While trying to find a movie to watch for a film-review in my English 302 class, I stumbled upon a short called 30-Second Bunnies Theater. Wondering what this could be, I poked around and found out it was animated shorts consisting of bunnies re-enacting feature length films in 30-seconds. 30-Second Bunnies Theater uses popular actions and quotes from the films in order to review them in only 30-seconds. But in order to really understand and see the humor in the short, you need to have seen the film first.
Most popular feautre length films have plot points that become part of mainstream popular culture. These points could be the character’s actions or dialogue. For instance, this Bunnies short for the movie Star Wars.
In this short it is obvious which bunny is which because each is wearing costumes alike to their real-life counterparts. But what really moves the short along is the simple “important” dialogue between the bunnies. In Star Wars the focus is teaching Luke “the force” and allowing him to defeat the Death Star. This is brought across with the many mentions of “the force” during the short dialogue scenes. Also seeing Darth Vader and his death grip, the holograph of Princess Leia, Chewbacca’s roar, the killing of Obi-Wan through a light-saber duel, and Luke destroying the death star from his X-Wing give pivotal points from the movie itself. The problem is, if you have never seen the movie and do not know this familiar scenes, then can you understand whats going on?
I believe you cannot see the humor or get the point of these shorts unless you have seen the movie first. Like for instance this short for The Big Chill.
I have never seen the big chill, so the only thing I understand about the movie is that they must have a lot of sex in it because it is highlighted in the short. I’m sure its a big part of the movie but the rest of the plot lines are lost to me and I don’t really find the short all that funny.
30-Second Bunnies Theater is a great way to take some of people’s favorite films and highlight them in a 30-second review. The use of pivotal scenes and dialogue makes these shorts enjoyable but only if you have seen the movie before seeing the short. It is wonderful how such short animation can bring back memories from feature length films.
I commented on Christopher DeMarco’s blog and Brittany Alberry’s blog.
Animated 
I agree with you. I have not seen either of those films which took away from the animation because I didn’t get it. I like the idea of summarizing films in a 30 second short. I just wish I understood what was going on. I’m curious to see if they covered other films now.
They do cover other films, there is a whole list of them if you click on the name in my post.
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I have to agree that if you do not know the films than you do not know what is going on, but how can anybody capture a full-length feature film in 30 seconds? What does make these animation shorts funny is if you do know the film pretty well, because then you can laugh about the fact that they have placed Bunnies into the main characters and just the rush of having to squeeze everything in.
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I agree, I have never seen The Big Chill or any of the Star Wars so I don’t understand what is going on in either of the Funny Bunny shorts. I think it is a cute and creative animation idea. Unfortunately, it won’t make sense to people who haven’t seen the movies that the animators are covering. It is almost refreshing to see someone trying to sum up 2-3 hour movies in 30 seconds because I have trouble sitting through long movies. I wish all subjects in life could be summed up in 30 seconds. Unfortunately, most things require further elaboration to make sense as illustrated by the Funny Bunny shorts.
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I find what you described above to be a problem with referencing other things in entertainment as a whole. While putting in a James Bond quote in a movie might be funny to those familiar to James Bond it won’t to people who have never heard of the film franchise. That is why it is important not to rely too much on references as it can detract from the humor if the audience can’t understand a good portion of the jokes.
In the case of Parodies like 30-second bunnies theater, however relying on the source material is perfectly okay as you can’t really write a good parody without understanding the material you are basing it off of.
I totally forgot about these shorts. The 30 Second Bunny Theaters are really funny. I see how the second one has a lot of sex in it. I haven’t seen the movie either, but I would assume that too. I like how they cram all the important information into one 30 second clip. I tried doing that for an actual movie once, but it was really hard and I was doing it in 3 minutes. The people behind these animations are good at what they do. Thanks for posting this. I’m gonna have to check out some other shorts from them.
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I love these!!!! they have them for free all of them on netflix and they are hilarious! I especially love the Twilight series and such because some movies are so bad you never want to see them but getting the breakdown in 30 seconds is helpful non the less. I like that they manage to keep what most would consider the “big” moments or the classic quotable lines so when they do your favorite movie, even in 30 seconds you arnt disappointed.