White Rabbit
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- For other uses, see White rabbit.
The White Rabbit is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll's book Alice in Wonderland. He appears at the very beginning of the book, in chapter one, wearing a waistcoat, and muttering "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" Alice follows him down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. The Rabbit shows up again in the last two chapters, as a herald-like servant of the King and Queen of Hearts.
[edit] In popular culture
The similar rabbit appears in the Nintendo 64 game Super Mario 64, exclaiming that it is late for an appointment.
He also appeared in the Playstation 2 action-RPG game, Kingdom Hearts, and its Game Boy Advance follow-up, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. His role was pretty much the same in both games; worried about being late, he led Sora, Donald Duck and Goofy to the Queen's palace. His Japanese voice actor was Shigeru Ushiyama.
In American McGee's Alice, the White Rabbit is responsible for Alice's return to Wonderland. He is first seen as Alice's soft toy, then becomes something that looks vaguely like the John Tenniel illustration, only more shrivelled and corpse-like. When Alice is chasing him in the Village of the Doomed, he shrinks and goes down a hole. Alice follows him by shrinking herself with a hand-made potion. They remeet in the Wonderland Woods, where he tells her to find Caterpillar. Later, he is killed by the Mad Hatter after being squashed under his foot.
In The Looking-Glass Wars, the White Rabbit is reimagined as Bibwit Harte, an albino tutor with super-sensitive hearing.
Jefferson Airplane recorded a song called "White Rabbit", with references to this character and the Wonderland saga in general.
[edit] Disney
In the Disney version of the book, the Rabbit seems to have the most logic out of all the Wonderland characters. Thus, he is often the straight man for their zany antics; when he asks the Dodo for help on getting the "monster" (Alice) out of his house, Dodo's ultimate solution is to burn the house down. At the Mad Tea Party, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare try to "fix" his watch, proclaiming it to be "two days slow". Through various food they put in the watch (butter, tea, jam, and lemon), the two cause it to go berserk, and the Hare smashes it with his mallet. The scene ends when the Rabbit calls it "an unbirthday present", and they throw him out, singing the Unbirthday Song.
The Rabbit was perhaps most famous for the little ditty he sang at the beginning-"I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!". The Rabbit was voiced by Bill Thompson.
The Disney Rabbit made a few appearances on the Disney Channel original show, House of Mouse. His most noticeable appearance was when he confessed to Clarabelle Cow that "I'm not really late, and I don't really have a date. I'm a fraud!". He was voiced by Corey Burton, who would voice the Rabbit in all future speaking roles.
