Last week, Second Lady Karen Pence and her daughter Charlotte, 24, released a children’s book called Marlon Bundo’s Day in the Life of the Vice President. Written by mom and illustrated by daughter, the story follows the family’s real-life pet rabbit, Instagram influencer Marlon Bundo, for a day in the Capitol with “Grampa.”
By now you know that John Oliver beat the Pences to Amazon, announcing that Last Week Tonight would be publishing its own children’s book, A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo. Within a few days, Oliver’s tale, written by comedy writer Jill Twiss, seized the top slot on Amazon, bumping James Comey’s memoir.
Charlotte Pence didn’t seem to mind the unauthorized doppelgänger.
“We have two books that are giving to charities that are about bunnies, so I’m all for it really,” she told Fox Business. A portion of the Pence’s proceeds will go to A21, an anti-human-trafficking organization, and to the Riley Hospital for Children; a portion of Oliver’s funds will go to the Trevor Project and AIDS United.
Looking at the actual texts, the Pence book merits little fanfare. One pass exposes flimsy attempts at iambic pentameter and anapestic trimeter. You emerge knowing Grampa is very “important”—thumbs up!—and he prays at night.
Now, don’t make the mistake of trivializing the Oliver-Twiss tale as just clever satire that trolls the Pences. The Oliver version is a joy. Ignore the grumbling about Oliver turning the bunny America deserves into a metaphor for partisan politics, because the book is a 40-page triumph. The details are poignant, and its verses go far beyond the contrived mediocrity of the Pence’s.
And you shouldn’t just read this tale of acceptance and love. You should listen to it, because hearing it is at once nostalgic, familiar, and hilarious. The audio version (which you can get for $1.95) is stacked with the playful banter of Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Ellie Kemper (Kimmy Schmidt), RuPaul (duh), John Lithgow (literally everywhere), and others. Lithgow voices the stink bug character, who seems to closely mirror the actual vice president.
Parsons is the voice behind Marlon Bundo. He tells us early on that his “grandpa is the Vice-President… But this story isn’t going to be about him because he isn’t very fun.”
In the story, Marlon starts out sad, eating breakfast and watching the news alone. Then, Marlon sees him: a big, fluffy bunny named Wesley (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), with the floppiest floppy ears. Their love blossoms, and at this point Oliver and Twiss include their subtextual adult moment by having Marlon and Wesley do their hopping.
“We hopped up and down the creaky stairs and made beautiful, creaky stair-music together. We hopped through the kitchen, and maybe left a few bunny prints… It was the best hop.”
Both Marlon and Wesley say, “We will get married and we will both hop together.” Their friends, an assortment of bugs, a badger, a turtle, a dog, and a hedgehog, yell, “Hooray!” Because, importantly, “that is what friends say.”
But then: “Boy bunnies don’t marry boy bunnies,” says the stink-bug in Lithgow’s dusty voice. Together with their friends, Marlon and Wesley vote out the very stinky stink-bug in a not-so-subtle charge, and they wed.
It’s gay love between two rabbits, an innocuous animal and perhaps the most indelible symbol of innocence and sex (thanks, Pence family, for choosing a bunny), presented as both charming and desirable. “Different is not bad. Different is special.”
As Parsons exhales in relief and Marlon and Wesley prepare for their bunny-moon, you can’t help but square the audiences (and social causes) of a Marlon Bundo and a Mike Pence: one makes good fodder for a children’s books and the other contributes to the degradation of the public sphere. I like to think the Marlon Bundo that’s into Wesley's “bushiest bushy tail” is the real Marlon Bundo, the bunny that kids need in 2018.
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