Main Characters - Jazz2Online

Characters - Main Characters

Of course, this site wouldn't make much sense to a non-Jazz Jackrabbit 1 or 2 player if we wouldn't describe the main characters of the game. Well, it all started with a green rabbit who is obviously named Jazz Jackrabbit, his brother Spaz, his sister Lori, his fiancé Eva, and his evil nemesis Devan Shell.

Jazz Jackrabbit

Our hero, Jazz, was presumably thought up in late 1993. The original plan, which was not exactly what you would call "original," was to make Jazz into an astronaut. Since the space theme was so overused in videogames at the time, it was decided something else should be done.

It turned out that Jazz was to be a green rabbit. He was named after the dog of one of the developers: Jazz. We have absolutely no clue where the Jackrabbit part came from, though. To make him extra cool they painted him green and gave him a bandana, a cool backpack, and a big blue gun. Either way, the space theme was still kept for Jazz Jackrabbit 1. Apparently, only a certain amount of creativity was possible in 1994.

As turtles hate rabbits, Devan Shell conjured an evil plot to destroy all rabbits. And, of course, Jazz goes and tries to conquer him. And guess what? The stubborn turtle tried it again almost four years later!

Spaz Jackrabbit

Spaz Jackrabbit appears in part two of the game to spice things up a little. But those of you who paid attention while playing Jazz Jackrabbit 1 might have seen him in the additional episode, Holiday Hare 95.

Spaz was drawn by Nick Stadler back in 1994 because he got sick of the green rabbit and wanted to give his fellow developers a good laugh. He was originaly named Spaz Slackrabbit because of his freaky looks. Most people say this is a result of eating the Dopefish, a creature used in games from id Software, which used to be Epic Megagames's main rival at 2D sidescrollers. The Dopefish is actually featured in many games by different companies--including Jazz 2--and is considered a classic gaming icon after being brought to popularity by Commander Keen.

Lori Jackrabbit

Lori appears in the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 add-on, "The Secret Files". She was brought into the game for the same reason as Spaz was before her, which was to keep it intresting to play.

Unlike the other characters on this page, Lori's roots are not with Nick Stadler. They were with Dean Dodrill, the cinematic animator of Jazz Jackrabbit 2. Although Lori was supposed to be Spaz's girlfriend, this was for some reason changed in the process of publishing. This was never completely ironed out and oddly enough, Spaz fell in love with someone who was originally supposed to be the model of Lori at the end of Jazz Jackrabbit 2's ending video. The story has nonetheless shown that they are related.

Eva Earlong

Eva is Jazz's future wife and the person who suffers through all of these games! In the first game she gets kidnapped, and in the second one her 24 carrot (pun intended) ring gets stolen. It simply cannot be easy to be a rabbit princess. Eva is not a playable character in the game. She appears once in the shareware episode, and she's standing at the flag bases in the Capture the Flag multiplayer mode. She is also in the ending video, of course!

Devan Shell