Miffy

Miffy (Nijntje)
Miffy
First appearance	1953
Created by	Dick Bruna
Voiced by	Eva Poppink (Miffy the Movie)
In-universe information
Species	Rabbit
Gender	Female

Miffy (Dutch: Nijntje, pronounced [ˈnɛiɲtɕə]) is a fictional rabbit appearing in a series of picture books drawn and written by Dutch artist Dick Bruna. The original Dutch name, "nijntje", is a shortening of the diminutive konijntje, "little rabbit".

The first Miffy book was produced in 1953 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.

Miffy was created in 1953 after Bruna had been telling his one-year-old son, Sierk, stories about a little rabbit they had seen earlier in the dunes,^[1] while on holiday at Egmond aan Zee. 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.

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.^[2] It is also translated in dialects, including in Zeelandic by Engel Reinhoudt.^[3] 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.

In the early 1990s, an image of Miffy holding an adjustable spanner coyly behind her back appeared on flyers produced by people taking direct action against the UK government's road building program. This unauthorised use of the character spread^[4] and Miffy became a mascot for groups involved in radical ecological direct action.

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, each episode was traditionally animated and ran for approximately five minutes. The show aired in the Netherlands on KRO, in the United Kingdom on ITV, in Canada on TVOntario in Australia on ABC, and in the USA 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 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,^[5] a Dutch stop-motion animation company. It was voiced simply by a feminine storytelling narrator.

Miffy is sometimes assumed to be a Japanese character, because Sanrio's Hello Kitty, introduced in 1974, is rendered using a similar line style. The Miffy brand is popular in Japan, with strong sales of Japanese-made Miffy merchandise. In an interview for The Daily Telegraph, Bruna expressed his dislike for Hello Kitty. "'That,' he says darkly, '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".^[2] In 1999, Miffy was the ninth top-selling character in Japan, where licensed merchandise sold ¥37.59 billion^[6] ($330 million).^[7]

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.^[8] On 2 November 2010, a Dutch court ruled against Sanrio and ordered the company to stop marketing Cathy products in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.^[8][9][10] 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.^[11][12]

In Bruna's hometown, Utrecht, there is a square named after nijntje, the Nijntjepleintje (lit: Little Nijntje Square, to retain the rhyme) and in 2006, the Centraal Museum opened a permanent exhibition, the dick bruna huis (Dick Bruna house).^[13]

Miffy celebrated her fiftieth birthday in 2005. This was marked in cities across the globe, for example, at the Manchester Art Gallery in England. She also serves a "celebrity character spokesperson" for UNICEF.^[14]

Miffy's namesakes include a new species of booklouse from Peru. The insect was given the scientific name Trichadenotecnum miffy in 2008, because its epiproct, an appendage on its abdomen, resembles a small rabbit.^[15]

In July 2014, Bruna announced his retirement; the rights to the Miffy character are not sold.^[16]

Miffy's Adventures Big and Small premiered 2 October 2015.^[17] It currently has a total of six seasons.^[18] It airs on the Nick Jr. Channel in the USA.^[19]

On 16 February 2017, Dick Bruna died at the age of 89.^[20]

In 2021, Miffy collaborated with Converse^[21] 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^[22] as the main attraction for the new partnership in celebration of the Lunar New Year of the Rabbit.

In October 2023, the fifth series was announced and will premiere in 2025 on Canal+ in France. It will be produced by StudioCanal, Mercis and Superprod Animation. This series will also feature the debut of Miffy's younger brother, Bun.^[23]

• Musti
• Hello Kitty, another mouth-less animal character

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Miffy.

• Official Miffy website (English)
• Official Nijntje website (Dutch)
• "I saw Matisse - and came up with Miffy", article by The Telegraph
• "The little rabbit with a big audience", article by The Telegraph