Il Grande Libro della Natura image

Il Coniglio

1999 (estimated) Il Grande Libro della Natura

English title: The Rabbit

Series title: The Great Book Of Nature

Studio
Mondo TV SPA

Synopsis

A community of rabbits lives on a hill next door to a community of bears on a hill on the other side of a river. The rabbits work hard to cultivate the land, planting trees to prevent landslides, while the bears sleep all day long ignoring their neighbors' advice. In spite of the dissent between the two groups, a female rabbit and a young bear cub then become friends. One day, the bears cut down the fruit trees on their own property, and collect the fruit on the ground in order to prove it's unnecessary to work as hard as the rabbits to gather food. The bears don't realize that if the river floods, that their land will not be held in place by the tree roots, and will be washed away. During a severe storm the riverbank then breaks and washes the bears away. However, courtesy of the kindhearted rabbits, the bears are rescued and then realize how important it is to respect the environment. From that day on, they work hard to make their hill as productive and secure as that of the rabbit's...

Characters

Bear, Ron Ron the Bee, Cat, Dog, Goat, Monkey, Fox, Rabbit

Credits

Music

Music
John Sposìto

Production notes

This series is largely composed of segmented episodes hosted by a bear, and each of these features one or more creatures. One can learn about a creature's life and habits during a question-and-answer session at the end of each episode. This brief educational section covers the featured topic and answers typical questions, such as "Where does an animal live?", "What does it eat?", "What are its enemies?" and "How is its relationship with human beings?"

Locations featured vary from sea, land, and sky... and the creatures in question include many kinds of fish, mammals, insects and birds. On occasion, a featured animal is presented with its own name, while at other times, creatures are presented according to only their species.

Towards the end of the series, multi-segmented stories are presented with human characters in supporting roles. These episodes allow the host to introduce fantastic, imaginary animals, such as the winged horse and the dragon, and also to share information about their prominent roles in mythology. The moral of the series is that because certain animals were looked upon as gods and immortalized in the mythologies of ancient history, we should, therefore, learn to pay better attention to the animal kingdom of today, so as to improve our understanding of the world in which we dwell.