The Adventures of the American Rabbit

Robert "Rob" Rabbit (Barry Gordon) is born in a small town and grows up showing an aptitude for sports and piano. When Rob miraculously saves his parents from a falling bolder by transforming into a star-spangled superhero, a wise mentor (Hal Smith) appears to tell him he is inheritor of the legacy of the American Rabbit and is destined to become a great hero. Now in possession of this great power Rob sets off into the world and heads to San Francisco where he finds a job as a piano player for the rock and roll club the Panda-Monium owned by Teddy Panda (Bob Arbogast). However a gang of Jackal bikers demanding protection money trash the club after teddy's refusal to pay. With no way to rebuild the Panda-Monium, Teddy, Rob, and the rest of the Panda-Monium staff decide to take the house band The White Brothers on tour of the United States to raise funds to rebuild while the Jackals' crime boss Vultor (Ken Mars) plots against them.

American Rabbit is based upon illustrations by Stewart Moskowitz that became popular throughout the 70s and 80s on posters and greeting cards. Moskowitz' illustrations were particularly popular in Japan which inspired Japanese investors to finance a co-production between Toei Animation and Murakami-Wolf-Swenson Films. There was no story behind any of Moskowtz' illustrations, so writer Norman Lenzer was tasked with building a story around Moskowitz' characters and building a narrative incorporating them. The movie was distributed by the short-lived Clubhouse Pictures label of Atlantic Records' also short-lived theatrical venture Atlantic Releasing where it opened far outside the top 10 in February of 1986 alongside other Clubhouse releases like Adventures of Mark Twain and a re-issue of Hey There, It's Yogi Bear! Which had almost twice the gross of American Rabbit. The film has mostly fallen into obscurity these days with the only major point of public interest being in its relation to a certain internet celebrity whom I'll not name. The movie isn't terribly made, but it also doesn't feel like a movie.

American Rabbit makes it pretty obvious from the beginning it takes great inspiration from Superman. With Rob Rabbit's alliterative name, Rob wearing glasses while American Rabbit doesn't, it's pretty much Superman in all but costume and species (and position I guess since he's a piano player and not a reporter). As far as a setup for children's entertainment it's fine, but everything from the villains to the very episodic structure of the movie feels like you're binging a TV show rather than a film. The overall structure of the movie goes like this: Rob Rabbit and the Panda-Monium staff go somewhere, stumble into a trap by Vultor and the Jackals, Rob does his Clark Kent style disappearing act to become American Rabbit to save the day, Vultor curses American Rabbit, repeat. That structure works fine for a 22 minute cartoon on Saturday Morning TV, but when you're watching a movie that goes through that structure about 3 times it feels inescapable to compare this to a children's cartoon on TV (Save for the animation which is a bit more fluid and polished but not theatrical). For a movie based on greeting cards with no real backstory it's better than something like the DiC season of Care Bears, The Get Along Gang, or Shirt Tales which were also based on greeting card characters, but if compared to The Care Bears Movie, despite its questionable internal logic, had a more cinematic structure (relatively speaking) and more atmosphere. There are the odd moments of brazen ridiculousness that lend themselves to laughter like the third encounter where Vultor concocts an evil plan involving chocolate (don't ask, it won't make sense) and we get some lines like "The road to power is paved with chocolate" or "First chocolate and then...THE WORLD!" that lend themselves to unintended hilarity, but for the most part the movie feels like one of those cartoons that would take up space between viewings of Thundercats and He-Man.

The Adventures of the American Rabbit isn't awful or poorly made, but there's nothing about it that feels like it belongs on a cinema screen. It's not ironic enough to be taken as parody and it's not smart enough to be taken in earnest. It's just a very middle of the road product. It isn't boring and there are moments that are kind of amusing like Lorenzo Music's supporting presence as Ping Pong the gorilla or Vultor's over the top declarations of villainy they're just moments. It's better than some greeting card adaptations, but that's really all you can give it.

Crude, uninspired cartoon involving a superhero rabbit's adventures (named, appropriately enough, the American Rabbit) who is forced to confront a villainous jackal's framework. The American Rabbit's Adventures are strictly for the children, although it seems entirely possible that even here they will find little to embrace. The animation style is certainly subpar, which by contrast makes even the fastest straight-to-video release of Disney look amazing. The voice work is passable, but the dialog is atrocious; the action seems to pause every 15 minutes like clockwork, or so as an important message is doled out (i.e. winning is not all). And let's not even get into the parody of the outfit of the American Rabbit, which is basically an American flag sponsored by roller skates (maybe the getup be more than ' 80s?)

THE ADVENTURES OF THE American RABBIT is so incredibly un-noteworthy I'm vaguely obsessed with it. The idea that something this insubstantial could get a theatrical release is a bit amazing--but then again, I've seen THE OOGIELOVES. In a theater.

What can you really say about a film like this? The plot is so thin that the same things happen two or three times just to fill up the space--and a lot of what goes down is completely irrelevant. This could have been a one-hour TV special, no problem. There's nothing really approaching substance here.

Is there anything to recommend it? Curiosity, I guess. It's well- intentioned (more or less). The villain is kind of cool-looking. It's weird and illogical enough as a whole to be worth laughing at. It's a film called THE ADVENTURES OF THE American RABBIT and it actually got shown in theaters. You can watch it on Netflix, on YouTube, or do your best to imagine it based on the bare plot summary.

If you were stuck watching this, it would be preferable to chewing off your own leg. It would even be preferable to being knocked unconscious. But...yeah.

I remember watching this movie multiple times as a lass. I saw it again recently and found it to be just as charming now as then. The characters are very cute and I liked the fact that there were some very weird elements to this movie. For one thing, I have a vague memory that the Chocolate Moose and his son were trapped in the same kind of room that Louie's vampire "wife" was held in "Interview With a Vampire" (where the sun could vaporize her). Well, here, the moose were trapped in this room so they'd melt, as they're actual moose made of chocolate. Disturbing. And of course there's the little twist involving the villain and his pet vulture.

Definitely give this a look, especially if you'd like to see some cute anime characters.

This was definitely one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoon movies when I was a child. The characters were extremely fun, the storyline was relatively complex, and the tone was not that of most condescending animated movies that caused me, even as a very young child, to feel as if the movies were talking down to me.

I haven't seen the movie in quite a few years, but I do remember watching it in late middle school or early high school and noting some of the political ideas that it seemed to be expressing. (By this time, I had realized how the media had affected my mind and opinion about political issues. For example, my once inexplicable cautious attitude towards Eastern Europeans [which have since been eradicated] could probably be trace to such propaganda films as Rocky IV.)

However, I do think this film is pretty harmless and actually delivers some good lessons that a child of any age needs to learn. It's definitely still on my favorites list.