We begin with our protagonist, Tim Swanson [Who kind of looks like Chelsea Peretti from ‘Brooklyn 99’ lol], entering a magic shop with his friend Foz [Who completely disappears after this scene], hoping to find some super cool new magic tricks so he can one day be like his hero, magician Amazo. After a quick demonstration of a fake guillotine, the shop owner gives the boys two free tickets to Amazo’s show tonight! It’s at 10pm though, and Foz reckons there’s no way either of them will be allowed to go [Bloody parents and their curfews >:(].
Tim refuses to miss a free show to see the best magician in the world, so attempts to sneak out of the house later that night. He’s busted by his bratty younger sister, Ginny [Weasley?], who threatens to tell unless he takes her with him, so the poor boy has no choice.
At the show, Amazo does all the usual tricks, like producing a dove from a handkerchief and the like, and the mostly adult audience is absolutely eating it all up [Anyone could do these tricks, it’s very weird]. Because he’s the protagonist, Tim is chosen as a volunteer for a trick involving a box that’ll make him disappear. Inside the box, Tim quickly dumped through a chute below the stage. Up above, the box is opened to reveal a red-head boy instead and the audience continues to froth at the mouth over these apparently amazing illusions.
Tim’s left there until the end of the show when some random creepy guy [Played by Colin Mochrie in an uncredited cameo!] points him to the exit. Tim goes searching for Amazo instead, but hears his voice basically telling him to nick off. Disappointed that his idol is ‘”such a creep”‘, Tim decides to steal Amazo’s unattended magic kit by the door and scurries away, collecting Ginny on the way.
The next day, the siblings open up the kit and marvel at all the super cool and realistic props. Ginny finds a curtain thingy, which Tim explains magicians use to make people disappear before warning her not to play with it. But Ginny’s a little sister in a Goosebumps episode so of course she doesn’t listen, raising the curtain in front of her body. After a magical sound effect, the curtain drops, revealing a white rabbit [You’d assume from the title it’d be a hare, but Tim calls it a rabbit, so….].
Still not sure if his sister’s actually been turned, he asks her to give him a sign, and to his shock, the rabbit actually talks [I guess they didn’t have the budget for the mouth to move. But then, I’ve seen the CGI this show’s produced and it’s probably better this way]. It’s not Ginny’s annoying little voice though, but that of a gruff, angry man who immediately starts insulting poor Tim. The rabbit explains he’s just a rabbit on the outside – he’s really ‘”El Sydney, wizard extraordinaire'”. He reveals that Ginny’s gone and it’s all because of Amazo and his evil tricks.
El Sydney explains that he got to meet Amazo when he was a boy and idolised the magician, just like Tim does. An up-and-coming magician at the time, El Sydney was encouraged by Amazo until one day when he’d gotten his hands on a magic wand hundreds of years old. Real magic, according to El Sydney. Well, he was so excited he showed Amazo right away, but ‘”Amazo went nuts”‘, stole the wand and El Sydney’s entire act and turned the poor guy into a rabbit to be used in his shows.
El Sydney agrees to help Tim get his sister back, but Tim has to help him get back his magic wand from Amazo in order to do so. Heading back to the venue where Amazo performs and conveniently keeps his wand and props onstage when not in use [Which I doubt would actually happen but if that’s what the plot calls for…], El Sydney and Tim search a cupboard for the wand, but there’s 90595687565 identical ones in there with it. By holding each one and saying magic words, Tim eventually finds the one they want, but refuses to hand it over until Ginny’s back.
Under the guidance of El Sydney, Tim fetches the magic curtain thing and, using the wand and a little on-the-spot spell, he manages to bring the little shithead back, who immediately runs off to dob on him. El Sydney tells Tim to forget about her, because he could really use Tim’s talents in his act! Tim likes the sound of that and as instructed, places El Sydney in Amazo’s prop coffin. Tim recites another spontaneous spell but before he can open the coffin to see the results, Amazo enters the room.
Recognising Tim from the audience, he asks where he disappeared to last night, and Tim reminds him that ‘”You told me to beat it”‘. Amazo denies it [Must have been the rabbit lol] but is soon distracted by his returned magic kit, with Tim admitting to trying out some of the tricks. Amazo’s unfazed, as long as he didn’t let the ‘”very dangerous”‘ rabbit out, explaining that he ‘”used to be an evil magician, but I changed him into a rabbit for everyone’s good”‘.
Tim argues that according to El Sydney, Amazo’s the evil one, and the magician realises Tim’s been tricked! As he checks the coffin, El Sydney pops out as a dove before transforming into his human form as flamboyantly as he possibly can.
Now that he’s got the magic wand back, El Sydney traps Amazo in a green forcefield and complains about being stuck in the body of a rabbit for so long before finally turning Amazo into one. Tim’s alarmed, but El Sydney doesn’t want to lose ‘”the Great Timothini”‘ [Please don’t use that as your magician name, Tim], convincing Tim he needs him in his act. Tim quickly agrees, and with a wave of the wand and a flash of light, we cut to El Sydney performing on stage in place of Amazo.
El Sydney’s holding two white rabbits and places them in the guillotine trick before asking for a volunteer “‘who’s not afraid to split hares”‘ [That pun would work if they weren’t rabbits]. Rabbit Amazo promises to get them out of this mess, but rabbit Tim is loving his time in the spotlight and the episode ends there.
Final thoughts
I don’t remember this episode from when I was younger, or the book for that matter, but it was a fun one, and that’s all we can hope for when there’s not real horror element. I was entertained enough to stay interested, so 81 titular hares that are actually rabbits out of 109!
