These Duracell batteries with the Chinese writing on them seem to be the AA variety of choice at bodegas and markets around the city. When I need batteries in a jiffy, I’m usually forced to choose between these gray-market imports or the off-brand “Super Hi-Fi Triple Power!” cells that, for all I know, could be sawdust with a copper top. It’s a tough call, but I usually cross my fingers and go with the Chinese Duracells.

I’ve always felt a little guilty about it, though, because of this little guy peeking out from above the Duracell logo:

The chintzy tanktop, along with the suspicion engendered by the package’s Chinese script, led me to assume that this Duracell bunny was a knockoff of the famed Energizer Bunny. As it turns out, my knowledge of battery mascots was embarrassingly provincial.

It seems that the Duracell Bunny is a longstanding advertising icon, beloved almost everywhere except the United States. Here’s a recent commercial featuring the bunny that’s airing in the U.K. Watch with delight as the Duracell Bunny lures his zinc carbon rivals into a grueling, no-turning-back climbing trip.

This mascot is a more cutthroat sort than his showy Energizer counterpart. When the Brand X bunnies give in to dehydration and heat exhaustion, the Duracell Bunny shows no concern—rather, he quickens his murderous pace. My favorite moment comes at the top when, after noticing signs of life from the topmost bunny on his death hoist, the Duracell Bunny gives the rope a quick jerk to snap the spines of his victims once and for all. Duracell: Use it, or quite literally die.

The Duracell Bunny has been around since the early ’80s, so what gives with the Energizer Bunny, which didn’t appear until 1989? How did Energizer rise to prominence with the same basic gimmick?

The simple truth is that the Energizer Bunny was intended as a parody of the Duracell Bunny, a fact that has been forgotten over time, at least in the American market.¹ And what an utterly lame parody it was—they slapped a pair of sunglasses on Duracell’s enduring icon and called it their own. In essence, Duracell made a claim that “Our batteries last for, like, infinity,” and Energizer responded with, “Oh yeah? Well our batteries last for infinity plus one!”

Of course, the entire world rejected this stupid tactic, except here in America, where we absolutely could not get enough of that too-cool-for-school rabbit. Now that I have educated myself on the brazen unoriginality of the Energizer Bunny, I will never again buy a pack of Energizer batteries, unless I do.

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1. Energizer now vigorously defends the U.S. trademark of its pink rabbit and disavows the Duracell origins, at least judging by the whitewashed, ®-littered official bio page on Energizer’s American site.  ↑