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Bunnicula is the name of a series of children's books written by James Howe about a "vampire bunny" who is adopted by the Monroe family, who give him the name "Bunnicula" when they find him on a seat in the theater while going to see the movie Dracula. The story centers on the family's pets, Harold, an old, good-natured mongrel, who is the narrator of the story, Chester the cat, who has a vivid imagination and suspects Bunnicula of being a vampire, and the eponymous bunny, who never displays any overt vampiric traits despite constant accusations by Chester.

The series is something of an Affectionate Parody of the horror genre, with equal parts mystery and comedy as well. The first book, simply titled Bunnicula, was written together with Howe's late wife Deborah.

Books in the series:

Bunnicula (1979)
Howliday Inn (1982)
The Celery Stalks At Midnight (1983)
Nighty-Nightmare (1987)
Return to Howliday Inn (1992)
Bunnicula Strikes Again! (1999)
Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow! (2006)

There is also the spin-off series Tales From The House of Bunnicula:

It Came From Beneath the Bed!
Invasion of the Mind Swappers from Asteroid 6!
Howie Monroe and the Doghouse of Doom
Screaming Mummies of the Pharaoh's Tomb II
Bud Barkin, Private Eye
The Odorous Adventures of Stinky Dog

There is also a series of Bunnicula books for very young readers:

The Vampire Bunny
Hot Fudge
Scared Silly
Rabbit-Cadabra
The Fright Before Christmas
Creepy Crawly Birthday
Bunnicula Escapes!: A Pop-up Adventure

As well as several non-fiction books:

Bunnicula's Wickedly Wacky Word Games: a Book for Word Lovers & Their Pencils!
Bunnicula's Frightfully Fabulous Factoids: a Book to Entertain Your Brain!
Bunnicula's Pleasantly Perplexing Puzzlers: A Book of Puzzles, Mazes, & Whatzits!
Bunnicula's Long-lasting Laugh-alouds: a Book of Jokes & Riddles to Tickle Your Bunny-Bone!

Also, being made into a stop motion animated film by Henry Selick (of The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Coraline fame).

The following tropes are common to many or all entries in the Bunnicula franchise.
For tropes specific to individual installments, visit their respective work pages.

Agent Mulder: Chester
Affectionate Parody: Both series are a parody of horror novels. Also, the Fleshcrawler books Howie reads are clearly parodies of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps.
Amateur Sleuth: Chester fancies himself one
Artistic License: Biology: Harold's favorite food is chocolate cupcakes, even though a lot of chocolate can be dangerous to dogs. Whether this is artistic license on the part of the character or the author is debatable. It's specifically pointed out in both Bunnicula Strikes Again! and Hot Fudge that you should never give your dog chocolate in real life. It is also noted that some dogs can eat chocolate just fine, and Harold happens to (thankfully) be one of these. See also Breaking the Fourth Wall.
Big Friendly Dog: Harold is a more laid-back version, but definitely qualifies. Especially when the Munroe kids have junk food.
Book Within A Book: The spin-off series Tales From The House of Bunnicula are Howie's novels and writing journal entries.
Brilliant but Lazy: Harold the dog makes a lot of obscure references, and can even read Carpathian. He would just rather eat the books instead of read them.
Conspiracy Theorist: Oh, Chester.
Cute Little Fangs: Bunnicula, both in-story and in all the artwork.
Fantastic Racism: Chester, in the "Vampires = Exclusively Evil" sense.
Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Bunnicula only vampirizes vegetables by sucking out their juices.
Genre Savvy: Wrong Genre Savvy, in Chester's case. He sees himself as Van Helsing to Bunnicula's Dracula, when the truth is a lot more benign.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: In Howliday Inn, Louise calls Georgette "Hester Prynne". It's an obscure reference that hardly any kid would get, but she's essentially calling Georgette a slut.
Hair-Raising Hare. Possibly. Certainly Bunnicula scares Chester.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Inverted:

"IT WAS NOT a dark and stormy night. Indeed, there was nothing in the elements to foreshadow the events that lay ahead."

- It was implied that it was in the first chapter, "The Arrival", in the first book.
Killer Rabbit: or so Chester assumes
Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Pete trying to explain to his family that the white vegetables are caused by "vegetables that aren't organic".
Literary Agent Hypothesis: The prologue claims that Howe is merely the literary agent for Harold the dog.
Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Bunnicula may or may not be a blood-sucking fiend, though it becomes less debatable as the series goes on. Much of the humor in the series comes from Chester's belief that Bunnicula's eating habits mean that the world around them follows horror tropes.
Metaphorgotten: Chester in Bunnicula Strikes Again:

"You can lead a horse of a different color to water but it's still a horse."

Noodle Incident: Chester never lets Harold forget about the thing with the geranium. Or the thing with Mr. Monroe's electric shaver.
Papa Dog: Harold goes to great lengths to protect Bunnicula against Chester whenever he has a "Kill the wab-bit" attack.
Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness: So very, very friendly. Also cute and fluffy!
Stealth Pun: The Latin word for rabbit is "cuniculus" and the scientific name for the European rabbit is Oryctolagus cuniculus; stick a feminine ending on it and it's "cunicula".
Vegetarian Vampire: Quite literally.
The Watson: Harold to Chester, though he still manages to get sucked into Chester's fantasies in every book.
A Worldwide Punomenon: Howie enjoys these.

The Bunnicula series provides additional examples of:

Adaptational Personality Adjustment: The animated version of goes with this for all three of the main characters. Harold in the books is a lovable but observant dog that realizes that the title character is not a threat. Chester is paranoid that Bunnicula is evil but goes overboard in putting garlic everywhere. Meanwhile, the worst thing that book Bunnicula does is drain all the vegetables of their juice, something that his family rectifies by putting him on a strictly vegetable juice diet. Cartoon Harold is The Ditz being a dog with more floof than brain, Chester is a Nervous Wreck who is more than willing to work with Bunnicula to solve a problem, if not trusting him that much, and Bunnicula becomes a flying, shapeshifting prankster who will troll Chester if it amuses him.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: In Bunnicula Strikes Again!, Harold reminds the audience that he, like the books he writes, is a work of fiction.
Hell Hotel: Chateau Bow-Wow in Howliday Inn and Return To Howliday Inn
Mad Scientist: Parodied (and ultimately subverted) with Dr. Greenbriar. Jill could even be seen as his beautiful daughter, and Harrison as his Igor.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: M.T. Graves is an Affectionate Parody of Stephen King.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Bud and Spud, who come across as dumb hicks, but are actually well educated. Of course, most of the obfuscation comes from Chester's overactive imagination.
Pounds Are Animal Prisons: ...So are the kennels in Howliday Inn.
Ten Little Murder Victims : parodied in Howliday Inn

The Tales From The House of Bunnicula series provides examples of:

Affectionate Parody: Howie is a parody of Fan Fiction writers, and The Doghouse of Doom is mistakenly seen as a parody of Harry Potter by Howie's editor.
Aliens Speaking English: The Mindswappers From Asteriod 6™ speak English. "Justified" in that Howie is the author and he wants them to. So there.
Author Avatar: Howie's books star himself and his friend.
Death By Newboney Medal: Howie tries to make Tales #4 more tragic in order to win a Medal. It doesn't work.
Depending on the Writer: Used in-universe as the quality, direction, focus, and title vary depending on if Howie of Delilah is writing Tales From The House of Bunnicula.
Product Placement: Howie likes to promote his previous books, though he claims to be simply giving helpful references to the reader.
Purple Prose: Lots in Howie's books. Even Harold tells him that he's going overboard, especially with self-description.
Title Drop: "Mindswappers From Asteriod 6™" is always emphasized and trademarked.

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 Bunnicula is the name of a series of children's books written by James Howe about a "vampire bunny" who is adopted by the Monroe family, who give him the name "Bunnicula" when they find him on a seat in the theater while going to see the movie Dracula. The story centers on the family's pets, Harold, an old, good-natured mongrel, who is the narrator of the story, Chester the cat, who has a vivid imagination and suspects Bunnicula of being a vampire, and the eponymous bunny, who never displays any overt vampiric traits despite constant accusations by Chester.
 The series is something of an [[Affectionate Parody]] of the horror genre, with equal parts mystery and comedy as well. The first book, simply titled ''Bunnicula'', was written together with Howe's late wife Deborah.
@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 * ''Bunnicula's Long-lasting Laugh-alouds: a Book of Jokes & Riddles to Tickle Your Bunny-Bone!''
-Also, being made into a stop motion animated film by Henry Selick (of ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'', ''[[James and The Giant Peach]]'' and ''[[Coraline (Film)|Coraline]]'' fame).
+Also, being made into a stop motion animated film by Henry Selick (of ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'', ''[[James and the Giant Peach]]'' and ''[[Coraline (animation)|Coraline]]'' fame).
-----
-=== The franchise provides examples of: ===
+{{franchisetropes}}
 * [[Agent Mulder]]: Chester
 * [[Affectionate Parody]]: Both series are a parody of horror novels. Also, the ''Fleshcrawler'' books Howie reads are clearly parodies of R.L. Stine's ''Goosebumps''.
 * [[Amateur Sleuth]]: Chester fancies himself one
-* [[Artistic License Biology]]: Harold's favorite food is chocolate cupcakes, even though a lot of chocolate can be dangerous to dogs. Whether this is artistic license on the part of the character or the author is debatable. It's specifically pointed out in both ''Bunnicula Strikes Again!'' and ''Hot Fudge'' that you should never give your dog chocolate in real life. It is also noted that some dogs can eat chocolate just fine, and Harold happens to (thankfully) be one of these. See also [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]].
+* [[Artistic License: Biology]]: Harold's favorite food is chocolate cupcakes, even though a lot of chocolate can be dangerous to dogs. Whether this is artistic license on the part of the character or the author is debatable. It's specifically pointed out in both ''Bunnicula Strikes Again!'' and ''Hot Fudge'' that you should never give your dog chocolate in real life. It is also noted that some dogs can eat chocolate just fine, and Harold happens to (thankfully) be one of these. See also [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]].
 * [[Big Friendly Dog]]: Harold is a more laid-back version, but definitely qualifies. Especially when the Munroe kids have junk food.
 * [[Show Within a Show|Book Within A Book]]: The spin-off series ''Tales From The House of Bunnicula'' are Howie's novels and writing journal entries.
@@ Line 53: / Line 52: @@
 * [[Conspiracy Theorist]]: Oh, Chester.
 * [[Cute Little Fangs]]: Bunnicula, both in-story and in all the artwork.
-* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Chester, in the "Vampires = [[Always Chaotic Evil]]" sense.
+* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Chester, in the "Vampires = [[Exclusively Evil]]" sense.
 * [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire]]: Bunnicula only vampirizes vegetables by sucking out their juices.
 * [[Genre Savvy]]: [[Wrong Genre Savvy]], in Chester's case. He sees himself as Van Helsing to Bunnicula's [[Dracula]], when the truth is a lot more [[Defanged Horrors|benign]].
 * [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: In ''Howliday Inn'', Louise calls Georgette [[The Scarlet Letter|"Hester Prynne"]]. It's an obscure reference that [[Parental Bonus|hardly any kid would get]], but she's essentially calling Georgette a slut.
-* [[Hair Raising Hare]]. Possibly. Certainly Bunnicula scares Chester.
+* [[Hair-Raising Hare]]. Possibly. Certainly Bunnicula scares Chester.
-* [[It Was a Dark And Stormy Night]]: Inverted:
+* [[It Was a Dark and Stormy Night]]: Inverted:
-{{quote| "IT WAS NOT a dark and stormy night. Indeed, there was nothing in the elements to foreshadow the events that lay ahead."}}
+{{quote|"IT WAS NOT a dark and stormy night. Indeed, there was nothing in the elements to foreshadow the events that lay ahead."}}
 ** It was implied that it was in the first chapter, "The Arrival", in the first book.
 * [[Killer Rabbit]]: or so Chester assumes
-* [[Know Nothing Know It All]]: Pete trying to explain to his family that the white vegetables are caused by "vegetables that aren't organic".
+* [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All]]: Pete trying to explain to his family that the white vegetables are caused by "vegetables that aren't organic".
 * [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]]: The prologue claims that Howe is merely the literary agent for Harold the dog.
-* [[Maybe Magic Maybe Mundane]]: Bunnicula may or may not be a blood-sucking fiend, though it becomes less debatable as the series goes on. Much of the humor in the series comes from Chester's belief that Bunnicula's eating habits mean that the world around them follows horror tropes.
+* [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]]: Bunnicula may or may not be a blood-sucking fiend, though it becomes less debatable as the series goes on. Much of the humor in the series comes from Chester's belief that Bunnicula's eating habits mean that the world around them follows horror tropes.
 * [[Metaphorgotten]]: Chester in ''Bunnicula Strikes Again:''
-{{quote| "You can lead a horse of a different color to water but it's still a horse."}}
+{{quote|"You can lead a horse of a different color to water but it's still a horse."}}
 * [[Noodle Incident]]: Chester never lets Harold forget about the thing with the geranium. Or the thing with Mr. Monroe's electric shaver.
 * [[Papa Wolf|Papa Dog]]: Harold goes to ''great lengths'' to protect Bunnicula against Chester whenever he has a [[Looney Tunes|"Kill the wab-bit"]] attack.
@@ Line 76: / Line 75: @@
 === The ''Bunnicula'' series provides additional examples of: ===
+* [[Adaptational Personality Adjustment]]:  The animated version of goes with this for all three of the main characters. Harold in the books is a lovable but observant dog that realizes that the title character is not a threat. Chester is paranoid that Bunnicula is evil but goes overboard in putting garlic everywhere. Meanwhile, the worst thing that book Bunnicula does is drain all the vegetables of their juice, something that his family rectifies by putting him on a strictly vegetable juice diet. Cartoon Harold is [[The Ditz]] being a dog with more floof than brain, Chester is a [[Nervous Wreck]] who is more than willing to work with Bunnicula to solve a problem, if not trusting him that much, and Bunnicula becomes a flying, shapeshifting prankster who will troll Chester if it amuses him.
 * [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: In ''Bunnicula Strikes Again!'', Harold reminds the audience that he, like the books he writes, is a work of fiction.
 * [[Hell Hotel]]: Chateau Bow-Wow in ''Howliday Inn'' and ''Return To Howliday Inn''
-* [[Mad Scientist]]: Parodied (and ultimately subverted) with Dr. Greenbriar. Jill could even be seen as his [[Mad Scientists Beautiful Daughter|beautiful daughter]], and Harrison as his [[The Igor|Igor]].
+* [[Mad Scientist]]: Parodied (and ultimately subverted) with Dr. Greenbriar. Jill could even be seen as his [[Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter|beautiful daughter]], and Harrison as his [[The Igor|Igor]].
 * [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: M.T. Graves is an [[Affectionate Parody]] of [[Stephen King]].
-* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: Bud and Spud, who come across as dumb hicks, but are actually [[Southern Fried Genius|well educated]]. Of course, most of the obfuscation comes from Chester's overactive imagination.
+* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: Bud and Spud, who come across as dumb hicks, but are actually [[Southern-Fried Genius|well educated]]. Of course, most of the obfuscation comes from Chester's overactive imagination.
 * [[Pounds Are Animal Prisons]]: ...So are the kennels in ''Howliday Inn''.
 * [[Ten Little Murder Victims]] : parodied in ''Howliday Inn''
 === The ''Tales From The House of Bunnicula'' series provides examples of: ===
-* [[Affectionate Parody]]: Howie is a parody of [[Fan Fiction]] writers, and ''The Doghouse of Doom'' is mistakenly seen as a parody of ''[[Harry Potter (Literature)|Harry Potter]]'' by Howie's editor.
+* [[Affectionate Parody]]: Howie is a parody of [[Fan Fiction]] writers, and ''The Doghouse of Doom'' is mistakenly seen as a parody of ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' by Howie's editor.
 * [[Aliens Speaking English]]: The Mindswappers From Asteriod 6™ speak English. "[[Sarcasm Mode|Justified]]" in that Howie is the author and he wants them to. So there.
 * [[Author Avatar]]: Howie's books star himself and his friend.
-* [[Death By Newbery Medal|Death By Newboney Medal]]: Howie tries to make ''Tales #4'' more tragic in order to win a Medal. It doesn't work.
+* [[Death by Newbery Medal|Death By Newboney Medal]]: Howie tries to make ''Tales #4'' more tragic in order to win a Medal. It doesn't work.
-* [[Depending On the Writer]]: Used in-universe as the quality, direction, focus, and title vary depending on if Howie of Delilah is writing Tales From The House of Bunnicula.
+* [[Depending on the Writer]]: Used in-universe as the quality, direction, focus, and title vary depending on if Howie of Delilah is writing Tales From The House of Bunnicula.
 * [[Product Placement]]: Howie likes to promote his previous books, though he claims to be simply giving helpful references to the reader.
 * [[Purple Prose]]: Lots in Howie's books. Even Harold tells him that he's going overboard, especially with self-description.
-* [[Title Drop]]: "Mindswappers From Asteriod 6™" is always emphasized and [[Tradesnark|trademarked]].
+* [[Title Drop]]: "Mindswappers From Asteriod 6™" is always emphasized and [[Tradesnark™|trademarked]].
 {{reflist}}
 [[Category:Comic Literature]]
 [[Category:Vampire Fiction]]
-[[Category:Childrens Literature]]
+[[Category:Children's Literature]]
 [[Category:Horror Literature]]
 [[Category:Bunnicula]]
 [[Category:Literature]]
+[[Category:Literature of the 1970s]]