“ | I'm Hoppy Hopscotch! Wanna try hopping to the moon with me? | ” |
— Hoppy Hopscotch |
Hoppy Hopscotch is a toy produced by Playtime Co. debuting in Chapter 3: "Deep Sleep". Miniature versions of her reside in Playcare along with the rest of the Ruined Critters. Outside of the Ruined Critters, she makes little direct appearances although motifs of her personality and pendant occur repeatedly in the chapter.
Appearance[]
Hoppy Hopscotch is an anthropomorphic lime green rabbit with black eyes, a black nose, and long ears. Her paws are green, similar to the rounded T-shape design in the inside of her ears. Like the other Smiling Critters, she is depicted with a wide toothless grin with a small gray air tube stuck inside her, and she possesses a black zipper line running down her center, with the zipper sporting a gold lightning pendant and a cotton tail.
Hoppy's cartoon appearance is roughly the same as her toy appearance, albeit with her zipper line removed, the addition of white pupils and four-digit hands, and the zipper pendant now attached to a black necklace.
Personality[]
“ | Unafraid to hop where others might sit, Hoppy is the friend everyone needs to maintain their energy and enthusiasm. While sometimes loud or impatient, she'll always hop beside her friends, even if it means slowing up once in a while to keep their pace. | ” |
— Hoppy Hopscotch's Twitter/X description[1] |
Hoppy Hopscotch is an energetic and enthusiastic rabbit, which is represented by her lightning bolt pendant. She is particularly fond of outdoor sports, specifically soccer as shown in the Intro to the Smiling Critters Cartoon, in which she kicks a soccer ball while she is atop a rainbow. She is also described as sometimes being loud, bossy, and impatient, thus making her the only Smiling Critter with listed flawed personalities. Despite this, Hoppy also demonstrates eagerness to help others and slow down accordingly as proven by both her character description and her cutout dialogue.
Like the other Smiling Critters, Hoppy showcased an unnerving and maniacal personality when CatNap came to DogDay's house during her sleepover. Her retained excitability was shown when she chanted, "Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!" to CatNap, encouraging him to use his abilities to overcome her fear-induced insomnia. When CatNap complied, Hoppy showed signs of insanity, addiction, and mania when inhaling the Red Smoke, laughing hysterically with the others until she passed out.
History[]
Backstory[]
Hoppy Hopscotch was created as a member of the Smiling Critters in 1989. Soon after, miniature versions of her were created, along with a Bigger Bodies version to work in Playcare. Sometime after The Hour of Joy, Hoppy Hopscotch was presumably killed by CatNap, as DogDay refers to himself as the “last” of the Smiling Critters.
Chapter 3: "Deep Sleep"[]
A miniature Hoppy Hopscotch appears as a hostile plush toy in Chapter 3. Hoppy, along with the rest of the Ruined Critters, chase The Player in the Playhouse. Using the GrabPack 2.0's orange hand, The Player has to shoot at her to scare her away. If Hoppy gets too close, then she jumpscares them by lunging at their face. Later on, several versions of her crawl inside of DogDay's exposed torso wound to control him and chase after The Player and kill him.
Trivia[]
- Hoppy Hopscotch was the seventh Smiling Critter to have her description revealed on Twitter.
- She was also the last Smiling Critter to have her name revealed.
- PickyPiggy and Hoppy Hopscotch's reveals were originally meant to be swapped, as PickyPiggy's Twitter post asks if they're forgetting anyone, referring to CatNap.
- She is the first character to be featured in the Smiling Critters Theme.
- The scent of peppermint is known to reduce pain and to invigorate, energize, and prevent the growth of harmful bacteria, respectively and is used traditionally in aromatherapy.
- The energizing from smelling peppermint is a connection to Hoppy's personality.
- In an early concept for the cartoon, Hoppy's home was in the style of a carrot, being a reference to cartoon rabbits like Bugs Bunny eating carrots.
- Hoppy is the second rabbit toy in the Poppy Playtime franchise. The first is Bunzo Bunny.
- Coincidentally, both have a similar color scheme, except Hoppy is green with a little yellow detail (the pendant) and Bunzo is yellow with green details (overalls, party hat, etc.).
- Interestingly, Hoppy Hopscotch has several traits that are unusual to the typical Smiling Critter:
- She is the only Smiling Critter in which her name does not allude to the animal that she represents: a rabbit.
- The lack of an animal reference in her name had been alluded to by a recent April Fool's joke by Mob Entertainment, in which they stated that Hoppy Hopscotch is actually a kangaroo.[2]
- Hoppy is also the only Smiling Critter whose character description lists personality flaws. These traits are confirmed by her cutout dialogue, but her personality notably does not take any sudden dark turn.
- She is the only Smiling Critter in which her name does not allude to the animal that she represents: a rabbit.
- Hoppy's quotes of trying to jump to the moon could possibly be a reference to the Jade Rabbit from Chinese folklore, who lived on the moon alongside Chang'e, the Chinese Moon Goddess.[3]
- A rabbit is also one of the animals in the Chinese Zodiac, specifically the fourth zodiac sign.
- Hoppy Hopscotch's design as well as her energetic and impatient personality could be inspired by Swift-Heart Rabbit from the Care Bear Cousins.
- Her lightning-bolt shaped pendant could be based off of the Cutie Mark of Rainbow Dash from the My Little Pony franchise: a cloud with a rainbow-colored lightning bolt.
- Her surname is a reference to the game “Hopscotch”.
- Hoppy's personality and lightning bolt symbol from her pendant both appear to be recurring motifs throughout Chapter 3 based on the functions and symbols of Batteries, the appearance of the Orange GrabPack Hand next to the Hoppy cutout, and similar personalities to Ollie.
- Ollie's name in his dialogue is also green, similar to Hoppy's dialogue, which led many fans to believe that Ollie is Hoppy in disguise.
- The duck rides in the pool room of the Playhouse contain image boards of Hoppy presenting them with unreadable instructions about their parts.
- According to Amber, Hoppy Hopscotch uses She/Her pronouns.[4]