Rabbit bites

"Rabbit Bites" is a popular internet video series created by Nicholas Quixote in June 2006. It is featured each week on the cover of the online magazine "Salon.com". The show stars two rabbits, Buns, a grey male rabbit, and Chou Chou, a black and white female rabbit, and has been airing on "Salon" since January 2007.

Overview

The internet show stars Buns (a brown dwarf) and Chou Chou (an English Lop), two rabbits who critique popular culture from the chairs in their living room. Rabbit Bites began as a good natured, yet harsh, critique of the current state of internet video and vlogging in particular. Rabbit Bites satirized many of the video creators who were central in popularizing web video. Although it began as solely focusing on web video, after 6 months, Rabbit Bites started to examine popular culture and give opinions in the rabbit's typical “biting” style. Buns and Chou Chou have covered topics ranging from TV shows (such as "American Idol" and "To Catch A Predator") to celebrities (such as Tom Cruise and Britney Spears) and general pop culture topics (such as the iPhone).¹ Now, Rabbit Bites continues in this format, as a social critique, particularly of celebrity, attitudes about wealth and luxury, and the death of culture.

The show also has two additional components in some episodes. Chou Chou has her own show called "Coffee With Chou". It's a talk show with Chou Chou as the host and Buns as the sidekick. Chou Chou has done real interviews with author Andrew Keen and blogger Robert Scoble, as well as fake interviews created by editing previous interview footage with celebrities. Chou Chou has done interviews in this style with stars such as Paris Hilton and Eli Roth.¹ Since the show began, real guests include:

* David Alan Grier

* William Redpath

* Greg Fitzsimmons

* Dana Snyder

* They Might Be Giants

* Bobby Lee

* Tom Papa

* Michael Ian Black

* Jane Lynch

* Carbon Silicon

* Patton Oswalt

* Janeane Garofalo

The third component of the show is a "man on the street" segment in which the rabbits ask one of their correspondents to go out and seek responses from the public. The first of these was done by Nalts, who is popular on You Tube, in regards to finding out about Generation Y and it's need for praise.¹

Philosophical and Historical References

Although the show is mostly a critique of pop culture, it does contain some hidden meanings and references to art and history. For example:

* Plato's Allegory of the Cave has been referenced in two episodes. An older one about the podcast Amyville, and a more recent one about Horror films such as "Hostel (film)" and "Saw (film series)".

* In an episode about the infamous Alec Baldwin voice mail message, Buns and Chou Chou talk about how the camera obscura is present in life.

* An early episode about Robert Scoble features paintings by Piet Mondrian

* An early episode about The Long Tail features the Tower of Babel

* Two episodes feature the idea and significance of mirror images. An episode covering "CSI: " features mirror images in a painting by Vermeer. Also, an episode covering blogger Ryanne Hodson features the rabbits mentioning mirror images when Hodson holds a stained glass piece that is made to look like her.

Press

Rabbit Bites has grown in popularity ever since it first was featured on "Salon". In addition to being featured each week on "Salon", the show has been featured on the You Tube home page, as well as the Yahoo! Video homepage. The show has won The 9 on Yahoo! twice and has been featured in the British newspaper "The Guardian". Amanda Congdon covered the show and interviewed Buns, Chou Chou, and Quixote on her series "Amanda Across America", and the show has also been mentioned in the "New York Times" as being "twisted and sublime."²

References

1. http://www.rabbitbites.com

2. http://screens.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/a-big-deal-the-run-off-on-youtube/

3. http://www.tilzy.tv/pop-culture-critique-with-rabbit-bites.htm

External links

* [http://www.rabbitbites.com Rabbit Bites Official Website]

* [http://dir.salon.com/topics/rabbit_bites/ Rabbit Bites on "Salon.com"]

* [http://www.myspace.com/rabbitbites Rabbit Bites Official MySpace Page]

* [http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=bunsandchouchou Rabbit Bites on You Tube]

* [http://amandacongdon.com/roadblog/2006/11/06/rabbit-bites-ca/ Rabbit Bites on Amanda Congdon's "Amanda Across America"]

* [http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/06/buns_and_chou_chou_two_foulmou.html Rabbit Bites in "The Guardian"]