That was Mr Evans - The Talking Rabbit, which ran in Princess for I think nine instalments from 1(Sep. 24 1983).Tammyfan wrote:Princess had a well-remembered photostory about a disagreeable man who gets turned into a talking rabbit.
Jenny Andrews' father is a children's entertainer but since the death of Jenny's mother he has lost the will to work so they haven't enough money to pay their landlady. At a party things go well enough, and then Jenny finds a talking rabbit in a pen in the garden although at first she thinks her father is using ventriloquism. Her father thinks she is practising hers. Later the rabbit tells Jenny that he is actually Arthur Evans, who owns a joke shop. One day he had found an old book of spells in a market, tried one out on the cooker, which exploded, turning him from a 5'7'' balding human into a 5'' furry rabbit.
Mr Evans escapes and gets into Jenny's dad's car. Mr Andrews feels that it is essential that he and Jenny eat the rabbit. Understandably the rabbit gets tetchy. They go back to Mr Evans's shop to get the book only to discover that it has been sold by Mrs Evans, who doesn't seem remotely concerned that her husband had disappeared a few weeks earlier. ''Good riddance'', she says. ''Miserable old so-and-so he was''. Somehow he gets some money from the till for Jenny's father, and then starts to worry about how long rabbits live for.
The family, who didn't pay Mr Andrews for his show, come back looking for their daughter's rabbit. Mr Andrews tells them to look where they like, and then produces a great conjuring trick with a series of hats to confuse the family and save the rabbit. Mr Andrews then gets upset thinking about what would have been his 15th wedding anniversary the following day.
Jenny has to persuade her father to do a booked show because they need the money. In the event he can't go through with it. The rabbit can smell lots of other rabbits in the house and they are all terrified. Jenny will take over from her father if she can get the rabbit to help her. Her act succeeds so well that she gets paid a bonus. However, the other rabbits at the party are to be experimented on by the party girl's father at his research station. Some get out because the cage isn't locked properly, and Jenny becomes frantic when she realises that the rabbit she has brought home isn't Mr Evans.
Mr Evans remains lost, and when Jenny's father gets an entrepreneur to come and listen to Jenny's ventriloquism act, her efforts make him look silly. Jenny eventually finds Mr Evans and releases him from a trap. Mr Evans seems really ill and asks Jenny for help. Obviously all's well that ends well but I can't say how the serial ended as I have not noted it down.