Miffy (, pronounced ) is a fictional

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

appearing in a series of

picture book A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The ima ...

s drawn and written by Dutch artist

Dick Bruna Dick Bruna (born Hendrik Magdalenus Bruna, 23 August 1927 – 16 February 2017) was a Dutch author, artist, illustrator and graphic designer. Bruna was best known for his children's books which he authored and illustrated, numbering over 200. His ...

. The original Dutch name, ''Nijntje'', is a shortening of the

diminutive A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle s ...

''konijntje'', "little rabbit". The first Miffy book was produced in 1955 and over thirty others have followed. In total they have sold over 100 million copies. In addition, four separate television series as well as items such as clothes and toys featuring the character followed. On 30 January 2013, a feature-length film, '' Miffy the Movie'', was released in theaters and stars Eva Poppink in the title role. Four television series based on the character have been produced: ''Dick Bruna's Miffy Storybook Classics'' from 1984; ''Miffy: Colors, Numbers, and Shapes'' from 1996; '' Miffy and Friends'' from 2003; and '' Miffy's Adventures Big and Small'' from 2015.

Creation and design

Miffy was created in 1955 after Bruna had been telling his one-year-old son, Sierk, stories about a little rabbit they had seen earlier in the dunes, while on holiday at

Egmond aan Zee Egmond aan Zee () is a village on the North Sea coast in the Netherlands, Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Bergen, North Holland, Bergen, about 9 km west of Alkmaar. Egmond aan Zee was a separate municipali ...

. Miffy became a female after Bruna decided that he wanted to draw a dress and not trousers on his rabbit. At first Miffy looked like a toy animal with floppy ears, but by 1963, her design was changed to her current incarnation, a stylized form of a rabbit. Miffy is drawn in a graphic style, with minimalist black graphic lines. Bruna chose to only use black, white, the primary colours (red, yellow, and blue), green, orange, brown, and grey. It is his use of primarily primary colors that makes Miffy instantly recognisable, and also popular with preschoolers, because of her bright and intense simplistic colours.

Books

Almost 32 Miffy titles have been published and many more for the other characters. Bruna has produced a total of 124 picture books for children. The Miffy books each contain twelve pages of story. Each page has one illustration and four lines of verse, the last word of the second line rhymes with the last of the fourth. They are written about things that children can understand, and situations they will face such as going to the hospital and going to school, and they always have a happy ending. Some books have no text at all, such as ''Miffy's Dream''. The books are printed in small format. Bruna considers it important that his audience feels that his books are there for them, not for their parents. Most Miffy books have an advisory reading level of age four to eight years. Bruna's books have been translated into more than 50 different languages, and over 85 million copies have been sold all over the world. It is also translated in dialects, including in

Zeelandic Zeelandic (; ; ) is a group of language varieties spoken in the southwestern parts of the Netherlands. It is currently considered a Low Franconian dialect of Dutch, but there have been movements to promote the status of Zeelandic from a dial ...

by Engel Reinhoudt. Dick Bruna has won many awards for his books, such as the Golden Brush in 1990, for ''Boris Bear'' and the Silver Brush for ''Miffy In The Tent'' in 1996. In 1997, he was awarded the Silver Slate for ''Dear Grandma Bunny'', a book where Miffy's grandmother was sick and died. The other characters that appear in the books are her family: Miffy's parents, her Grandma and Grandpa, her Auntie Alice, and 'Uncle Bob', a family friend, who appears in ''Miffy Goes Flying''. A new brother or sister for Miffy is introduced in ''Miffy And The New Baby''. She also has many friends, Boris and Barbara Bear, who first appeared in 1989 and are boyfriend and girlfriend, Poppy Pig, who appeared in 1977, and her niece Grunty, Snuffy, who appeared in 1969, and other bunnies such as Aggie and Melanie.

Television

Miffy appeared in her first TV show in 1984, called ''Dick Bruna's Miffy Storybook Classics: The Original Series''. Directed by veteran animator

Gene Deitch Eugene Merril Deitch (August 8, 1924 – April 16, 2020) was an American illustrator, animator, comics artist, and film director who was based in Prague from the 1960s until his death in 2020. Deitch was known for creating animated cartoons ...

, each episode was traditionally animated and ran for approximately five minutes. The show aired in the Netherlands on KRO, in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

on ITV, in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

TVOntario TVO (stylized in all lowercase as tvo), formerly known as TVOntario, is a Canadian Public broadcasting, publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It operates ...

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ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

, and in the

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on Cartoon Network's Small World block with VHS releases from Geneon USA, episodes of the show were later included as Bonus Features on '' Miffy and Friends'' DVDs. From 2003 to 2007, '' Miffy and Friends'' aired on children's television channels such as

Treehouse A tree house, tree fort or treeshed, is a platform or building constructed around, next to or among the trunk or branches of one or more mature trees while above ground level. Tree houses can be used for recreation, work space, habitation, a ha ...

in Canada, and Noggin in the USA. The show added several new characters, such as Melanie's African family and the family of Boris' and Barbara's common cousin, Umik. The series was produced by Pedri Animation BV, a Dutch stop-motion animation company. It was voiced simply by a feminine storytelling narrator. '' Miffy's Adventures Big and Small'' premiered 2 October 2015. It currently has a total of six seasons. It airs on the

Nick Jr. Channel The Nick Jr. Channel, sometimes shortened to Nick Jr., is an American pay television, pay television channel owned by the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. An offshoot of Nickelodeon ...

in the USA. In October 2023, the fifth series was announced and will premiere in 2025 on

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

in France. It will be produced by

StudioCanal StudioCanal S.A.S. (formerly known as Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ D.A., and Canal+ Production and also known as StudioCanal International) is a French film & television production and distribution company which is a ...

, Mercis and Superprod Animation. This series will also feature the debut of Miffy's younger brother, Bun.

Conflicts with Sanrio

Miffy is sometimes assumed to be a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

character, because

Sanrio is a Japanese entertainment company. It designs, licenses, and manufactures products focusing on the ''kawaii'' ("cute") segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts, and Fashion accessory, a ...

Hello Kitty , also known by her real name , is a fictional character created by Yuko Shimizu, currently designed by Yuko Yamaguchi, and owned by the Japanese company Sanrio. Sanrio depicts Hello Kitty as a British anthropomorphized white cat with a red ...

, introduced in 1974, is rendered using a similar line style. The Miffy brand is popular in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, with strong sales of Japanese-made Miffy merchandise. In an interview for ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', Bruna expressed his dislike for Hello Kitty. "'That,' he says darkly, 'is a copy f Miffy I think. I don't like that at all. I always think, "No, don't do that. Try to make something that you think of yourself". In 1999, Miffy was the ninth top-selling character in Japan, where licensed merchandise sold (). In addition, on 26 August 2010, Mercis BV, representing Bruna, brought suit against Sanrio with the claim that one of Hello Kitty's companion characters, a rabbit named Cathy, infringes on the copyright and trademark of Miffy. On 2 November 2010, a Dutch court ruled against Sanrio and ordered the company to stop marketing Cathy products in

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

, and the Netherlands. On 7 June 2011, following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Sanrio and Mercis reached an out-of-court settlement requiring Sanrio to halt production of merchandise that features Cathy. Instead of continuing the court battle, the two companies announced that they would donate the legal fees to help the earthquake victims.

Legacy

In the early 1990s, an image of Miffy holding an

adjustable spanner An adjustable spanner (UK and most other Anglophone countries), also called a shifting spanner (Australia and New Zealand) or adjustable wrench (US and Canada), is any of various styles of wrench, spanner (wrench) with a movable jaw, allowing it ...

coyly behind her back appeared on flyers produced by people taking

direct action Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a governm ...

against the UK government's road building program. This unauthorised use of the character spread and Miffy became a

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, sports team, university society, society, military unit, or brand, brand name. Mascots are als ...

for groups involved in radical ecological direct action. In Bruna's hometown,

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

, there is a square named after Nijntje, the Nijntjepleintje (lit: Little Nijntje Square, to retain the rhyme) and in 2006, the

Centraal Museum The Centraal Museum is the main museum in Utrecht (city), Utrecht, Netherlands, founded in 1838. The museum has a wide-ranging collection, mainly of works produced locally. The collection of the paintings by the Northern Mannerist Joachim Wte ...

opened a permanent exhibition, the ''dick bruna huis'' (Dick Bruna house). Bruna distributed all DVDs from miffy with

Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment, Inc. (doing business as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment; formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the American home video distribution ...

. Later in 2015, Bridge Entertainment DVD took bruna home video. Miffy celebrated her fiftieth birthday in 2005. This was marked in cities across the globe, for example, at the

Manchester Art Gallery Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre, England. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupi ...

in England. She also serves a "celebrity character spokesperson" for

UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...

. Miffy's namesakes include a new species of

booklouse Psocoptera () are a paraphyletic group of insects that are commonly known as booklice, barklice or barkflies. The name Psocoptera has been replaced with Psocodea in recent literature, with the inclusion of the former order Phthiraptera into Psoco ...

from

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. The insect was given the scientific name ''Trichadenotecnum miffy'' in 2008, because its epiproct, an appendage on its abdomen, resembles a small rabbit.Yoshizawa, K., et al. (2008)
Systematics and biogeography of the New World species of ''Trichadenotecnum'' Enderlein (Insecta: Psocodea:"Psocoptera": Psocidae).
''Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society'' 153(4) 651-723. (pg. 87) In July 2014, Bruna announced his retirement; the rights to the Miffy character were not sold. On 16 February 2017, Dick Bruna died at the age of 89. In 2021, Miffy collaborated with Converse to capsule menswear collection in the Netherlands to celebrate the creator of Miffy, Dick Bruna. In December 2022, Tommy Hilfiger announced its new collection with Miffy as the main attraction for the new partnership in celebration of the Lunar New Year of the Rabbit.

References

External links

Official ''Miffy'' website (English)

Official ''Nijntje'' website (Dutch)

article by ''The Telegraph''

article by ''The Telegraph'' {{Authority control 1955 children's books Dutch children's books Dutch picture books Series of children's books Female characters in literature Child characters in literature Anthropomorphic rabbits and hares Dutch novels adapted into films Dutch novels adapted into television shows Dutch novels adapted into plays Children's novels about rabbits and hares Literary characters introduced in 1955 1980s British children's television series 1990s British children's television series 1980s British animated television series 1990s British animated television series 1980s Dutch television series 1990s Dutch television series 1984 British television series debuts 1996 British television series endings 1984 Dutch television series debuts 1996 Dutch television series endings 1980s preschool education television series 1990s preschool education television series Animated preschool education television series British preschool education television series British television shows based on children's books British English-language television shows Dutch-language television shows Television shows based on Dutch novels Animated television series about rabbits and hares Animated television series about children Fictional Dutch people Short stories about talking animals