Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Easter Theatre: Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971)

Since it aired last night on CW, I thought it'd be a good idea to re-open the Easter Theatre with Here Comes Peter Cottontail, which Rankin-Bass adapted from the book, The Bunny That Overslept, in 1970.

Peter (Casey Kasem) is in the running to be the new Easter Bunny when Colonel Bunny decides to retire. However, January Q. Irontail (Vincent Price) schemes to claim the title for himself by any means necessary, and sends Peter on a wild calendar chase, if you will. Helping Peter out is peddler-magician Seymour S. Sassafrass, who also is our narrator (and voiced by Danny Kaye), and Antoine, a caterpillar (Kaye again, using a French accent), who morphs into a butterfly at the end of the story.

Bearclaws Village uploaded a digitally remastered version, which probably is the same one you might've seen last night.



Delightful fun, but unfortunately, its airing on CW was the first in a looooooong time.

Rating: B+.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

I remember watching this one, but for somereason it wasn't trotted out much since its debut.

I liked the concept of mashing easter eggs with other holidays!

Irontail scared me at the time - his tail was so hideous!

Kasem seems to be using hsi Shaggy voice here - before Shaggy got higher pitched.

Danny Kay was one heck of a performer. It was always a treat to see or hear him in action. Same with Vincent Price!

hobbyfan said...

Yeah, Casey was in fact putting Shaggy's voice---especially the laugh--in Peter's mouth.

Danny Kaye would later go on to be one of the founding owners of the Seattle Mariners, and would be 100 this year if hadn't passed on a number of years back.