Lovely Bunny Maloney, lovely Bunny...
Bunny Maloney is an All-CGI Cartoon produced by MoonScoop (currently known as Splash Entertainment, the studio responsible for the more famous Code Lyoko).
This series focuses on Bunnyville's famous ProtecTeam. It consists of the titular Bunny Maloney, the lazy boor who truly cares for his friends despite appearances; Candy Bunny, a domineering brat who also has a hidden heart of gold, and Jean-François, a mysterious blue creature who can only say his own name. Together, they are a crime-fighting group who'd much rather be focused on their own selfish pursuits, be they public relations, shopping, or whatever other common sitcom situations they end up involved in.
On the occasions there is some crime to be stopped, it's usually the ineffectual, submarine-piloting Professor Débilouman who is the culprit. Bunny and co. unleash their mech, the Bunnyganger, to save the day, Débilouman goes down with his sub and the process repeats ad nauseum every week.
According to a leaked pitch presentation
covering the show, Bunny Maloney was intended to be an "'adult-escent’ comedy, action-adventure", pointedly comparing it to American sitcoms, and the final show is subsequently rife with raunchy humor. This didn't stop the English dub from airing in America on the child-oriented Kabillion channel for a time. Eventually, around the mid-2010s, after receiving complaints about the show's risqué humor, Kabillion ceased airing it and removed most traces of it from their social media pages, all without warning. This incident played a part in rendering most of the English dub of Bunny Maloney lost media.
The series was first broadcast on 29 March 2009 and ended in 2011 (with a total of 52 episodes in one season) due to low ratings.
This show contains examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: We have names like Bunny and Débilouman, and then we have names like Stan and Jean-François.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: With the exception of Charlotte, who has white fur.
- Ambiguously Brown: Marc of the Marc and Ting duo.
- Animesque: It even contains a few manga iconographies.
- Art-Style Dissonance: The cutesy art style hides the show's edge.
- Babysitting Episode: "Rabid Rabbit", which has the ProtecTeam tasked to take care of a baby rabbit/kit Candy found at their apartment's doorstop... at least, until she's not around.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Applies to the female anthropomorphic animals, in this case.
- Cartoon Creature: Besides Jean-François's, we have Potchi, Modchi and a couple nameless, recurring pets.
- Comical Nap Drool: Bunny has one in this promotional photo.
- Cross-Popping Veins: Accompanied by a sound effect of a whip crack when it appears.
- Cute Is Evil: The baby bunny in "Rabid Rabbit", when Candy isn't around.
- Disproportionate Retribution: In the episode "Text Message Madness", Debilouman sends Bunny's harsh message (meant for Louis) to Candy, which she then resolves to kill him in retaliation.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Débilouman's takes immense pride in a certain long, thick, and stiff body part, one that he makes a point to draw attention to. It's his nose.
- Doorstop Baby: Candy finds one planted by Débilouman in "Rabid Rabbit." It goes berserk around men but puts up a cutesy facade around women.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Usually happens with Candy at Bunny. It's taken up to eleven, as said in Disproportionate Retribution above.
- Episode Title Card
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Red Octopus's name.
- Explosive Breeder: Though a downplayed, there's one episode with an Imagine Spot scene where Bunny and Candy have many children.
- Eyes Always Shut: Ting.
- Bunny and Candy in the pilot also qualify, for the most part; with "^ ^" expressions (although Bunny's resemble Tsurime Eyes more).
- For Inconvenience, Press "1": The ProtecTeam's phone comes with an automated dialing maze, one that annoys those on either end of the phone.
- Fun with Acronyms: The robot "S.T.U.P.I.D.", in the episode of the same name.
- Furry Female Mane: Inverted, since none of the female anthropomorphic animals have hair.
- Fur Is Skin: The anthropomorphic animals simply have solid-colored body palettes.
- Gone Horribly Right: The eponymous "S.T.U.P.I.D.", a crime-detecting robot constructed by Noacak, starts detecting and labeling the civilians' mundane activities as crimes. Unfortunately, Noacak locks the offenders up without question, never considering that the machine is consistently mistaken until a majority of the population is behind bars.
- Gratuitous Japanese: The only written language In-Universe, with Kanji not even present.
- Infernal Background: Used during the frequent times when Candy's angry.
- Jiggle Physics: Applies to the women's breasts and Débilouman's nose.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Humans mostly populate Bunnyville, though.
- Look-Alike Lovers: Bunny and Candy.
- Medium Blending: Sometimes, 2D animations or stills appear to convey someone's mood. Most notable are the stills used when Candy presents a morally ambiguous message to the audience.
- In the pilot, it outright combines the use of CGI and 2D animation, examples being with the Pinpinganger (Bunnyganger) and the Takotank (Red Octopus) in some shots.
- Meaningful Name:
- Subverted with Candy; she tends to act like a volatile spoiled brat. That said, she does have her sweet moments, if infrequently.
- Débilouman's name originates from "débile", which means stupid—fitting, given how often he forgoes common sense.
- The titular "S.T.U.P.I.D." robot, since it indiscriminately labels many legal acts as crimes.
- Non-Dubbed Grunts:
- Jean-François's dialogue is the same in both English and French.
- Some characters' angry growls and other, minor sounds have remained untouched.
- The Noseless: The humans lack noses, except for Debilouman—and he has a long one, at that.
- One-Shot Character:
- Blairo, in "Stan's Perfect Match".
- The female Jean-François in "Think Extinct".
- One-Steve Limit: Subverted. In "Think Extinct", the main trio discover another creature Jean-François shares the species with, right down to the same name—albeit having the pronunciation of "Jean" being pronounced as "jen" in French, and "jeen" in English.
- Overly Long Scream: Candy lets out one in "Casanova Clone" and in "A Wrinkle in the ProtecTeam", the latter having her scream so strong, it manages to make a wall crack.
- Pie-Eyed: The Red Octopus has these.
- Pilot Episode: The Attack of the Giant Red Octopus (back in 2002)—a web animation combining CGI and 2D, seemingly serving as a risque parody of anime and manga...and how risque it is shows.
- Protagonist Title
- Punny Name: A split example with the two businessmen, Marc and Ting. Together, their names, read in that order and combined with the accompanying conjunction, sound like "marketing."
- Shout-Out:
- The ProtecTeam is a clear parody of Super Sentai. The name in the pilot also provides Sentai in it.
- Jean-François can only speak his own name.
- Débilouman's design echoes Dr. Wily, although this is slightly more obvious in the pilot.
- Stan Ookie has bastardized figurines of R2-D2 and C3-PO.
- The General acts and sounds much like Major Monogram.
- The episode title "The Good, The Bad and the Cookie" is an obvious reference to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
- In the episode "Bunnies are from Mars", the titular book is the show's version of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.
- In the episode "A Wrinkle in the ProtecTeam", there's a Mona Lisa painting on the wall during the title card sequence, with Lisa Gherardini redrawn to look like Candy.
- The same episode also references the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer intro (with Bunny in place of Leo).
- One of the people auditioning for the ProtecTeam in "The Dispense-Sense 9000" looks like he stepped right out of South Park.
- Stock Audio Clip: Candy's angry growl in the English dub.
- Stock Footage: The ProtecTeam's transformation sequences are used Once per Episode.
- Not as ubiquitous, but there's a certain Débilouman closeup that appears now and again, generally while he says his defeated Catchphrase.
- "Raucous Caucus" re-uses footage of Candy pole-dancing from "The Dispense-Sense 9000", albeit edited to have Candy wearing her combat suit.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Inverted in one episode, which contains an Imagine Spot scene involving Bunny and Candy with their "future children", who have blue fur.
