When a group of at least two people are getting their picture taken, at least one of them will stick their hand behind the other person's head with two fingers up, a la bunny ears. Alternatively done with shadow puppetry. Often done by pranksters and the like.
In America, it's a meaningless prank usually played on or by children. Its origin, however, is a reference to Cuckold Horns, signifying the victim of infidelity. In many countries, it retains this connotation and means "I slept with your wife." In other cases, it's simply an invocation of Background Body Part (ears or horns). For another joke about photos, see Funny Photo Phrase and the Last-Second Photo Failure, which is a picture messed up on an even larger scale.
Examples:
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Advertising
- In a 2012 Samuel Adams commercial, one of the brewery workers does this to another worker.
- In a 2018 Australian fashion promo video,
a male model performs this gesture behind the head of the other one (whom Trekkies would recognize as Evan Evagora, the model-turned-actor who portrayed Elnor on Star Trek: Picard). Evagora's character does the same in return in an accompanying promo pic.◊
- This Nesquik commercial follows the Nesquik Bunny doing it to lots of people, including an astronaut in space and the Washington head on Mount Rushmore. Funnily enough, he changes his mind with the guy in a rabbit costume.
Comic Books
- The cover to the 69th issue of The Boys depicts the Frenchman giving bunny ears to The Female.
- In the fifth issue of Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors, one scene has Guy Gardner attempt to nail a picture of himself and the other three human Lanterns Hal Jordan, John Stewart and Kyle Rayner to the wall. The picture shows Kyle giving Guy bunny ears.
Comic Strips
- FoxTrot's logo panel has the Fox kids giving bunny ears to one another (Jason using giant foam fingers)... and Roger giving them to his wife Andy.
- A Bloom County strip once showed Milo, determined to get an incriminating photo of Senator Bedfellow, disguise himself as an Arabian sheik and offer the senator money. The photo on the front page of the Beacon has Milo (still in disguise) giving Bedfellow bunny ears while sticking out his tongue.
- Inverted in the Bizarro comic for 9-14-12. A Funny Animal rabbit cups his paws and creates human ears on the side of his father's head.
- Happens very subtly in a The Far Side comic with a cow family on vacation. Because it's a hoof being held behind another cow's head and there's not a lot of actual definition to show that it's a hoof, many readers mistook it for a bow to indicate a girl instead.
Fan Works
- Protectors of the Plot Continuum: Sarah Squall does this to both Lapis Lazuli and Ami Seeker at once in the Group Picture Ending illustration of "Girls' Night Out".
- This height chart◊ which features Deadpool doing it to Captain America.
Films — Animation
- Rugrats in Paris: In Phil and Lil's passport photo, Phil holds two fingers over Lil's head.
- The movie poster for Toy Story 2 shows Woody holding two fingers over Buzz's helmet.
- In the teaser trailer for Shrek the Third, Shrek pulls a three-finger variant of this trick on Donkey.
Films — Live-Action
- Superman II: Lex Luthor and Otis are hugging a wall while escaping from prison. A guard's searchlight illuminates Luthor's bald head from behind. Otis puts two fingers up behind Luthor's head, creating the bunny effect on the wall. When Luthor sees what Otis is doing, he lets out a gasp.
- Wayne to Garth on the poster for Wayne's World 2. Hmm... They must use this a lot on posters for movie sequels!
- In the film poster for The Chorus, someone is putting bunny ears behind the head of Rachin, the headmaster.
- The film poster for Jojo Rabbit is styled to look like a Nazi propaganda poster, with Jojo posing dramatically in the foreground while Hitler stands behind him and gives him bunny ears.
- In Avengers: Endgame Tony Stark has a framed photograph of himself with Peter Parker where they're doing this to each other. Or at least Peter's attempting to do it but his hand is too high behind Tony's head to make the prank work properly.
- In the film poster for Alice Upside Down, Lester is putting bunny ears behind the head of Alice.
- In When We First Met, Avery gives Noah bunny ears several times when they are using the magic photobooth.
- The Shaggy Dog (1994): When Wilby is trying to film a video of him showing off his invention, his younger brother, Moochie, attempts to give him bunny ears.
- In Slender Man, Katie gives Hallie bunny ears when they take a selfie together in the begining of the movie.
Literature
- The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks: Near the end of book 2, when the family is getting ready to head home, Dr. Sparks has all four kids line up for a group picture. When she looks through the camera, she sees that all of them are looking and acting silly, and Michael is pulling this trope on Sarah. She takes the picture anyway.
- The Mermaid Chronicles: An old family photo shows Cordelia's twin brother Dylan making bunny ears over Cordelia's head on their thirteenth birthday.
Live Action TV
- Servant of the People: When Vasiliy is visiting the school where he used to teach before being elected president, he has his staff take a group picture with his old class. He does the bunny-ears prank to one of the students.
- What We Do in the Shadows (2019): In "Colin's Promotion", Laszlo can be seen doing this in a painting that features him. He calls it "painting bombing" and tells the viewer how he had to sit like that for seven hours in order for the painting to get made.
- Gossip Girl: In the episode Roman Holiday, Blair Waldorf does bunny ears to Roman Garrel in the christmas picture.
- In a Malcolm in the Middle episode where the family gets their picture taken at a photo studio, Lois offhand mentions the boys not to do this in the photo.
Video Games
- In Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly, Lucas's group selfie has his orc co-worker doing bunny ears behind the head of one of his human co-workers.
- The ending cutscene of the Game Boy Advance game Monster Force shows Wolfie giving bunny ears to Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Frank.
- Sims can sometimes be seen doing this in the family portrait on the lot loading screen in The Sims 2.
Western Animation
- Arthur: In the cold opening to "Do You Speak George?", an Imagine Spot shows the group takes photos and Buster does this to Muffy. It should be noted that Buster is an actual rabbit.
- During the Batman/Joker team-up episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the Joker does this to the Bat-Signal.
- Bugs Bunny: In The Abominable Snow Rabbit, Bugs does bunny fingers behind Daffy's head (after tying up his own ears under his chin) to fool a big dumb Abominable Snowman who's looking for "a little bunny rabbit to call my own".
- On Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Bloo plans to do this for the home's annual group photo, but he fails every time.
- Kaeloo: In Episode 95, when both the baseball teams get their pictures taken, Kaeloo does this to Stumpy (who is on her team).
- Hazbin Hotel: In "Overture", when Charlie is introduced smiling awkwardly and waving to the camera in Alastor's first commercial, Angel Dust leans in from the side and does quadruple bunny ears on her — two hands behind her head, and one by each of her shoulders.
- Hilda: In episode 4, Hilda does this to David on the picture Frida takes for their gardening project.
- Gravedale High: In "The Grave Intruder", one scene has Gill do the bunny ears prank to Frankentyke when the two are photographed.
- The Justice League Action episode "Plastic Man Saves the World" ends with Plastic Man taking a selfie with his fellow Justice League teammates to celebrate defeating Brainiac. The resulting picture shows Cyborg giving Superman bunny ears.
- The Loud House: Lincoln is seen doing this to Lori in the title card of "Selfie Improvement".
- The Simpsons: When Selma is longing for a baby, we see a picture of her and Chub-Chub, her pet iguana, which she's giving bunny ears to.
- The opening sequence of Spliced has a Freeze-Frame Bonus of the mad scientist who created the mutants smiling while wearing a lei and doing the "bunny ears" gesture on Entree.
- The opening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) briefly has Mikey doing this to Raph.
- What's New, Scooby-Doo?: In A Scooby-Doo Halloween, Scooby maneuvers two of the pumpkin-headed scarecrows into position to have their picture taken with Shaggy, who's dressed as a werewolf. When he hands them the photo afterward before he and Shaggy run off, the picture shows Shaggy giving them both rabbit ears.
