Bunny is a 1998 animated short film directed by Chris Wedge and produced by Blue Sky Studios.
An elderly bunny lives alone in her cabin in the woods. She is baking a cake, but she is being bothered by a persistent moth that keeps flitting about the light in her kitchen. She is especially annoyed when the moth bumps into her wedding picture (her husband has apparently died sometime in the backstory). The bunny eventually knocks the moth into the cake batter, which she then chucks into the stove. She sets the timer and falls asleep—and very odd things begin to happen.
Winning Best Animated Short film at the 1998 Academy Awards, Bunny was the first film produced by Blue Sky Studios, best known for the Ice Age series. The short itself is available as a bonus feature on the first Ice Age's DVD. Tom Waits himself sings the song over the end credits.
Tropes:
- Animal Motifs: Aside from the obvious fact that the main character is an anthropomorphic rabbit, her mortality is symbolized through moth imagery. A moth fluttering into her and being attracted towards her lights is symbolic of death and when the bunny enters the afterlife, her spirit sprouts the wings of a moth.
- Bittersweet Ending: The main character passes on, but she and her late husband are finally together.
- Dying Dream: According to
Word of God, Bunny dies after she dozes off. Everything that happens after is this. - Early-Installment Weirdness: This somber, elegiac short film is quite the contrast from the madcap antics of Ice Age and its sequels, as well most of the rest of the Blue Sky canon.
- Halfway Plot Switch: Mostly physical humor regarding the bunny's battle with the moth in the first half. Becomes something far darker after the bunny goes into the oven.
- Go into the Light: The moth being attracted to light eventually becomes symbolic of death. The bunny winds up going into the light just as the moth does.
- The Grim Reaper: The moth turns out to be this this, leading the bunny's soul into the afterlife.
- Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: The short contains no dialogue.
- The Mourning After: Bunny is shown to be deeply affected by her husband's death.
- Passed in Their Sleep: What happens to Bunny.
- Together in Death: The wedding picture of the bunny and her husband comes to life as they embrace each other, meaning that they are together in the afterlife.
- Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: The bunny sprouts wings (like a moth) as she flies off into the light.
