The Velveteen Rabbit
Explanation
The Joke
The comic retells the story of The Velveteen Rabbit, but with a horrifying biological twist. The toy rabbit wanted so much to be real that he went to see the other rabbits, but they would not accept him. Then he noticed something disturbing: the real rabbits are eating their own droppings. When he asks them about it, they confirm that yes, technically, those are their own fecal pellets. The Velveteen Rabbit no longer wishes to be real. In fact, he wishes nobody was real. The final panel shows the rabbit lying in bed with a child, saying "Goodnight, rabbit," while the rabbit thinks in horror: "Oh God, I can hear fluids moving inside you."
The Humor
The comic subverts the wholesome moral of the original children's story -- that being "real" is the highest aspiration -- by confronting the Velveteen Rabbit with the disgusting biological realities of being a living creature. Rabbits actually do practice coprophagy (eating their own cecotropes, a type of soft fecal pellet) as a necessary part of their digestion. Once the toy rabbit learns what biological existence actually entails, the story's aspirational message collapses entirely. Rather than yearning to become real, the rabbit is now horrified by the gross reality of biological life, including being able to hear the bodily fluids sloshing around inside the child he sleeps with. The joke escalates from "being real is unpleasant" to full-on existential disgust with biological existence.
References
- The Velveteen Rabbit (1922) is a children's book by Margery Williams about a stuffed rabbit who longs to become real through a child's love. It is one of the most beloved children's stories in English literature.
- Cecotrophy is the real biological process by which rabbits eat a special type of their own droppings (cecotropes) to re-digest nutrients, particularly B vitamins.