# Pancake Bunny In 1998, a Japanese blogger named Hironori Akutagawa started posting photos of his rabbit Oolong balancing small objects on his head, a private domestic hobby he called 'head performance.' By 2001 the images had jumped from Akutagawa's Japanese-language site to English forums, where users pinned the caption 'here's a bunny with a pancake on his head' onto Oolong and turned him into an early-web shorthand for confusion. ## Origin Oolong was born on July 28th, 1994 in Hokkaido, Japan, and his owner Hironori Akutagawa began photographing him in 1998, uploading the shots to a personal Japanese-language site for rabbit lovers[1]. Akutagawa published the first 'head performance' image on May 24th, 1999, with Oolong balancing an empty film canister, and the pancake photo that later gave the meme its English name arrived on February 12th, 2000[3]. Oolong died on January 7th, 2003, and Akutagawa kept the site alive for months afterward, ending with a photograph of Oolong balancing a chip of ice, posted on September 23rd of that year[2][4]. - **Platform:** Personal blog (sokaisha.hp.infoseek.co.jp) / DVD Talk forums (English-language spread) - **Creator:** Hironori Akutagawa - **Date:** 2000 ## Overview Pancake Bunny's fame rested on a peculiar trick his owner Hironori Akutagawa called 'head performance,' where the rabbit stayed motionless while film canisters, toys, or food items sat on top of his head[1]. Akutagawa took hundreds of these photographs over Oolong's life. The frame that traveled once the images jumped to English-speaking forums was a plain American pancake balanced squarely on the rabbit's flat crown. On boards and comment threads, users started pairing the Pancake Bunny image with a caption along the lines of 'I have no idea what you're talking about, so here's a bunny with a pancake on his head,' which turned Oolong into shorthand for confusion or a soft way to bail out of an off-topic exchange. Akutagawa himself never treated the shots as jokes; his site framed them as a quiet game between him and a very patient rabbit[1]. ## How to Use There's no image-macro template beyond the photo itself. Users post the shot of Oolong with a pancake on his head as a reply to a nonsensical or off-topic message, often with the classic caption 'here's a bunny with a pancake on his head' attached, using the rabbit's calm expression to close out the exchange without argument. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Pancake Bunny? Pancake Bunny is Oolong, a Japanese rabbit whose owner Hironori Akutagawa trained him to sit still while small objects were placed on top of his head[1]. ### Where did Pancake Bunny come from? Oolong was born in Hokkaido in 1994, and Akutagawa began publishing his 'head performance' photos on a personal Japanese-language site in 1998[1]. The image jumped to English-speaking audiences in 2001 via a DVD Talk forum thread[2]. ### What does Pancake Bunny mean? Online, the image is used to signal that something makes no sense, usually paired with a caption along the lines of 'here's a bunny with a pancake on his head'[3]. ### How do you use Pancake Bunny? Post the photo of Oolong with a pancake on his head as a reply to a confusing or off-topic message; Akutagawa's own site described the shots as a quiet game with a patient rabbit rather than a joke[1]. ### Is Pancake Bunny still popular? It's a classic early-web reaction image. Oolong died in 2003 and his owner stopped updating the site later that year, but the pancake photo and its caption stayed in circulation on forums and image boards[2][4]. ## References 1. [https://web.archive.org/web/20071219181917/http://sokaisha.hp.infoseek.co.jp/010817/010817.htm]() 2. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100317153350/http://sokaisha.hp.infoseek.co.jp/passing.htm]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pancake-bunny]() 4. [https://web.archive.org/web/20090110100530/http://sokaisha.hp.infoseek.co.jp/030923/030923.htm]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/pancake-bunny Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library