Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
File this under "life imitates art": there's actually a potential plan to build on Watership Down and a bunch of people are opposed to that plan, including Richard Adams. (Source)
In 1976, some people made (and sold!) a game where you could take on the role of bunnies fighting against dogs and other bunnies. Okay, Bunnies and Burrows isn't 100% Watership Down, but we know what the inspiration for this was—the rabbits in this game even tell stories and can only count to four, so this is clearly the game version of our new favorite novel. (Source)
2012 was the 40th anniversary of Watership Down, and to celebrate, Penguin put out an edition with illustrations (by Italian-English painter Aldo Galli, who worked with Adams on this edition). But if you live in England, you might be out of luck: the UK publisher has said that creating an illustrated version might be too expensive. Harsh. (Source)
For a fantasy quest story about rabbits, Watership Down has shown up in a few surprising places. For instance, musician Vanessa Carlton's 2011 album, Rabbits on the Run, was partly inspired by Watership Down—hence the name. And in 2011, electronic musician Skrillex started the label OWSLA, which is named after the group of rabbits who help the Chief Rabbit. There are several other references to Watership Down in movies and TV. But our favorite is probably in Lost, when some of the castaways read the book, which makes sense since both Watership Down and Lost are about people/rabbits searching for a new home after being thrown out of an old way of life by disaster.