Bunnicula is a children's novel series. The first installment was written by James and Deborah Howe, and introduced a vampire rabbit named Bunnicula who sucks the juice out of vegetables.
Nighty Nightmare (1987)
Mr. Monroe has a midlife crisis and wants to do something exciting while he is at his lakeside retreat of Boggy Lake while fishing with Harold, Chester, and Howie. He decides to go camping out in the woods. They meet two men, Bud and Spud, and their dog Dawg. That night, they go out for a walk, and Dawg leads Harold, Chester, and Howie away from his masters and the Monroes to show them something "neat", getting them lost in the woods. Chester begins to suspect that Bud and Spud are planning to murder the Monroes and that Dawg is luring them away to keep them from interfering. Once they reach a house right in the middle of the woods, Chester tells a story about Bunnicula's origin in an attempt to lull Dawg to sleep and allow himself, Harold, and Howie to escape. While the plan is successful, Harold, Howie, and Chester fall asleep along with Dawg, and awaken shortly before dawn. After they return to the Monroes' camp, only to find it trashed and deserted, Dawg reveals that the house they visited is his own. The Monroes also stayed the night with them to avoid the rain, and are relieved that Harold, Howie, and Chester are unharmed.
Return to Howliday Inn (1992)
The Monroe family leaves Harold, Chester, and Howie at Chateau Bow-Wow again. The pets quickly notice differences, including a new group of animals staying there, including a sad Great Dane named Hamlet. The three Monroe pets learn that Hamlet's old owner left him there a long time ago. Chester finds his owner's new address and they leave the chateau to escort Hamlet there. The new address turns out to be a nursing home that does not allow animals. Hamlet finds his old owner, and it is revealed that the owner was a ventriloquist. Using ventriloquism, the pets and patients convince the staff of the nursing home to allow Hamlet to stay. When Harold, Chester, and Howie are picked up at the end, they fool the Monroes with the ventriloquism tricks they learned.
Bunnicula Strikes Again! (1999)
Chester suspects again that Bunnicula is a threatening vampire and starts drinking the rabbit's juice in the daytime so Bunnicula will die of starvation. One night, Harold notices Bunnicula crying while singing him a lullaby. Chester thinks he misses his mother, and in the next few days, he leads the two dogs to search for her to no luck. When Bunnicula becomes increasingly ill, he is taken to the veterinarian. Chester escapes, and both he and Bunnicula are crushed under rubble. Harold and Howie manage to alert the Monroes who dig through the rubble and find them both unharmed. Chester finally accepts Bunnicula.
Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow (2006)
Pete writes to the author of his (and Howie's) favorite series, FleshCrawlers. He visits the Monroe household and stays in the guestroom, bringing with him his favorite pet crow, Edgar Allan Crow. Everyone is thrilled, except for Chester, who insists that the author, M.T. Graves, is suspicious. Harold and Howie are not convinced, but Chester is convinced that there is a secret society among the crows and Edgar is a messenger sent to help Graves transform Bunnicula into a bat. When Bunnicula escapes, the entire party chases after him, and Harold and Howie begin to think that Chester may have been right. M.T. Graves is very careful about a black bag, and when Bunnicula is not found, Chester believes he is trapped in the bag. Harold dumps the bag, only to discover it is filled with stuffed animals. M.T. Graves tells them that he stayed at the Monroes' house so that he could conquer his phobia of animals.
Spin-offs
Following the end of the Bunnicula series, James wrote a spin-off series called Tales from the House of Bunnicula, which is "written" by Howie, the Dachshund puppy who was introduced into the series in Howliday Inn. The Bunnicula and Friends: Ready to Read series contains six picture books about the adventures of the characters, and is aimed at beginner readers.
Adaptations
A 1982 animated TV special (from Ruby-Spears) by the same name was created based on the first book and aired on the ABC Weekend Special.
An animated series loosely adapted from the book series began airing on Cartoon Network and on Boomerang on 6 February 2016.
A stage adaptation based on the books was written by Jon Klein and performed by the B Street Theatre in Sacramento, California. An additional stage adaptation was created for a children's theatre at the DR2 Theatre in New York, adapted by writer Charles Busch.
In 2022, Bunnicula: The Graphic Novel, an adaptation of the first book in the series by Andrew Donkin and art by Stephen Gilpin, was released.
See also
References
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