Don't Eat the Neighbours

Did You Know?

• Only four episodes were given a home media release in the UK by Granada and VCI on VHS and DVD, in the 2002 volume A Rabbit for All Seasons and Other Stories.
• After airing in the United Kingdom and Canada up to September 2002, the show was primarily broadcast as late as 2005 on international networks.

Characters

In the series, the adult characters are named after the animals they are, while the children have normal names. Rabbit, voiced by Robert Lindsay, is a tall, confident, clever, and quick-witted widower. He is the father of Lucy, Peter, and Emily, and he dresses in blue trousers, a white shirt, a flowery jacket, and red Converse shoes. The show mentions that a wolf ate Rabbit's wife. His eldest child, Lucy, voiced by Doon Mackichan, is calm and often seems smarter than her father. She remains friends with Simon and Barry despite the conflict between their fathers. Rabbit's youngest children, Peter and Emily, are twin babies who never speak in any episode.

Wolf, voiced by Michael McShane, was exiled from Canada by the Brotherhood of Wolves and now lives in an English forest next door to Rabbit. He is tall, dim-witted, and clumsy, though he occasionally has bright moments. Wolf often teams up with Fox to try to catch Rabbit, and he can become dangerously angry when planning to hunt and kill his prey. He wears a pinkish-red shirt, a black leather jacket and pants, and red platform-like shoes that resemble women's boots. The series mentions that Wolf's wife left him for another wolf. Wolf's eldest son, Simon, voiced by Patrick McKenna, is smarter than his brother Barry but still not very bright. Barry, voiced by Seán Cullen, is Wolf's younger son, good-hearted but rather dim-witted, and he has a small crush on Lucy.

Fox, voiced by Simon Callow, is Wolf's posh friend who sometimes talks to his mother, who appears as a voice inside his head. Like Wolf, Fox is an enemy of Rabbit and regularly tries to eat him. He can be very clever when devising schemes to catch Rabbit, but Rabbit usually foils his plans. Fox wears a white dress shirt, a yellow waistcoat, a maroon cravat, dark chartreuse pants, and brown knee-high boots.

Rabbit's best friend is Terrapin, voiced by Tim McInnerny. Terrapin is very cowardly, though he has shown courage on occasion. He has a twin brother named Colin who looks exactly like him except for a moustache. Terrapin wears a scuba diver's wetsuit and flippers.

Bear, voiced by Simon Callow, is Lucy's confidant and advisor. He is often seen painting. Everyone else in the neighbourhood is frightened of him, but he has a kindly personality.

Production and broadcast

The series' inception began in the late 1990s when a proposal by Richard Robinson to adapt Brer Rabbit into a puppet-based slapstick comedy series was adopted by executive producer Patrick Titley at Yorkshire Television. Following Yorkshire's recent takeover by Granada, the concept was developed into an original programme under writer Kirstie Falkous, initially titled Rabbit in a Hole. Upon first seeing and being impressed by the project, then-head of Granada's children's department Steven Andrew chose to prolong its production period and increase its budget by seeking an overseas co-producer, which became Sextant Entertainment.

As part of the co-production deal, Sextant received distribution and merchandising rights in North America and Japan, with all other territories held by Granada. Eleven animatronic puppets were designed and created by Neal Scanlan Studios during 2000. Filming and 3D animation production took place at Sextant facilities in Vancouver, Canada from April 2001, with a month-long block of voice work sessions directed by Lissa Evans prior to this at Saunders & Gordon Sound Studios in Hackney, London.

Alongside 16 scripts by Falkous, additional material was written by Michael Wynne, Andrew Bernhardt, Elly Brewer, Rebecca Stevens, Mary Morris, and Gerard Foster, under Granada development producer Connal Orton and Falkous' script producer partner John Regier. Andy de Emmony led direction of the first three episodes in Canada, alongside Michael Rohl, Mark Sawers, Randy MacDonald, and Sextant president and producer Tom Rowe. Music was composed by Jim Guttridge and Daryl Bennett, with the theme done by Dan Gagnon, Michael Scott, and Sandy Nuttgens. Puppeteers included Frank Meschkuleit, with Pons Maar and Adam Behr leading their performances.