOX, they had a long leash. Unfortunately, FOX became concerned about ratings and the show was canceled. On IFC, anything goes and I was afraid they'd lean on sex and profanity as a crutch, but Greg is still cute and Warren is even more cynical and sarcastic as ever. The profanity is well placed and not too gratuitous. I think this is how Milano originally intended his show to be. Though I still prefer the FOX series, I think this is a great follow-up. Still hilarious, just not everybody's cup of tea.
