Lola Bunny
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| Lola Bunny | |
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| Lola Bunny as seen in Space Jam. | |
| First appearance | Space Jam, 1996 |
| Voiced by | Kath Soucie, Britt McKillip (Baby Looney Tunes) |
Lola Bunny is a fictional cartoon character from Warner Bros. Studios. She is a female rabbit and has been established as having a romantic involvement with Bugs Bunny. Originally she was planned to be a one time plot device character in the movie Space Jam. But in the end she was much more popular than expected and the screenwriters liked her so much and was included in more episodes of Looney Toons.
Lola's first appearance (as an adult) was in the movie Space Jam, in which she is voiced by Kath Soucie. Lola's basketball skills got her a spot on the Toon Squad, in which the Looney Tunes characters battled the villainous Monstars for their freedom, with help from Michael Jordan. The Toon Squad was victorious, and Lola kindled a romance with Bugs. Although she had turned down his earlier advances, she saw him in a new light after he heroically saved her from injury by shoving her out of the path of a belly-flopping Monstar, getting himself painfully squashed under the Monstar's belly.
The name Lola Bunny was inspired by The Kink's song Lola (song) though the connections to transvestitism as the song eludes too are unsure.
[edit] Aftermath
After Space Jam, Lola has made several appearances in video games (she replaced Honey Bunny as the damsel in distress of the Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle series), and she regularly appears in solo stories in the monthly Looney Tunes comic published by DC Comics. Lola was also seen as the reporter in the 2000 direct-to-video movie "Tweety's High-Flying Adventure" (it should be noted that in all of her scenes in this movie she is seen holding a basketball). An infant version of her is among the regular characters of Baby Looney Tunes. (Her relative obscurity was mentioned in the original commercial break cards, where the announcer says things like "Yes, Lola is cute, but I'm not sure who she is.") Also, in the cartoon series Loonatics Unleashed, the character of Lexi Bunny is a descendant of Lola and possibly Bugs.
Lola Bunny was also featured in a Looney Tune webtoon, on looneytunes.com, entitled "Dating Dos And Don'ts." During this webtoon, in the form of a fifties educational film, Bugs Bunny attempts to take Lola out on a date, but Elmer Fudd and Lola's disapproving dad (voiced by Tom Kenny) are all that stand between him and his date. The short ends with Elmer crashing on top of Lola's dad, and Lola continuing to kiss Bugs passionately. A mascot version of Lola Bunny in her Space Jam Tune Squad uniform helped debut the Women's National Basketball Association in 1997 appearing at their inaugural game between the New York Liberty and the Los Angeles Sparks in Inglewood, California.
[edit] Two Lolas
In the wake of Lola Bunny's initial movie appearance, many Looney Tunes fans have noticed some differences between the character's appearance as seen in Space Jam, and the design used in subsequent promotional images and merchandising:
- The Space Jam version of Lola has a powderpuff tail, rosy red eyelids, and slipper-shaped footpads. Her secondary fur color is a light tan, while her hair and tail are cream-colored. This appearance conforms to the animation model sheets used during the film's production.
- The "promotional" Lola has a teardrop-style tail similar to Bugs Bunny's, footpads that extend all the way around her feet (again, similar to Bugs'), yellow-blonde hair that extends down the back of her head, and her secondary fur color is white. This version of the character is the one dictated by the official Warner Bros. "style sheets" (first published in the Space Jam Style Guide) used for merchandising purposes.
The reasons for the change in Lola's appearance between movie and merchandising is unknown. However, it would seem that Warner Bros., at least, considers the latter version to be the "official" appearance of the character, given that all of the character's subsequent appearances (including the Baby Lola character in Baby Looney Tunes, the reporter in Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, and even the mascot suit occasionally seen in some of the Six Flags theme parks) have been based on the blonde-haired "promotional" model rather than the cream-haired Space Jam model.
It should be noted however that the Baby Lola is a mix of the features of the two different styles. From the promotional style she possesses footpads extending around the feet, the white fur and the blonde coloured hair. However, Baby Lola's hair and tail are that of the Space Jam-style Lola.
