To mark this weekend's Chinese New Year celebrations for Year of the Rabbit it seems appropriate to dedicate today's column to our cuddly cottontail friends, otherwise known as bunnies. Let's hope not too many of them end up in a pie or stew. As a precaution, just be careful when you order "today's special".
As a child in the 1950s listening to the BBC radio's Children's Favourites I recall one of the most requested songs was Run, Rabbit Run! performed by Flanagan and Allen. It had a simple but catchy tune and featured a farmer trying to shoot bunnies. The lyrics included "Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run/Don't give the farmer his fun, fun, fun/ He'll get by, without his rabbit pie/So run , rabbit…."
It came out just as WW2 started in 1939 and became a hugely popular number amongst British troops and civilians who adapted the lyrics to "Run, Adolf, run, Adolf run, run, run".
The song still pops up in anything from advertisements for breakfast cereals to horror films.
Perhaps the best popular rabbit song was White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane released in 1967 on the Surrealistic Pillow album. Written and sung by Grace Slick there are plenty of references to Lewis Carroll characters including Alice chasing the White Rabbit, with the dormouse and the hookah-smoking caterpillar also being featured.
A rabbit called Roger
Possibly the best rabbit-oriented film was the 1988 production Who Framed Roger Rabbit which featured some brilliant acting from Bob Hoskins, but it took its toll. Hoskins admitted that eight months of talking to an imaginary cartoon rabbit "screwed up my brain", leading to him suffering major hallucinations. Well after filming ended he was still seeing cartoon weasels and rabbits everywhere.
More recently was Peter Rabbit based on the character created by Beatrix Potter. This 2018 film was entertaining but criticised for straying too far from the books. One reviewer complained, "Peter goes from likably cheeky chap to sneering sadist".
Then there was the 1978 animated film Watership Down, adapted from the novel by Richard Adams. It follows the adventures of a group of rabbits who are forced to move from their warren to Watership Down which is actually a real hill in Hampshire. It also includes an Art Garfunkel song, Bright Eyes that topped the charts in 1979.
Two-legged bunnies
It would be remiss not to mention Playboy's Hugh Hefner, a man who made a fortune from women dressed as rabbits with cotton tails, bow ties and generous cleavage.
If not for Hefner we would never have experienced that splendid scene in Bridget Jones's Diary when the unfortunate Bridget shows up at what she thought was a fancy dress party dressed as a Playboy bunny, floppy ears and all. She walks into the garden only to discover it was no longer fancy dress but a formal hi-so affair.
Bridget's understandable reaction: "Oh, Holy Jesus!"
The drowning rabbit
My late maid Yasothon briefly had a pet rabbit when we were living on Sukhumvit Soi 49, a low-lying area prone to flooding. Late one night I was coming home from work and everywhere was badly flooded after a huge rainstorm. No taxis would take me and I had to settle for a tuk-tuk. But the floods proved too much and the driver dumped me a kilometre from my residence.
The floodwaters were rapidly rising so I waded down the soi not in the best of moods. I was particularly concerned about the maid's rabbit which she kept in a hutch in our garden, fearing that it would soon be a drowned rabbit. I finally splashed home and to my relief the bunny had found a perch just above the floodwaters. It looked so cute and helpless I had to give it a little hug… and a carrot.
A few months later the rabbit was gone. I hoped it didn't end up in a pie.
Humphrey
A rabbit features in one of my favourite tales from England. A man in Orpington, Kent nipped out of his flat for some shopping but upon returning was astonished to find his front door had been totally demolished.
Apparently policemen had rushed to the flat after operators from a phone monitoring service said they had received a call from the residence and could hear a woman whimpering. On arrival at the flat the officers could get no response so they broke in, smashing down the front door.
Once inside the flat the officers were greeted by the sight of Humphrey, a large rabbit hopping around the room making whimpering noises. Humphrey apparently had tripped over the cord that alerts the emergency services and the "crying woman" was the distressed rabbit pining for some company.
Rugby bunnies
Do not overlook the successful South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league side. In the old days, to earn some extra money on Saturday mornings the players took to the streets already wearing their rugby jerseys while selling rabbits, calling out "rabbitohs". They skinned the rabbits on the spot and inevitably their shirts were heavily stained with rabbit blood and fur.
Their opponents in the afternoon were not impressed by the smelly blood-stained South Sydney shirts and mockingly called them Rabbitohs and the name stuck. The team are naturally nicknamed The Bunnies and their proud mascot is Reggie Rabbit.
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