Jazz Jackrabbit Event enormous success!!!

YES!!! Finally some time to talk about this fantastic day!

In the last couple of months of 2017 my Jazz Jackrabbit collection had grown enormously and has now undoubtedly grown into the World’s Largest Jazz Jackrabbit Collection. I owe this partly to my great friend Bart Remmers (the guy on the right in the header photo).

When I first met Bart, he once showed me some very rare Jazz Jackrabbit items from his own collection (a Yo-Yo, Magnet, T-Shirt, Agenda, etc …). He said that his uncle was CEO at PMR / Project Two Interactive (the publisher of Jazz Jackrabbit) and that he had come by the items through them. What a beautiful (and not to mention extremely rare) items! Of course I wasn’t jealous at all! ^^;;;

Bart saw how passionate I was with collecting and arranged an appointment for me with his uncle. A super cool man who told me openly about his time at Project Two Interactive. During this appointment I received a huge Project Two Interactive donation. I was allowed to take almost everything they had double. I felt like a kid in a candy store! In fact there were only a couple of games. The rest was all very rare merchandise / memorabilia (exactly those items that make a collector like me immensely enthusiastic). I even received some Jazz Jackrabbit items that were not duplicate. Along with the items I already had and found in addition to this donation, my collection grew enormously in a very short time. It was therefore high time to share this collection with the world. I did this in the form of a Jazz Jackrabbit Exhibition. This exhibition was visible from 01-01-2018 till 04-30-2018 at the National Videogame Museum in Zoetermeer.

Worlds Largest Jazz Jackrabbit Collection from Anne Bras.

Before the opening of the exhibition, I was approached by Michiel Nijhof (music composer and producer). He said “Without Jazz Jackrabbit I would not be where I am now, musically speaking. The two Jazz Jackrabbit games have single-handedly made me start writing music on computers back in the day.” He offered to perform the soundtrack live with a couple of other musicians. How cool is that?!!! I myself am a huge fan of the music of Jazz Jackrabbit and I did everything I could to make this live performance a reality.

Out of enthusiasm I quickly came up with a band name and put together a logo. ^^ With some extra filters from Bart Remmers this became the official band logo:

Band logo: Floppy Ears And the big Guns.

The news about my Jazz Jackrabbit Exhibition was also shared on the Jazz2Online.com forum (the world’s largest international Jazz Jackrabbit community). Their response: “I wonder how true it is. Poking around the guy’s website, I don’t see much … there are some boxes and CD cases, and a cool jacket, but … he doesn’t even have a Jazz Jackrabbit plush?” In itself an understandable response. They’ve been talking about Jazz Jackrabbit on the forum for years and sharing their collections with each other. And suddenly someone appears out of nowhere whom they have never heard of, who claims to have the largest Jazz Jackrabbit collection in the world, without showing any proof. 😉 And yes … Nowhere online could be found how my Jazz Jackrabbit collection had grown so rapidly in such a short time and I also deliberately wanted to keep it a bit of a secret so that attending the exhibition would be extra special. Slowly but surely I managed to convince the Jazz Jackrabbit community of the grandeur of the collection. In addition, I told them about the live Jazz Jackrabbit performance that I had planned.

A group photo of all the people from the international Jazz2online community who were present during the event.

That was the moment when I was approached by SimonN. He had the idea to do a live Jazz1 Speedrun for the audience on the day of the event. I thought that idea was really cool! Then I suddenly discovered that SimonN wasn’t just a normal speedrunner. He was the world record title holder of this Speedrun:

So cool that he wanted to come all the way from Germany to do this Speedrun live for the public! 😀

SimonN during his Jazz Jackrabbit 1 Speedrun in the Nationaal Videogame Museum – Photo John Jonk

Worlds Largest Jazz Jackrabbit Collection on display
LIVE Jazz Jackrabbit music
LIVE Jazz Jackrabbit 1 Speedrun done by the world record title holder SimonN
International Jazz Jackrabbit community meetup

More than enough to turn it into an Event, I thought. I planned a day (Sunday, February 18, 2018) and started the preparations. I never would have dreamed that this day would become so “Epic” (pun intended)! 😉

Not only did everything go according to plan. Hasan Tasdemir (the owner of the National Videogame Museum) also made a Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Arcade Cabinet especially for the event. This was playable for the first time during the event.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Arcade Edition – Made by Hasan Tasdemir.

And to top it all off, I also received some very unique Jazz Jackrabbit items that were still missing in my collection:

DONATION #1: Jazz Jackrabbit Christmas Chronicles from Niels Walta.

DONATION #2: Jazz Jackrabbit 2 T-shirt from Maarten & Judith Porsch.

DONATION #3: Jazz Jackrabbit Plush from Michiel van der Leeuw (one of the makers of Jazz Jackrabbit) – Photo: Remmers Media

What an amazing day!!! :3

Bart Remmers has filmed and edited the LIVE performance of Floppy Ears And the Big Guns. The 7 tracks can all be found online here:

I want to thank everyone who has donated and everyone who helped making this event an unforgettable one! I could not have wished for a better day!

I actually wanted to close my blog post with this, but I was suddenly surprised with an unexpected mysterious package on the doormat. Sender: Nigel Kent (from the Jazz Jackrabbit Administration around 1998/1999). Wouw! Apparently he also had a Jazz Jackrabbit Plush for me. ❤

Jazz Jackrabbit Plush – Donation from Nigel Kent for Anne Bras.