'Shazam!' Name-Drops Hoppy the Marvel Bunny in Deleted Scene

While Hoppy the Marvel Bunny did make a brief and easy-to-miss cameo appearance in the theatrical [...]

While Hoppy the Marvel Bunny did make a brief and easy-to-miss cameo appearance in the theatrical cut of Shazam!, an unused alternate take of Billy Batson's first night at the foster home actually shows that Hoppy would have been a lot more obvious -- and would have been given his name -- if the movie had been edited a little differently. In the final cut of the film, Darla Dudley (yes, she is named after Uncle Dudley, although that comes from the comics and is not an Easter egg exclusive to the film), one of Billy's foster siblings, can be seen with her favorite stuffed animal: a large, pink rabbit with huge floppy ears. Longtime fans of Shazam stories will instantly recognize the critter as one of Fawcett Comics's original talking animal characters, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny.

In the earlier version of Billy's introduction, available now as a bonus feature if you buy the movie from Movies Anywhere, Vudu, or Apple TV, Darla hands Billy the poster she made for him and, along with it, presents her large stuffed bunny, saying, "Hoppy is my little helper." While the final version of the film would feature a brief appearance by Hoppy, the bunny would not be named in the theatrical cut. This version of the scene, though, is the one reporters (including myself) saw being filmed during a set visit in April 2018. Hoppy, who first appeared in Fawcett's Funny Animals #1 in 1942, was a huge Captain Marvel fan who decided to say his hero's magic word transforming him into Hoppy the Marvel Bunny.

(For context, in case you're missing it, Captain Marvel was Shazam's original name, with Shazam being only the name of the wizard who gave him powers. After Fawcett stopped publishing new Captain Marvel stories, it opened up the door to Marvel Comics to latch onto the trademark and create their own character with the name. When DC bought Fawcett's assets and again began publishing the adventures of Captain Marvel, they used Shazam!, or some variation of it, to avoid conflicts with Marvel...even though in-story, the hero and his allies were referred to as Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family.)

shazam-hoppy
(Photo: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)

While Hoppy gets his powers (and costume) by saying "Shazam," the source of his powers is different from those of his human counterparts (from The Bunny Wizard, naturally). He would eventually be transported to Earth-S and team up with the Marvel Family, who were fictional charactes on Earth-C Plus where Hoppy hailed from, in Crisis on Infinite Earths. In that story, Hoppy stood shoulder to shoulder with his heroes as well as the Earth-1 Superman as they squared off with Mr. Mind, King Kull, and Mr. Mxyzptlk. Unlike Tawny, Hoppy was never a regular part of the Marvel Family's stories and has not reappeared as frequently in the post-Crisis era as Tawny has.

Shazam! is not shy about its comic book roots: the movie features Freddy Freeman as a superhero super-fan who collects newspaper clippings and artifacts from Superman, Batman, and others. There are Easter eggs that tease classic Captain Marvel/Shazam stories as well as references to various DC heroes throughout. And, yes, there are a number of Easter eggs referencing Mister Tawky Tawny, a talking tiger who was once imbued with the power of Shazam and became a friend to Billy Batson and a member of the Marvel Family.

Shazam! is now available on streaming video on demand services, and will be out on DVD and Blu-ray on July 16. Joker arrives on October 4th, Birds of Prey on February 7th, 2020, Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5th, 2020, and The Batman on June 25th, 2021.

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