Thor's Top 5 Cartoon Rabbits

 

One of the most popular aesthetics to use in cartoons is to have the characters take the form of Anthropomorphised animals, to the point that during the founding days of animation from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, cartoons featuring only animals were more common than ones that had Humans, and even today are still seen fairly regularly. The reasoning for this varies and has evolved, originally being to help with uncanny valley and making the characters more appealing, and now being to evoke a more fairy tale like or chaotic setting. Which brings us to our topic today Rabbits in Cartoons. Rabbits are adorable, timid and very good natured animals that are well loved in pop culture. Generally, when someone makes a character a Rabbit it is for one of two purposes, they are A). making a kind and sympathetic character with difficulty expressing themself, using common knowledge of rabbits to amplify our perception and understanding of these traits, or B). going against this trope by having the character be super rambunctious and independent, clashing with common knowledge of rabbits to make it more humorous or surprising. Some of the Best ones will even do Both! So in honor of this, Today I’m Gonna give you my Top 5 Favorite Cartoon Rabbits from TV! Note, I am limiting this to one Rabbit Per Show.

#5.

Panini: (Chowder)

Technically Panini is a Bunny-Cat Hybrid, but yeah, just by looking at her, she counts. Panini is a character that C.H. Greenblat originally conceived to be a bully character for Chowder, but upon thinking that that was cliché, he instead changed the character to be a sweet girl who had a major crush on Chowder, which can be something just as irritating to deal with for a young boy who does not yet have interest in girls. Panini is very sweet, responsible and actually quite funny, with her crush on Chowder generally being wholesome, but still allowing her to go too crazy or exaggerated heights or come up with fun schemes. And when not in plots with Chowder, we see her as being a total go-getter, who is very take charge and constantly putting her all into any task she’s given. It’s also sweet that the show does establish that once Chowder becomes more mature he Will reciprocate her feelings. Panini is easily one of the best characters in the show, to the point that I think one of the biggest flaws is the series is not using her more often.

#4.

Oswald The Lucky Rabbit: (Mickey Mouse)

Oswald is one of the earliest cartoon rabbits ever made, predating Looney Tunes and even the iconic Mickey Mouse. In fact Oswald was created by Walt Disney as his main cartoon star Before Mickey Mouse, making numerous cartoon shorts with the company, Universal. However, when Walt left the company to start his own, he lost the rights to Oswald as a character, leading to him making Mickey as a replacement. Fast forward 70 years or so and the Disney company has become one of the biggest Entertainment companies on Earth and Mickey has become an international Icon, while Oswald is an obscure character that Disney bought back from Universal with total ease. The Most interesting thing about Oswald is how since being brought home, these real life hardships the character has had to go through have affected him as a character. He’s Mickey’s brother who was lost to the fame and love that should have been his. He was initially jealous of Mickey, but moved past that and is trying to make a name for himself of his own ability. Oswald is incredibly sympathetic and very fun, but the sheer intrigue and depth of his character would be near impossible to replicate with any other character, and that’s what makes him special.

#3.

Anais Watterson: (The Amazing World of Gumball)

Technically Anais is a Bunny-Cat Hybrid….. wow, what are the chances I would have to say that twice? Anyway, same principle applies. Anais is the youngest member of the Watterson family, and Gumball’s little sister. Despite this she is a complete and total prodigy child who is significantly smarter than everyone else in her family and very arguably the entire series as a whole. She is constantly shown to be the most clever, the most responsible, the most mature, and certainly the one who will be the most successful when she gets older. But the one thing she is terrible at is social settings. Anais has social anxiety which has prevented her from making friends with anyone outside of her own family, which is directly contrasting Gumball and Darwin who are more social butterflies. She spends a great deal of the series trying to make friends with others, and it leads too many sweet moments where her brothers help her in these endeavors and manage to get her some success. Anais also has the least amount of negative showings in the series, she is sweet, and almost never flaunts her superior intellect over anyone. Plus she is one of the Funniest characters to involve in the most insane situations Gumball pulls due to her more often than not being the straight man and voice of reason.

#2.

Bugs Bunny: (Looney Tunes)

Well this had to be on here, and it is well deserved! Bugs Bunny is not only the most famous cartoon Rabbit, but literally among the most iconic cartoon characters of all time! Bugs earned this title for a reason, having started out under the simple premise, a Hunter is Hunting Rabbits, but finds a Rabbit that is Way too smart and clever to be hunted, and it completely exploded from there. Bugs is one of the most clever cartoon characters out there, seldom ever not being in complete control of whatever situation he's in through a combination of good ol’ knowhow, and some extremely inventive toon force abilities which helped set the groundwork for how cartoons are seen today. Nearly every cartoon rabbit since his creation, including my #1 pick, is at least partially inspired by Bugs. His creator, Chuck Jones tailored Bugs’ stories so that it would always be Bugs defending himself from an aggressive enemy, so that Bugs could get as over the top with his pranks as he wanted and would still always be seen as in the right and who the audience was rooting for. Mel Blanc gave him his iconic wiseguy style voice that makes it seem as if he can talk his way out of any situation, armed gunman, terrifying monsters, and other Looney Tunes stars just didn’t stand a chance. He has become the mascot of Warner Bros. and is canonically looked at with high regard by every Cartoon Network character because of it.

#1.

Babs Bunny: (Tiny Toon Adventures)

Babs Bunny is without any doubt my fave Bunny from any cartoon! Babs perfectly embodies both aspects of the rabbit character archetype I had mentioned in the beginning. Babs is the spunky, energetic class clown, taking after a lot of the zanier, more cartoony aspects of Bugs as opposed to the Layback and Clever aspects Buster took after. Babs, even as a kid, I always found to be the funniest and most entertaining character in the show. When I was a little kid I tended to not like girly female characters, but Babs absolutely was an exception that shattered that to pieces. Infact she’s actually one of my favorite girl power type characters, as shown in the first episode where upon Buster reacting strongly to his co-host being a girl, she simply said “welcome to the 90s”, saying she doesn’t need to prove her worth when he’s the one behind the times is a pretty good lesson. Her Humor is wacky and groundbreaking at the time, especially with her habit of doing flawless vocal impressions of numerous other characters and celebrities at the time, which made my jaw drop when I found out it was all the same voice actor. But behind all this, Babs is actually a very deep and interesting character. I relate to Babs SO Hard in nearly every episode she is in. She is the struggling artist of Acme Loo, who is trying really hard to make it as a cartoon star, but puts on this facade of being full of herself and deflecting everything with a joke. This often leads her to take jokes too far to the point of disrupting class if she's getting enough attention. She has an ear for the classic old days of cartoons, her idols being Honey and Bosko, the first Looney Tunes ever, and tries to pay homage to them with her humor. She is the responsible and caring older sister to literally Dozens of siblings. All of these are issues, quirks and responsibilities I have wrestled with a great deal in the past to some degree. But above all else, what I like about Babs is just how much she looks out for everybody, the kinda gal who will work for weeks to save black and white cartoon characters from being forgotten, or leave her Prom to make sure someone she doesn’t even like has a date. And that's why she’s my Fave Cartoon Bunny.