A Hare-Raising Quiz

Answer: McGregor

The elderly Scotsman Mr. McGregor first appeared in 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit' (1902), and he made his last appearance in 'The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies' (1909). The protagonist in Beatrix Potter's series is of course the mischievous Peter Rabbit, who appeared with his siblings Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail. Beatrix Potter got the idea for Peter Rabbit from one of her own pet rabbits.

The author based her illustrations, charming as they are, on anatomical studies of rabbits, which she conducted on her own rabbits after they died. Potter invented Peter Rabbit in a letter written to cheer up a sick child named Noel Moore, the 5-year-old son of Annie Carter Moore, her friend and former governess.

The first Peter Rabbit book was self-published, because publishers wanted a full-sized book while she wanted to make the book small for small hands (and small pocketbooks).

After her first printing of 250 copies sold out, however, she was able to find a publisher to agree to her terms!

Answer: JoJo Rabbit

Jojo "Rabbit" Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) is a 10-year-old pro-fascist boy whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler (or at least how he childishly conceives of him). Jojo's world is turned upside down when he discovers that his mother Rosie (Scarlet Johansson), is hiding Jewish teenager Elsa Korr (Thomasin McKenzie) in the attic.

A mixed-race actor-comedian-filmmaker from New Zealand, Taika Waititi wrote, directed, and co-produced the the 2019 movie, and he played the fantastical Fuhrer on screen. Waititi was motivated to make Jojo Rabbit after he read that 41% of Americans and 66% of U.S. millennials had never heard of Auschwitz. "Comedy is very, very important weapon against bigotry and hate and intolerance," Waititi told journalist Katherine Schaffstall. "It's a great way of disarming bullies and poking enough holes in their belief system."

'JoJo Rabbit' earned many accolades for its crew. Waititi was the first person of Māori descent to win an Academy Award in a screenplay category, and the first indigenous person to be nominated for and win Best Adapted Screenplay. To add to the comic surrealness, the producers licensed German-language Beatles songs, and Paul Appengren received a Golden Reel Award from the Motion Picture Sound Editors society for his editing of the score. Mayes C. Rubeo won the Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence in Period Films. (She was also the first Latina to be nominated for an Oscar in costume design).

Answer: East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, etc.)

In East Asian folklore, rather than a Man on the Moon, there is a Moon Rabbit or Moon Hare, pounding with a mortar and pestle. The Moon Hare originated in ancient Chinese folklore and spread throughout the Far East -- and it would have been a hare originally, not a rabbit, because rabbits were not introduced into the Far East until the development of the Silk Road network of trade routes. During the Han Dynasty, they called the mythical creature the Jade Hare, and sometimes "Jade Hare" served as a synonym for the Moon itself. In modern times the Moon Hare or nowadays Moon Rabbit remains an important part of East Asian culture, not just in China but throughout Japan, Vietnam, Myanmar, etc. For example, the Japanese manga character Sailor Moon's alternate name is Usagi Tsukino, a play on "Tsuki no usagi", which means "Moon Rabbit" in Japanese. Moon Rabbit characters appear in comics in Korea and Vietnam as well. The Chinese named their lunar rover Yutu, meaning Jade Rabbit, which landed on the Moon in 2013.

The Moon Rabbit has also been a part of Native American folklore, separate and apart from the Asian legends. (Cottontail rabbits are indigenous to North America.) Ancient Mayan art depicts a rabbit companion of the Moon Goddess. In Aztec mythology, the god Quetzalcoatl put the image of a rabbit on the moon to honor her for saving his life. The Cree also have a tale of a rabbit who wanted to ride the Moon and was taken there by a crane.

Answer: An open shot that should be easily made

In several sports, a bunny is any undefended shot or goal that a competent athlete can easily make, though it's most often used in basketball. It's typically a shot close to the basket, like a layup or a dunk, when the player has a break-away (also called a fast break), which occurs when the player obtains the ball and moves quickly past all opponents to reach the vulnerable basket. This kind of shot is also called a snowbird.

In skiing, a bunny slope is a nice, gentle incline designed for novice or inexperienced skiers -- also called a bunny hill. In cricket, when a batter keeps being dismissed by the same bowler, that batter is said to be the bowler's bunny.

Answer: to produce something unexpectedly

If you produce something surprising, especially in a way that has no obvious explanation, as if done by magic, someone might say, "You've just pulled a rabbit of your hat!". The expression comes from the clichéd magician's trick of pulling a live rabbit out of an apparently empty top hat. Although tricks of that sort are ancient, the term has transferred to other surprises only since 1930s!

In the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series, Bullwinkle would ask Rocky, "Want to watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat" and then proceed to pull out something absurd or dangerous. (It's funnier when you see it on screen.)

To proliferate exponentially or reproduce rapidly is to "breed like rabbits". To create a situation having both terrible and pleasant aspects, with more of the former, is to "make a horse and rabbit stew". To be caught, especially against one's will, in a complex or chaotic journey or problem that becomes even more so as it unfolds is to "go down the rabbit hole" (a reference to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. Poor little Alice followed the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole, and the rest is history).

Answer: unclean

In Leviticus 11:4-6 (NABRE) it states, "But you shall not eat any of the following..:...the hare, which indeed chews the cud, but does not have hoofs and is therefore unclean for you...". There is a similar passage in Deuteronomy 14:7.

If this seems odd to modern readers, as the hare is not a ruminant (such as the cow), consider that the ancients classified animals differently from our modern zoological scheme, and to different ends. The hare (or the rabbit) has a constant chewing motion, grinding its jaws in a way that looks like chewing the cud. That is the basis for the description in the Biblical chapters that deal with laws regarding ritual purity. (It is also true that hares and rabbits re-ingest excreted food for further digestion, which serves a similar purpose as the cud).

Some English translations may use "rabbit" instead of hare for the Hebrew "'arnebeth", though the animal that the Israelites and other peoples of the ancient Levant would have known would have been a hare.

Answer: Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project (1942-45) was a top-secret U.S. military-scientific project that produced the first atomic bombs. The Eldorado Mine at Port Radium, Northwest Territories was an important source of uranium ore. Native people, including Hare, transported radioactive ore to Ontario and the USA for processing. They used cloth sacks, and radiation poisoning devastated some of their communities.

The people who called themselves Kawchottine or K'ahsho Got'ine originally lived in earth lodges near the Great Bear Lake in the sub-Arctic region of the Northwest Territories of Canada. The name Kawchottine means "People of Great Hares", for snowshoe hares were an important source of food and supplemented a diet of fish, roots, berries, and other plants. (So the English appellation, Hare or Hareskin Indians, was at least derived from their own name). Alexander Mackenzie was the first European to reach Kawchottine country in 1789. Outside contact increased when the Hudson's Bay Company build Fort Good Hope in 1804 on Mackenzie River near Great Bear River. In ensuing decades, some Hare merged with Dogrib and Slavey peoples around Great Bear Lake, becoming known as Sahtú Dene, or Bear Lake Indians. The modern Sahtú Region also includes Fort Good Hope, Norman Range, and Kelly Lake. Some 1,000 Hare descendants were living in the early 21st century.

Answer: Yes

Of course it was a hoax! Young Ms. Toft (c.1701-1763), a servant from Godalming, Surrey, England, tricked doctors into believing that she had birthed bunny rabbits. A gullible obstetrician named John Howard wrote a pamphlet called "A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets", which he sent to some of England's greatest doctors and King George I. George sent his physician to investigate, who arrived in time to witness Toft delivering her 15th bunny rabbit.

The credulous doctor returned to London to show several of these bunnies to the King and the Prince of Wales, who sent for a surgeon.

He observed that one of the rabbits' dung had corn in it -- proving it was not fresh from the womb. Meanwhile, back in Surrey, Ms. Toft was busy giving birth to a cat's legs and a hog's bladder. Eventually, she confessed that she had simulated these "births".

She was charged with fraud and served several months in prison; afterward she returned home to live out the rest of her natural life in anonymity.

The credulous King's physician, alas, lost his station and died a pauper.

Answer: Enjoy Your Rabbit

'Enjoy Your Rabbit' (2001) is an album of electronic ambient music produced by U.S. musician Sufjan Stevens on the Asthmatic Kitty label. Each song represents a different year according to the Chinese Zodiac (year of the tiger, year of the ox, year of the monkey, etc.), plus a thirteenth track called "Year of Our Lord" that reflects Stevens' Christian religion.

The entire album was arranged for strings in a 2009 release called 'Run Rabbit Run', performed by the Osso String Quartet (also on the Asthmatic Kitty label). Interestingly, all the sounds of the electronic album, including glitches and background noise, are reproduced by the stringed instruments.

Though the title may be 'Run Rabbit Run', the animal depicted on the front cover is actually a hare. In contrast, 'Enjoy Your Rabbit' features two oblivious bunny rabbits about to be pounced on by a bird of prey. The members of Osso, variously from New York City and Berlin, describe themselves as a "string quartet with a modernist pulse". While they don't have enormous mainstream appeal, Osso has a loyal and devoted cult following in the alternative and crossover scenes.

Answer: Hair-Raising Hare

A mad scientist who sounds suspiciously like Peter Lorre uses a female robo-rabbit (with a wind-up key in her back) to lure Bugs Bunny to his secret castle. The scientist tries to feed Bugs to the monster, introduced as "his little friend", but of course, nothing goes to plan, with lots of slapstick and silliness. In the final scene, a smitten Bugs Bunny happily leaves the castle with the robo-rabbit, so all's well that end's well.

The monster had no name in "Hair-Raising Hare", but in later cartoons he was called "Rudolph" and then "Gossamer", which has become his official name in the Looney Tunes universe.

Warner Bros. released "Hair-Raising Hare" to cinemas on May 25, 1946, as part of the studio's "Merrie Melodies" series. Initially "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" were distinct series (for example, Porky Pig was only in "Looney Tunes"). That broke down after Bugs Bunny became the flagship character for the studio, and the two series grew indistinguishable. Warner Bros. continued to use both names (and two different though similar-sounding theme songs) until 1969. When someone would ask Friz Freleng, who directed hundreds of cartoons for the studio, what the difference was, he would reply, "Hell if I know."