Watership Down

Now, my interjections, I've only got a couple in this show, but my interjection is going to be called an engine drop.

My engine drop is that Frank the Giant Rabbit was inspired by the animated film version of Watership Down, which is the book they eventually read.

Remember they banned the Graham Greene book later on and they read Watership Down by Richard Adams, which is a book I read as a kid too, a great book.

And so in the director's cut there are clips shown of Watership Down, the film, the 1978 film.

But Frank, we hear, delivers an ominous prophecy.

Wake up.

Now, my interjections, I've only got a couple in this show, but my interjection is going to be called an engine drop.

My engine drop is that Frank the Giant Rabbit was inspired by the animated film version of Watership Down, which is the book they eventually read.

Remember they banned the Graham Greene book later on and they read Watership Down by Richard Adams, which is a book I read as a kid too, a great book.

And so in the director's cut there are clips shown of Watership Down, the film, the 1978 film.

But Frank, we hear, delivers an ominous prophecy.

Wake up.

It's so terrifying and also so good.

And Watership Down.

Yeah.

Anytime someone describes that as like, it's about bunnies.

So yeah, I love hearing you guys talk about the area that I grew up in.

My question around cartoons is, did your parents ever put on something for you that they thought was child appropriate, but actually traumatized you? Because my parents put on Watership Down for us as kids.

I think because it is a cartoon, they thought it would be appropriate, but it absolutely traumatized us.

It's about like a rabbit's journey on life.

these fucking animals just fucking dying bro.

I remember having the same confusion.

I remember having the same confusion like this is horrible and I think like it's either Watership Down or the animals of Farthing Wood as well and like I think like they're also like so much bulldozers the place they live in.

Oh fucking this that shit sucks bro.

And I mean that very literally.

And I think these these I think they are children's books, but they were children's books from like the Watership Down era.

You know what I mean? I actually got them out because I wanted to show them because they're so niche.

So this this book Abandoned.

The Watership Down podcast is intended for listeners who are familiar with the plot.

There will be spoilers.

This episode is scripted, narrated, recorded and edited by Newell Fisher.

Music is by The Blue Dot Sessions.

Hello, and welcome to the Watership Down podcast episode 237, recorded during the first storm of autumn 2026, in which we will be going through chapter 25 of the graphic novel, A Stroke of Luck.

First though, last week when I was discussing the Right to Rome film on YouTube, I stated that the scarp slope of Watership Down is an area of public access land that can't be reached without trespassing.

On further investigation, this seems not to be true, as there appears to be a single gate at its western end where this land can be accessed from the Ekinswell to Whitchurch Road.

Anyway, let's get back to Ephrapha, where Flaley has begun his Owsler training.

today.

Watership Down.

Which is also, I mean, that's kind of been a sub-theme of today is kind of, children's book.

We had Call the Wild, which isn't really a children's book, but people still think of it as a children's book.

And we had Alice in Wonderland, which offers something for children of all ages, as they like to say.

And now we have a similar book in Watership Down.

Because my mother read that to us when we were probably, I was probably eight or nine when she read it aloud to us, which is quite a commitment.

And then you and I read it aloud.

Yes.

A lot of people don't realize that Watership Down is a real place, as are the locations mentioned in it.

Skims, S-K-I-M-S, is a shapewear and clothing brand co-founded by which American TV personality and entrepreneur?

Oprah Winfrey.

Um, I must, I must say I'm not, I mean, to my shame, I've never read Hitchhiker's because I'm so aware of every beat of it.

It's like, uh, I got Watership Down on Audible last year to listen to, and I, I finished that.

I, I, I stopped listening halfway through because I thought, "I know everything about this."

[laughs]

I started when I was a preteen.

When I first attempted a novel, it was a rabbit novel that I kind of quit partway through because I realized it was basically just rewriting Watership Down.

I was so taken with Watership Down that I went through my own thing but didn't have my own story.

First one I actually completed, I was 12 years old.

It was a sci-fi novel set on several different alien planets.