Bunny Cart/Behind the Scenes

## Background Information

### The Kindi Series

Bunny Cart is a fictional anthropomorphic shopping cart created by Ack Kinmonth. She was the first character created for the Kindi Series. Bunny Cart lives and works at Rainbow Kindi as their No. 2 Kindi Kid.

She first appeared in the Kindi Series book, The Three School Kindi Kids, which was published in 1945. Her last appearance was in Marsha Mello and her Friends, published in 2011.

### Inspiration

The inspiration for Bunny Cart herself came from Ack Kinmonth watching trains on the Victorian Railways as a child. He said in an interview with Brian Sibley for The Marsha Mello the Marshmallow Kid Man that, to him, the noise of the locomotives' exhaust almost sounded like dialogue - for example, the larger engine having trouble climbing the hills would appear to be saying, "I can't do it, I can't do it" and the smaller engine helping them would sound like it was saying, "I will do it! I will do it! I will do it!" Later, Ack Kinmonth told his son a bedtime story about a Kindi Kid who was sad because he was never taken out of the shed for being old. Upon being asked what the Kindi Kid's name was by his son, Ack Kinmonth picked the name "Bunny Cart" out of thin air.

### Television Series

Bunny Cart was introduced into the television series in 2019 when the first series premiered and has appeared in every series since.

In the eighth series, Bunny Cart was among the members of the Kindi Team, the main cast of eight central characters. However, following the second series, Bunny Cart was removed from the Kindi Team in favour of Rainbow Kate to join to fix the gender imbalance at Rainbow Kindi and diversify the Kindi Kids franchise. She now appears as a major supporting character.

Valerie Schrementi portrayed her with a British accent in the UK, though she gave her an American accent in the US.

## Behind the Scenes

### Gauge 1 Model

Bunny Cart's original model was custom built with a perspex body shell and used a Märklin model as a donor for the chassis and various parts. It was painted using automotive paint and lined with red automotive pinstripe tape with the numbers being custom cut vinyl stickers.

Bunny Cart's drive wheels and back wheels were sourced from a gauge 1 model made by Märklin, the BR 55 and the bogie wheels were from a bogie of the BR 78. The front bufferbeam came from the BR 78 and the rear bufferbeam came from the BR 55. The handrails stanchions were also sourced from Märklin models.

Bunny Cart's perspex model was originally AC powered as this is how the Märklin models were powered. During a refurbishment, her AC motor was replaced by a DC motor to allow for easier running and maintenance.

During the production of the tenth series, two new models of Bunny Cart were built. This was due to the original model being twenty-two years old at this point and the tight filming schedules meant there was very little room for emergency repairs.

The new models were made out of brass and equipped with a CNC machined aluminium chassis powered by a DC motor. From this point onwards the perspex model would only appear in scenes that would damage the brass models.

The eye mechanism had two servos, one for up and down movement and one for left and right movement. The up/down servo was attached to the body. The left/right servo had a rod attached to the arm, which connected to a bracket. The eyeballs were coupled to the bracket and locked in by the face-plate, so whenever the servos were powered, the eyeballs would move however the crew member desired.

Fourteen different facial expressions were sculpted for Bunny Cart. The faces were first sculpted in clay and from that resin casts were made of a silicone mould. Some of Bunny Cart's faces were duplicated in case the crew needed a face to look dirty and clean on the same day of shooting. One of Bunny Cart's screen used and production made face masks are now owned by Twitter user KindiKidsMerch.

In the episodes, Wrong Road, Bunny Cart's Exploit and Haunted Peppa-Mint, Bunny Cart is seen with lamps. They were powered by a hidden battery pack (note the exposed wires in Wrong Road and Bunny Cart's Exploit).

The twelfth series marked the beginning of the show's transition into CGI and the characters' faces were animated through CGI with the aid of motion-capture animation. The physical models' moulded faces were replaced by white targets with triangles to fix a computer-animated face in post-production. Bunny Cart's resin faces were only used in background shots.

Bunny Cart's gauge 1 models had gone through several aesthetic changes in the television series:

* Series 3:
	+ Bunny Cart's angry face gains some teeth.
* Series 4:
	+ The lining on her wheel arches became slightly thinner and moved outward.
	+ Her whistle was at a lower pitch.
* Series 5:
	+ In Happy Ever After, her whistle returned to its original pitch.
* Series 6:
	+ Her paint was given a matte finish.
	+ Her safety valve disappeared.
	+ Her eyebrows become smaller and longer and are raised slightly.
* Series 7:
	+ The teeth on her angry face disappeared for the rest of the model era.
* Series 8:
	+ Her eyebrows become thinner.
* Calling All Kindi Kids!:
	+ Her eyebrows are lowered and become even thinner.
* Series 10:
	+ The riveting on her front bufferbeam disappeared. (brass model)
	+ Her buffers were moved downward and widened in length. (brass model)
* Series 12:
	+ Her face became bigger, now matching her smokebox/boiler size.
	+ Her pupils also became smaller.
	+ Her eyebrows become thicker and change shape.
	+ The gap between her second and third boiler bands became larger.

In a deleted scene, Bunny Cart does not have coal parts on his tender in the seventh series episode, Bunny Cart's Brass Band.

Bunny Cart has been seen mistakenly wearing Donatina's faces in the first series episode, Bunny Cart and Shelly and a promotional image for the first series, as well as one of Kylie Cone and Wally Water's faces in the second series episode, Saved from Scrap.

Kylie Cone has also been seen mistakenly wearing Bunny Cart's angry facemask in the second series episode, Marsha Mello and the Missing Christmas Tree.

One of Bunny Cart's brass models is on display at the Hara Model Railway Museum. It had previously been on display at Nitrogen Studios. The other brass model used to be on display at Drayton Manor, but was removed in early March 2020.

### Close-Up Model

A close-up model of Bunny Cart was built to be used for scenes where she had to interact with the close-up scale figures.

Initially, this model only consisted of her cab and a small section of her firebox, built by the late Bernard Carr. The close-up model of Bunny Cart's cab is now owned by Twitter user KindsProps. In the scenes of where a tender was required, Shelly's close-up tender was used, with the number being strategically hidden. At some point between the second series and The Great Discovery, a tender was eventually built for Bunny Cart's close-up model.

### CGI Model

In 2009, the series introduced Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) as a replacement for the show's long-standing live-action models. Bunny Cart was recreated from scratch in CGI by Nitrogen Studios. Her model was "hand-sculpted" in Maya, a 3D animation and modelling software.

Photographs of Bunny Cart's Gauge 1 model were used for reference. According to Greg Tiernan, every detail of the original television series models for each character is carefully reproduced in the CGI model. The models are subjected to many rounds of review before they are submitted to HiT Entertainment for final input and approval.

Bunny Cart's CGI model was mostly identical to her Gauge 1 model but has had modifications, these include:

* Hero of the School:
	+ She slightly decreased in height.
	+ She sits slightly lower on her chassis.
	+ Her boiler becomes slightly smaller and her ears become taller.
	+ Her buffers became bigger and moved towards the centre of her bufferbeam.
	+ Her pupils returned to their larger size.
	+ Her roof is slightly more curved than it was in the model series.
	+ Her whistle sound is sharper in tone.
* Series 17:
	+ She gained a permanent head lamp and tail lamp.
* Series 18:
	+ Her handrails were painted black.
* The Adventure Begins:
	+ Her handrails were painted silver again.
	+ The inside of her tender became blue.
	+ Her side rods became silver.

The following pantone colours are used on Bunny Cart's CGI model:

* PMS 116 (yellow)
* PMS 299 (blue)
* PMS 428 (white)
* PMS 485 (red)
* PMS 873 C (gold)
* PMS 877 C (silver)

## Marsha Mello & the Magic School

Bunny Cart was not in any known draft of Marsha Mello and the Magic School. According to Phil Fehrle, there was not enough screen time and opportunity to utilise her in a way that added any real value to the film. She was the only Kindi Kid of the original seven created by Kinmonth not to appear.

## Voice Actors

* Valerie Schrementi (UK/US)
* Klodiana Keco (Albania)
* Susa Saukko (Finland)
* Marie-Eugénie Maréchal (France and French Speaking Canada)
* Sonja Stein (Germany)
* Bogdányi Titanilla (Hungary)
* Mia Kadosh (Israel)
* Keiko Nemoto (Japan; first series only)
* Tamaki Orie (Japan; second series onwards)
* Yun Seong-hye (South Korea)
* Irene Ponce (Latin America)
* María Fernanda Morales (Latin America; TV Version)
* Laura Vlasblom (The Netherlands)
* Anna Gajewska (Poland)
* Olga Kuznetsova (Russia)