International Rabbit Day is generally the last Saturday in September. We thought we’d use the occasion to link to some of the some of the posts we’ve done about the many rabbits who’ve made their way into hopular, I mean, popular, culture.
My post on the origins of the Easter Bunny is here.
The first magician to pull a rabbit of a hat is believed to have been Louis Comte (1788-1859) although the first to take it continuously into the modern era was John Henry Anderson (1814-1874).
The Cabaret Au Lapin Agile is Paris’s oldest bar (1860), and a wonderful extant example of that city’s cabaret culture.
The White Rabbit and the March Hare debuted in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
Br’er Rabbit’s origins probably go all the way back to Africa. Joel Chandler Harris published his collection of Uncle Remus stories in 1881, with illustrations by E.W. Kemble. Walt Disney’s Song of the South came out in 1946. Disney is encountered throughout this rabbit warren.
Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Peter Rabbit was first published in 1901.
Howard Roger Garis’s Uncle Wiggily (1910) was a favorite of mine in childhood.
Petter Cottontail (1910) was drawn by one of my close relations.
The Velveteen Rabbit was published in 1921. I was tempted to leave the character out since he was stuffed, but I’d forgotten that he gets brought to life in the end.
The persnickity character of Rabbit was introduced in A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh in 1926. Walt Disney‘s animated rendition arrived in 1966.
Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks came up with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 1927. For business reasons they lost control of the character a year later and forthwith Disney came up with Mickey Mouse to replace him. Oswald stayed popular though, and appeared in cartoons for about about a decade.
Oswald stayed on the scene almost long enough to pass the carrot to Warner Brothers’ greatest cartoon creation, Bugs Bunny, introduced in 1940. The character was at its greatest during its first two decades, somewhat less hilarious in more kid-oriented later incarnations, and downright dreadful in the later features.
The character of Thumper is one of the best things about Bambi (1942) — again with the Disney! Drawn and animated with so much personality, and takes some of the edge off the sweetness of the title character.
Frank Fay starred in Harvey on Broadway in 1944, which was good casting. Jimmy Stewart replaced Fay as Elwood P. Dowd in the movie, which was terrible casting. I’ve never cared for this vehicle or understood why anyone ever thought it was a classic.
Playboy magazine was launched in December, 1953; the first version of the famous logo followed in the second issue. The Playboy Clubs, established in 1960, introduced the costumed cocktail waitresses known as the Playboy Bunnies. Hef said he chose bunnies for his mascots because they were frisky.
Captain Kangaroo , with his silent, bespectacled friend Bunny Rabbit, debuted in 1955.
Hanna-Barbera’s hyperactive cowboy Riccochet Rabbit, voiced by Don Messick, arrived in 1964.
I wrote about the Tom Smothers vehicle Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972) here.
My post on Night of the Lepus (1972) a horror film about giant killer rabbits, is here.
Watership Down: this depressing parable, which was published in the very lapine year of 1972, is one of my wife’s favorite books. It was made into an alarming animated film six years later.
Quicky, The Nestle Quik mascot hopped into our lives in 1973.
Matt Groening’s comic strip Life in Hell made its first appearance 1977. A decade later it got him a job creating animations on The Tracy Ullman Show, which is where The Simpsons was born. But it all began with rabbits.
I have never been a fan of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988). I am however, a HUGE fan of JESSICA Rabbit.
Poet/performance artist Scott Grabell started performing as Scotty the Blue Bunny in 1996. I had the good fortune to appear on many a variety bill with him around the turn of the century.
Okay, that’s all I got for now, but more are sure to find their way into this post. Rabbits are famous for multiplying.
(Travalanche) 
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