News Bunny was station mascot of the short-lived UK TV Station

L!VE TV L!VE TV was a British television station that was operated by Mirror Group Newspapers on cable television from 12 June 1995 until 5 November 1999. It was later revived for Sky from 2003. In 2006, L!VE TV's name was changed to Babeworld to r ...

, under its publicity-seeking boss

Kelvin MacKenzie Kelvin Calder MacKenzie (born 22 October 1946) is an English media executive and a former newspaper editor. He became editor of '' The Sun'' in 1981, by which time the publication was established as Britain's largest circulation newspaper. Aft ...

Role

During news bulletins an extra dressed as a giant rabbit would stand behind the news presenter, and mime actions related to the news. For example, good news would be greeted with an enthusiastic thumbs up, while during bad news the bunny would hang his head and look sad. Up until this point almost all UK TV news was presented in a serious manner; the News Bunny helped pave the way for subsequent more relaxed approaches to news presentation, as demonstrated on Channel 5 and ''

The Big Breakfast ''The Big Breakfast'' is a British breakfast light entertainment television programme that was broadcast on Channel 4. Originally presented by Chris Evans and Gaby Roslin, the show was latterly presented by Mo Gilligan and AJ Odudu. The pro ...

''. The impact of News Bunny has been the subject of academic research. The Bunny was intended to appeal to the station's target audience of young people, particularly young men, and was part of McKenzie's populist stable of programmes (see

entry for details).

History

News Bunny first appeared in January 1996, and was played by various people, usually the station's news producers and researchers. Depending on who was available at the time, various other

staff were also called upon to don the famous suit in "one off" appearances, including Richard Bacon, later to become a BBC TV ''

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'' presenter, and

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, a previous editor of The Sun's "Bizarre" column. This was documented in the book "L!VE TV - Tellybrats and Topless Darts". Despite the channel's poor ratings News Bunny became a national cult figure, attracting much tabloid and other media interest, and being mentioned in Parliament. Aside from his studio appearances, News Bunny regularly appeared alongside politicians, pop stars and royalty, many of whom would have preferred to avoid him. These appearances usually occurred during outside broadcasts and publicity stunts. The Bunny gate-crashed an official visit by

Michael Heseltine Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served a ...

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in 1996, and famously secured 8 seconds with

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

. News Bunny also appeared in the 1997 BBC comedy drama ''Gobble'', a satire on recent food poisoning crises, written by

Ian Hislop Ian David Hislop (born 13 July 1960) is a British journalist, satirist, writer, broadcaster, and editor of the magazine ''Private Eye''. He has appeared on numerous radio and television programmes and has been a team captain on the BBC quiz show ...

. During the course of the drama, News Bunny performed

Nazi salute The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute (german: link=no, Hitlergruß, , Hitler greeting, ; also called by the Nazi Party , 'German greeting', ), or the ''Sieg Heil'' salute, is a gesture that was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany. Th ...

s at a mention of the German agricultural minister and was ultimately punched by the protagonist. News Bunny also stood for Parliament representing the "L!VE TV Party" in the

1996 South East Staffordshire by-election A by-election was held for the British House of Commons constituency of South East Staffordshire on 11 April 1996, following the death the previous December of the sitting Conservative MP Sir David Lightbown. The result was a Labour gain from t ...

, polling 85 votes. In order to do this, Mirror Group employee Ashley Hames had to change his name to "News Bunny" for the purposes of the election. According to an apocryphal story circulating among journalists at the time, during the campaign a stunt went wrong and the hapless hack was arrested for obstruction. As there was a police case pending against him, he was unable to change his name back for some time and had to live as "Mr N. Bunny" for weeks longer than he had expected. According to Hames, Kelvin McKenzie proclaimed the arrest of News Bunny on camera as, "the best (expletive removed) piece of television I've ever seen in my life!" News Bunny went off air with L!VE TV in 1999 and is now owned by Vauxhall-based ETV, founded by L!VE's former management team. The character made a brief revival during their 2003 relaunch of the station on Sky Digital.

Performers

The main performers of News Bunny, in order of appearance were Ashley Hames,

Ashley Revell Ashley Revell (born 1971 in Maidstone, Kent) is an English entrepreneur. In 2004 he sold all his possessions, including his clothes, and on 11 April he gambled US$135,300 (about £76,840 at the time) on a single spin of a roulette wheel in th ...

, Scott Harman, Darren Lamb, Andy Clarke, and Nik Hodges as well as his stand-in Tim Rider and Emily Latham.

News Bunny as media industry epithet

News Bunny has since become a media term occasionally used to refer to a news presenter, usually female, who has been hired for her attractiveness or capacity to entertain, rather than as a serious reporter.

References

* Quentin Falk, Ben Falk, ''Television's Strangest Moments: Extraordinary But True Tales from the History of Television'', Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005, , p. 236 * Ashley Hames, ''Sin Cities'', Tonto Books, 2008, {{ISBN, 0-9556326-0-9, p. 33

External links

Ashley Hames (original News Bunny

British television presenters, News_Bunny Mascots introduced in 1996 Television mascots Rabbit and hare mascots Rabbits and hares in popular culture