Having built a strong following on the web, Jennifer Shiman’s 30-second, animated bunny reenactments of popular movies hit cable television as a Starz On Demand offering on April 1. Since it’s launch, the Flash-animated property has generated more than 1.6 million viewings, according to Starz Entertainment Group LLC.
Featuring all-bunny casts, Shiman’s shorts boil down such iconic films as Jaws, Pulp Fiction, The Shining and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, retelling their stories as bite-sized comedies. Parodies of horror films have been the most popular by far. The rabbit reenactment of Freddy vs. Jason was viewed 316,000 times in five months.
“The popularity of the bunny shorts on Starz On Demand is one of the clearest early indicators that on demand is a very different medium than linear channels,” says Bill Hoagland, VP of On Demand for Starz Entertainment Group. “With on demand, it is possible to air programming of any length instead of trying to shoehorn everything into half-hour or hour slots, and allows the viewer to sample programming that might be unavailable or overlooked on the linear channels.”
Hoagland notes that hundreds of thousands of the bunny shorts have also been viewed as part of the two-minute file packages that now air before and after mainstream movies ordered through Starz On Demand. Viewers who liked what they saw were then able to look for more parodies in the "Quickies" section. "In May, 2005, four of the bunny spots collectively were viewed more than any individual movie title, attesting to their popularity,” he adds.
Other hit films tackled with the bunny formula include Scream, Titanic, The Exorcist, Alien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and It’s a Wonderful Life. They can all be downloaded at the Angry Alien Prods. website, www.angryalien.com.
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