Rabbit

“*This is Rabbit's garden and Rabbit does his harvesting by the BOOK!*”

*- Rabbit*

Rabbit is a protagonist and a member of The New Action Squad.

## Character Information

### Personality

Fussy, compulsive, easily stressed, well-intentioned, worrisome, sensible, slightly egotistical, short-tempered, sometimes grumpy, bossy, paranoid, persnickety, well-meaning, protective, crafty, caring, miserly, irritable, helpful

### Goal

To become a better more happier rabbit/To protect the universe from evil

### Nicknames

Bunny Boy
Nitpicky Rabbit (Referred to by Sayaka Miki)

## Media Information

### First Appearance

Winnie The Pooh And The Honey Tree (1966)

## **BIOGRAPHY**

Rabbit lives in a large tree in the Hundred Acre Wood, surrounded by an expansive vegetable garden. When not adventuring with Pooh and the others, Rabbit mainly spends his time either tending to his crops or indulging in some of his other hobbies like reading and cleaning. He is also a harvester of honey, which often leads to unwanted visits from a hungry Pooh Bear.

Rabbit is unique in that he is traditionally portrayed as a real animal, rather than a stuffed toy like Pooh, Piglet, or Tigger. As such, he lacks stitches and has noticeable, animalistic features such as fur and whiskers. His movements are also more realistic, in contrast to the stiff movement of Pooh—a character stuffed with fluff. Despite this, he has occasionally been referred to as a toy belonging to Christopher Robin in some *Winnie the Pooh* media, the most notable of which being "How Much is That Rabbit in the Window".

Despite being one of the more mature characters in the Hundred Acre Wood, Rabbit is extremely accident-prone, and he is regularly met with the misfortune to some degree. The most frequent example of this comes in the form of Tigger, who is perhaps Rabbit's most frequent nuisance—mainly due to Tigger's habit of pouncing Rabbit at unsuspectedly.

## **APPEARANCE**

Rabbit is a yellow tall anthropomorphic rabbit with a white stomach and nuzzle, whiskers and tall ears.

## **PERSONALITY**

Rabbit is arguably the most complex character in the *Winnie the Pooh* films. At his core, Rabbit is good-hearted and well-meaning. He enjoys the "finer things in life", such as gardening, tea time, and ice-skating in the winter. Contrary, Rabbit has numerous shortcomings as well—he is controlling and precise, with firm opinions and a strict way of going about his business.

Being one of the smarter and sensible residents of the Hundred Acre Wood, Rabbit is mostly intolerable of the other characters' quirks, such as Pooh's obsession with honey and Tigger's affinity for bouncing. This is, however, mainly due to the fact that these habits often result in Rabbit's misfortune. For example, when Pooh runs out of honey, he sometimes visits Rabbit for a "small helping" and eats the latter out of house and home. In the case of Tigger, he enjoys pouncing Rabbit when he least expects it, which oftentimes causes unintentional damage to Rabbit's prized garden; despite being all in good fun, Rabbit is usually given the shorter end of the stick when it comes to the antics of his friends.

Though Rabbit has felt neglected by his friends at times, in truth, the Hundred Acre Wood gang think highly of him; when trouble occurs, Rabbit is often the appointed leader, mainly due to his intelligence and craftiness. This has inflated Rabbit's ego to some degree, but at the same time, it's left him feeling burdened with responsibility. When he is unable to assist his friends, Rabbit becomes overwhelmed with guilt. He also becomes incredibly frustrated when his friends do not take dangerous situations seriously (such as when they neglected winter preparation in *The Tigger Movie*). This ties into Rabbit's most positive trait—he is extremely loyal, and even paternal, towards his friends. Protective and cautious, Rabbit looks out for the wellbeing of each member of the Hundred Acre Wood and has risked his own life numerous times for their safety. This is most prominently displayed in *Pooh's Grand Adventure* and *The Tigger Movie*. In *The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh*, Rabbit came to adopt a bird named Kessie, whom Rabbit raised and loved as his own daughter, despite how troublesome she was as a fledgling.

Rabbit is shown to have stage fright in The New Action Squad series. Always paranoid to be in front of people.

## **TRIVIA**

* Although Rabbit's official colour is light Maize yellow, in *The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh*, his fur is light green and in *Winnie the Pooh,* his fur is Mindaro yellow. This might be due to colouring errors, though.
* He is one of the few Hundred Acre Wood characters to have fingers, probably because of him being one of the few animal characters to be portrayed as a real animal as opposed to a toy one, and thus have much more organic appearance and movements compared to some of the toy characters.
* Rabbit is sometimes named the smartest resident in the Hundred Acre Wood, but the title also goes to Owl at times.
* In *The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh* episode "Three Little Piglets", Rabbit is the Big Bad Bunny, and he is wearing a suit that looks like a bunny version of the Big Bad Wolf.
* Rabbit is the first, and so far the only, recurring Disney character voice role for Tom Kenny.
* Out of all Christopher Robin's friends Rabbit, Owl, and Gopher are the only ones that look like real animals rather than stuffed. The others, of course, look stuffed.
	+ This is because Rabbit and Owl are not based on any of the real-life Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed animals, but are created by A.A. Milne, and Gopher is not even a character in the book but one created by Disney.