In December 2003, Sex Pistols founder John Lydon appeared on the sixth episode of The Bronx Bunny Show, a show broadcast on E4, the youth-orientated UK channel launched two years previously.
The show was hosted by a pair of puppets: Bronx Bunny himself, a foul-mouthed, celebrity-obsessed rabbit, and his untrustworthy sidekick, an equally profane, cigarette-smoking panda named Teddy T. The show was filmed in a pretend apartment in The Bronx, where the unruly pair would "interview" guests like Lydon, Engelbert Humperdinck, Hugh Hefner, Willian Shatner and Lynda Carter, a.k.a. Wonder Woman.
The story of how Bronx Bunny and Teddy T came to be fronting their own TV show is a long one, but creators Ciaran Morrison and Mick O'Hara have a history with this sort of thing. In 1987 they debuted another pair of puppets, Zig and Zag, on Irish channel RTÉ. Pretending to be twins from the planet Zog, they swiftly built a reputation for their chaotic, anarchic interviews, and were voted Irish TV personalities of the year in 1989, "for keeping the children of the nation happy".
Three years later the big bucks came calling, and Zig and Zag crossed the Irish Sea to join the cast of Channel 4's flagship morning TV show The Big Breakfast and make an unlikely dent in the Top 10 via the 'Zaggamuffin' stylings of Them Girls Them Girls – produced by future house music superstar Erick Morillo – which saw the duo adopt fake Jamaican accents. After The Big Breakfast was revamped the pair were dropped.
The Zig And Zag Show followed on ITV, before the pair returned to Ireland to present a music show called 2Phat, followed by a second stint on the Big Breakfast set as the show attempted to revive its flagging fortunes. And then came The Bronx Bunny Show.
It was just about as profane as two puppets could possibly be. Less than 10 seconds into the Lydon segment, Teddy T utters the immortal words, "fucking Nickelback", and it either goes downhill or uphill from there, depending on how you look at it.
Teddy T: Hey Johnny! You look like a guy who jerks off a lot. Am I right?
Lydon: Well, of course I do. Yeah, everybody has a wank, every chance they can get. That's what you're born for, innit.
Teddy T: I just think we might have a little pornfest now. You want to watch some porno? I done my own porno!
Bronx Bunny: He don't want to see your filth.
Lydon: Oh good, I like furry things.
Bronx Bunny: Oh, he does.
Teddy T: Let's watch it.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Bronx Bunny Show lasted for only one season in The UK, but US cable network Starz came calling and ordered 10 new episodes, relocating the rabbit and his profane pal to an apartment in East Los Angeles. But despite attracting guests of the calibre of Chris Jericho, Mark Hamill and hip hop legend Method Man, it too was not renewed after season one.
