It was originally broadcast in the United States April 4, 1971, on the ABC television network.[2] Subsequent airings have appeared on CBS, Fox Family, The CW, and Cartoon Network.[3]In 2005, it was followed by a computer-animatedsequelHere Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie.
Plot
Peter Cottontail is a young Easter Bunny who lives in April Valley, where all Easter bunnies live and work, making Easter candy, sewing bonnets, and decorating and delivering Easter eggs.
Colonel Wellington B. Bunny, the retiring Chief Easter Bunny, names Peter as his successor. Peter, who has always dreamed of being the Chief Easter Bunny, accepts.
Meanwhile, a villainous rabbit named January Q. Irontail plots to become Chief Easter Bunny so that he can ruin Easter for children as revenge for a child who once accidentally roller-skated over his tail, forcing him to wear a prosthetic tail made of iron. Irontail demands that Colonel Bunny hold a contest to see who delivers the most eggs, according to April Valley's Constitution. Peter accepts the challenge, but stays up all night, partying with friends. Although he tells his rooster to wake him up at 5:30 a.m., Irontail sneaks into his house and feeds the rooster magic bubblegum, sealing his beak. Peter sleeps all day, not hearing the crows from the popping bubbles.
Although Irontail tries all day long to deliver his Easter eggs, but manages to deliver only one, he becomes the new Chief Easter Bunny, passing laws to make Easter a disaster, such as painting eggs brown and gray, ordering the candy sculptors to make chocolate tarantulas and octopuses instead of bunnies and chicks, and having Easter galoshes instead of bonnets.
Ashamed that his bragging and irresponsibility led to this tragedy, Peter leaves April Valley. He eventually meets Seymour S. Sassafras, an eccentric peddler and inventor who supplies the colors for April Valley’s egg painters from the colored vegetables from his Garden of Surprises. Sassafras lets Peter use his Yestermorrowbile, a time machine piloted by a French caterpillar named Antoine, who will take Peter back to Easter to deliver his eggs, win the contest, and defeat Irontail. Irontail learns about Peter's plan, and continues his cheating by sending his spider to sabotage the Yestermorrowbile, allowing Peter and Antoine to go to any holiday but Easter.
Since the contest's rules do not specifically say the eggs must be delivered on Easter, Peter tries to give them away at other holidays, to no avail. On the 4th of July, Peter paints the eggs red, white and blue, and lies to two boys by passing them off as firecrackers, which ultimately fails. On Halloween, Peter meets Madame Esmeralda, a witch, and gives her a Halloween egg as a gift, tying the score. When she calls the other Halloween inhabitants, Irontail sends Montressor out to steal Peter's eggs. Peter gets the eggs back and wants to return to Halloween and deliver the eggs to Esmeralda's friends. But Antoine still cannot run the Yestermorrowbile backwards and has to land the craft to fix it.
After failing to give away any of his eggs on Thanksgiving, Peter and Antoine go to Christmas Eve, at which Peter, dressed as Santa Claus, tries to give eggs on the streets, which are deserted. Peter hears sobbing from a hat shop, and meets Bonnie, an Easter bonnet who left April Valley years ago. Bonnie is sad that nobody wants to buy her, so Peter tells the shopkeeper that he will trade his Christmas eggs for Bonnie. However, Irontail steals them again. Peter and Bonnie go after him, accidentally leaving Antoine behind.
During the chase, Irontail and Montressor crash into Santa's sleigh. Santa returns the eggs to Peter, who cannot stop the Yestermorrowbile and is too sad to thank him since leaving Antoine behind. After missing New Year's Day, Peter and Bonnie find the stop button and land on Valentine's Day. There, Peter meets a bunny named Donna, and gives her a Valentine egg. However, Irontail finds the eggs again and casts a spell on them, turning them all green, inside and out.
After failing to give away the green eggs on Presidents' Day, Peter vows to be more honest and responsible. He and Bonnie land on St. Patrick's Day, which gives Peter another chance to give away his eggs. Peter is successful and wins the contest, becoming the Chief Easter Bunny. Antoine returns as a butterfly, and Irontail works as the janitor of April Valley, while Peter leads a parade.
Cast
An original advertisement for the television special.
The special featured the following cast members:[4]
Despite the acclaim, such as TV Guide's comment that the special had "one of the best scores in children's special history", no original soundtrack album was ever released commercially. ABC and Rankin/Bass did produce a private promotional vinyl LP of the entire soundtrack recording in 1971, but no record company has released an official, legitimate audio version to date.[5]
On video, the special has seen multiple releases in various formats. In 1990, 1992,[6] 1993, 1998 and 2002, it was released on VHS by Family Home Entertainment and Sony Wonder. It has also seen the following releases on DVD:
The 2014 release is the first to include the sequel, Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie. A Blu-ray was released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment February 22, 2019, as a Walmart exclusive, containing a heavily edited version that runs nearly ten minutes shorter. In 2020, this same release with the same edited version was extended beyond Walmart to all media retailers.[citation needed]
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Romeo Earl Muller, Jr. was an American screenwriter and actor most remembered for his screenplays for the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.
Peter Cottontail is a name temporarily assumed by a fictional rabbit named Peter Rabbit in the works of Thornton Burgess, an author from Sandwich, Massachusetts In 1910, when Burgess began his Old Mother West Wind series, the cast of animals included Peter Rabbit. Four years later, in The Adventures of Peter Cottontail, Peter Rabbit, unhappy at his plain-sounding name, briefly changed his name to Peter Cottontail because he felt it made him sound more important. He began putting on airs to live up to his important-sounding name, but after much teasing from his friends, soon returned to his original name, because, as he put it, "There's nothing like the old name after all." In the 26-chapter book, he takes on the new name partway through chapter 2, and returns to his "real" name, Peter Rabbit, at the end of chapter 3. Burgess continued to write about Peter Rabbit until his retirement in 1960, in over 15,000 daily syndicated newspaper stories, many of them featuring Peter Rabbit, and some of them later published as books, but "Peter Cottontail" is never mentioned again.
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References
↑ Lenburg, Jeff (2009). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons (3rded.). New York: Checkmark Books. p.318. ISBN978-0-8160-6600-1.
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