Yep, when I was a kid, I loved me some puppets! But see, unlike the rest of you rich fawks, I was as poor as dirt. Unlike YOU, I didn't have any of those fancy-pants marionettes. In fact, I was so poor, the rich kids hired ME as a marionette and hung me outside their mansion windows by ROPES! "Dance!" they'd yell. "Dance, Humpy-Dumpy Pants!" And if I didn't dance, they'd throw eggs at me. And sometimes rocks. And maybe the occasional poor fat kid they hired to imitate a rock.
But I digress! See, I was so poor I couldn't afford any real puppets, so I had to make my own--out of BALONEY. Fact is, at the time, my best friend in the world was my baloney puppet pal, Tony Slice-a-Baloney. We did everything together: rode bicycles late at night, stole dirty magazines, and even performed a puppet-show version of Taxi Driver (Tony was De Niro and I was Jodie Foster). And everything was beautiful--until that one horrible day when Mom was forced to cook Tony Slice-a-Baloney for dinner. And though she tried to replace him with another puppet pal (Ronald the Leaky Douche Bottle), it was never the same. There would never be another Tony Slice-a-Baloney.
However! Happily for me, there's a new show debuting this week that capitalizes on the lovability and intestinal warmth of "the puppet." It's called Greg the Bunny (Wednesdays, 9:30, FOX) and it's about a group of out-of-work puppets that land a job on a kids' show called Sweetknuckle Junction. Unfortunately, the puppets are just as neurotic as the producers, so it's up to Greg's roommate Jimmy (played by ex-Buffy heartthrob Seth Green) to keep him on the right path--especially when he's being a freaking jerk!
And while Greg the Bunny could potentially be crap-o-riffic, I'm thinking it's a bona fide winner! The creators of the show started out on NYC public access, then Greg was quickly picked up by the Independent Film Channel (early versions of the show can be downloaded at http://mmnt.millennium.berkeley.edu/gtb/home.html--and they're a kick in the pants!). And since the original creators are serving as executive producers of the new version, we can only blame FOX if it tanks.
So while Greg the Bunny can never replace Tony Slice-a-Baloney... he might just run a close second. (That is, unless I revive my other childhood puppet pal, "Lance the Dirty-Pair-a-Underpants.")
