Pulling a rabbit out of a hat has got to be the most famous tricks of all time, but hardly any magician in the world actually performs the trick. Why does the magic trick seem to be part of the collective consciousness? Where did it come from and why does it persist?
No doubt, magicians of yesteryear pulled many a rabbit out of a hat. There are a few reasons for this. First, the tall hat was omnipresent in the 1800’s. In the Victorian era it was easy for a conjurer to borrow a gentleman’s silk top hat. Nowadays if men are wearing hats it’s generally a baseball cap. Since it is pretty hard to sneak a bunny into a Yankee’s cap, it’s harder and harder to pull the trick off.
Now, why a rabbit? Well, bunny rabbits are quiet, and that’s important to a magician. Try sneaking a noisy and squawking animal into a hat and soon the audience will be on to your little trick. Bunnies are small and can be easily hidden in the magician’s coat. Ducks and wilderbeasts are may leave an unsightly bulge in the tailcoat, whereas the bunny will not.
And bunnies were easy to get, after all, they were food very often. A magician who was down on his luck could always eat his show business partner. Which brings us to the other reason why the bunny production may have grown in popularity and symbolism.
The great magic illusion is more than a puzzle; it symbolizes the effortless fulfillment of a dream. The magician who could pluck silver coins from the air on stage was acting out a fantasy. Money from nothing and perhaps the bunny, being a source of food that was sometimes tricky to get a hold of was a symbol of a dream fulfilled.
Or maybe it was the incongruency of the whole proceeding. The cosmopolitan gentleman’s hat, representing all things urban was a suddenly juxtaposed by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a wild animal. But maybe the real reason the image of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat is the illustrator or cartoonist. An illustration of a magician reading someone’s mind is difficult to convey. Likewise, many other magic tricks require sequential art in order for the viewer to understand the story. A rope that is cut and restored requires two frames, but a bunny out of a hat is self-explanatory.
The image of a bunny being pulled out of a hat is famous, too famous to work well. A magic trick, like a joke, requires surprise. If we know the punch line to a joke, it’s not as funny. If we know what the magician is about to do, it’s less amazing. And it’s also more difficult to accomplish.
The best time to make a secret move is before anyone suspects it. Today’s modern audience sees a magician with a top hat and it waits for a bunny rabbit to appear. What’s more the audience is also trying to catch the magician sneak the rabbit in the hat. And that’s why magicians hardly ever do the trick anymore. It’s harder to pull off and no longer surprises.
