Not a happy bunny

A British expression that means a person so described is decidedly unhappy or annoyed about something. It is first attested from the late 1980s/early 1990s, but it is not known who coined it or for what reason the word ‘bunny’ (a pet name for a rabbit) should be used in the expression. The expression almost always appears in the negative and there are very few instances where a person is described as ‘a happy bunny’. It may have something to do with Duracell TV advertising, which in 1973 started using a toy bunny beating a drum and looking sad when its battery ran out, compared with a Duracell-powered bunny that carried on drumming and looked far happier, but this connection has not been proven. 'Not a happy chappie' is a rhyming British Commonwealth version, which dates from around the same time as the bunny version. In America, the expression 'not a happy camper' is preferred. See also Happy Camper.