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| Miffy (nijntje) | |
|---|---|
 Miffy | |
| First appearance | 21 June 1955; 70 years ago (1955-06-21) |
| Created by | Dick Bruna |
| Voiced by | Tessa Van Breugel (Dick Bruna's Miffy Storybook Classics; Dutch) Tanneke Hartzuiker (Miffy and Friends; Dutch) Eva Poppink (Miffy the Movie; Dutch) Échica Florijn (Miffy's Adventures Big and Small; Dutch) Unknown (Dick Bruna's Miffy Storybook Classics; US English) Jennie Ames (Dick Bruna's Miffy Storybook Classics; UK English) Emma Taylor Isherwood (Miffy: Colors, Numbers, and Shapes; English) Karin Hollreiser (Miffy and Friends; UK/Australia/New Zealand) Cyd Vandenburg(Miffy and Friends; US/Canada) Sandra Agababyan (Miffy the Movie; English) Sophie Goldstein (Miffy's Adventures Big and Small; English) |
| In-universe information | |
| Species | Rabbit |
| Gender | Female |
Miffy (Dutch:nijntje, pronounced[ˈnɛiɲtɕə]nayn-chə) is a fictionalrabbit appearing in a series ofpicture books drawn and written by Dutch artistDick Bruna. The original Dutch name,nijntje, is a shortening of thediminutivekonijntje, "little rabbit" because Dick Bruna's son wasn't able to pronouncekonijntje.[1]
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; andMiffy's Adventures Big and Small from 2015.
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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,[2] while on holiday atEgmond aan Zee. Miffy became a female in 1970[3] 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.[4] 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.
The simplicity of Miffy’s design not only appeals to young children but also reflects Bruna’s philosophy of clear and direct storytelling, which has helped the character endure over decades as a beloved figure in children’s literature.[5]
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.[6] 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 asMiffy'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.[7] It is also translated in dialects, including inZeelandic byEngel Reinhoudt.[8] Dick Bruna has won many awards for his books, such as the Golden Brush in 1990, forBoris Bear and the Silver Brush forMiffy In The Tent in 1996. In 1997, he was awarded the Silver Slate forDear 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 inMiffy Goes Flying. A new brother or sister for Miffy is introduced inMiffy And The New Baby. She also has many friends, Boris Bear who first appeared in 1986 and Barbara Bear, who first appeared in 1989 who 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, Winnie, Dan and Melanie.
Miffy appeared in her first TV show in 1984, calledDick Bruna's Miffy Storybook Classics: The Original Series. Directed by veteran animatorGene Deitch, each episode was traditionally animated and ran for approximately five minutes. The show aired in the Netherlands onKRO, in theUnited Kingdom onITV, inCanada onTVOntario inAustralia onABC, and in theUSA on Cartoon Network's Small World block with VHS releases from Geneon USA, episodes of the show were later included as Bonus Features onMiffy and Friends DVDs.
From 2003 to 2007,Miffy and Friends aired on children's television channels such asTreehouse in Canada, andNoggin 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,[9] 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.[10] It currently has a total of six seasons.[11] It airs on theNick Jr. Channel in the USA.[12]
In October 2023, a new series was announced. It premiered in 2025 onCanal+ in France. It was produced byStudioCanal, Mercis andSuperprod Animation. The series also introduces Miffy's younger brother, Bun.[13]
Miffy is sometimes assumed to be aJapanese character, because many ofSanrio's characters, particularlyHello Kitty, introduced in 1974, are drawn in a similar line style. The Miffy brand is popular inJapan, with strong sales of Japanese-made Miffy merchandise. In an interview forThe Daily Telegraph, Bruna openly expressed his dislike for Hello Kitty. "That ... is a copy [of 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.'"[7] In 1999, Miffy was the ninth top-selling character in Japan, where licensed merchandise sold over¥37.59 billion[14] ($330 million).[15]
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, infringed on the copyright and trademark of Miffy.[16] On 2 November 2010, a Dutch court ruled against Sanrio and ordered the company to stop marketing Cathy products inBelgium,Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.[16][17][18] On 7 June 2011, following theTōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Sanrio and Mercis reached an out-of-court settlement requiring Sanrio to halt production worldwide 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.[19][20]
In the early 1990s, an image of Miffy holding anadjustable spanner coyly behind her back appeared on flyers produced by people takingdirect action against theUK government's road building program. This unauthorised use of the character spread[21] and Miffy became amascot for groups involved in radical ecological direct action.
In Bruna's hometown,Utrecht, a square was named after Miffy (Nijntje), the Nijntjepleintje (lit: Little Miffy Square, the diminutive for square in Dutch: pleintje retains the rhyme with nijntje as the ij and ei digraphs are pronounced identical in DutchDutch pronunciation:[ɛi]ⓘ). In 2006, theCentraal Museum opened a permanent exhibition, thedick bruna huis (Dick Bruna house). Bruna distributed all Miffy DVDs alongsideWarner Home Video. In 2015, Bridge Entertainment acquired the distribution rights to Bruna's home videos.[22]
Miffy celebrated her 50th birthday in 2005. This was marked in cities across the globe, for example, at theManchester Art Gallery in the United Kingdom. She also serves a "celebrity character spokesperson" forUNICEF.[23]
Miffy's namesakes include a new species ofbooklouse fromPeru. The insect was given the scientific nameTrichadenotecnum Miffy in 2008, because its epiproct, an appendage on its abdomen, resembles a small rabbit.[24]
In July 2014, Bruna announced his retirement; the rights to the Miffy character were not sold.[25] On 16 February 2017, Dick Bruna died at the age of 89.[26]
In 2021, Miffy collaborated with Converse[27] 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[28] as the main attraction for the new partnership in celebration of the Lunar New Year of the Rabbit.
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