Q&A: Rabbit Bites‘ Nicholas Quixote

The magical combination of amiable rabbits, chipmunk voices, and social commentary has won a major sponsorship. Nicholas Quixote let us know last week that he’d sold a non-exclusive sponsorship for his web show Rabbit Bites to Purina. When we spoke with him Monday, Quixote said even though his show isn’t really about pets, pet lovers love it. So Purina seemed like a natural fit. The show itself is on the upswing; upcoming episodes will include guests the likes of Janeane Garofalo, Patton Oswald, and Mick Jones.

NewTeeVee: So congratulations, Purina is sponsoring the show — can you tell me the terms of the deal?

Nicholas Quixote: The only real terms I can talk about is it’s till the end of this year and the expectation is it would be something that would grow. It’s significant enough that I can live on it. I’ve been at this for a few years and it’s a lot of work. Editing might take three or four days, and that’s a long time.

NewTeeVee: Do you still like making the show?

Quixote: I do, but to make it enjoyable and sustainable I needed to start with something like this.

NewTeeVee: How popular is the show?

Quixote: It’s gotten a lot more popular in the last six months — it’s somewhat determined by network support. I think it averages between 750,000 and 1 million views a month.

NewTeeVee: How has the show changed as it’s aged?

Quixote: My first episode was in June, two years ago. The production values have gotten better. The focus has shifted a couple of times. [Originally] I had a focus on the proliferation of screens in general, and key videobloggers two years ago. And then I started to do pop culture, then Salon noticed, so I’ve had this thing with them for the last year and a half [the site has a 24-hour exclusive window on new episodes]. Then probably 7 to 8 months ago I decided I wanted to have a talk show for it, so now there’s “Coffee with Chou.”

NewTeeVee: How have things changed for you alongside the show?

Quixote: I was a trader and I did private wealth and then I was in technology. I read about Rocketboom and I had wanted to go to film school and I never did, so I decided I would at least try it. I didn’t even have a Mac. I left just to do [Rabbit Bites] full time.

NewTeeVee: So would you say it’s worked out?

Quixote: It’s working out, I wouldn’t say anything has worked out.

NewTeeVee: How did you score the Purina deal?

Quixote: I knew that Purina would be one of the more relevant [sponsor prospects], so we called them and I was really happy it worked out. It’s now an interruption, something in the background. When we did Mick Jones he was talking about how everyone wants to get sponsored, so in the video I cut to Buns eating Purina, so it was kind of a vignette.

NewTeeVee: Are you going to just keep doing that? Do you know how you’ll incorporate Purina in upcoming episodes?

Quixote: Good question, no.

NewTeeVee: So now that you’ve done it for a while, what would you pull out as the key elements of your show, what it all comes down to? Well, besides talking rabbits.

Quixote: Talking rabbits is obviously one of them. I try to have a focus on entertainment holistically…. It’s just social critique, but in a fun way.

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