Easter Bunny Lore: What's your favorite version?

[MauEvig]

I've seen different movies depicting the Easter bunny, and with Easter around the corner I thought I'd start a new interesting Easter topic.

In Rise of the Guardians, he's Bunnymund, an Australian talking bunny with an attitude, who can travel through these magic "warp holes" in the ground, and has an entire paradise for coloring eggs, and the eggs themselves can walk around and such.

In Hop, the Easter Bunny is located on "Easter Island" which is a real place. In real life Easter Island really has nothing to do with Easter, but they did get one thing right, the Easter Island heads. This particular interpretation has the tradition of Easter Bunny passed down from father to son, while the "baby chicks" have always sat in the shadows serving as the Easter Bunny's workers. The movie also features the Bunny's "secret service" agents, or the Pink Berets. The story itself focuses on a man who can't find a job, and won't settle for just any job, and E.B. the son of the Easter bunny and next in line to take on the roll, who instead wants to be in a band rather than deliver Easter baskets. He ends up helping save Easter and becomes co-Easter bunny. The Easter bunny also has a flying ship with which to deliver eggs.

There's also a really old cartoon where a bunny is adopted by some orphan kids in a child-only village, and ends up saving the "adult only" town from the wrath of an evil regent who rules through her nephew who is the only child in the village. This one has that old cheesy stop motion feel, but it's a classic. In this version, the Easter Bunny cleans up and repairs an old train to deliver his easter baskets. This one is called "The Easter Bunny is coming to town."

Finally I do remember a version where the Easter Bunny originated as a plush rabbit owned by a little girl. He had to be thrown away when the little girl was diagnosed with Scarlet Fever, something that was more common back in the old days before the advent of antibiotics gaining popularity. He was then brought to life, and I believe received some assistance from Santa Claus. It has a "Velveteen rabbit" kind of scenario in it, which I think is yet another classic told at Easter time. I also remember stories of Peter Rabbit who was popular at Easter time despite the fact that the only thing he had to do with Easter was that the stories had to do with bunnies.

Some Easter Movies can be found here: http://kidstvmovies.about.com/od/easter ... tertop.htm Some of them look like they're for really little kids. Charlie Brown Fans can probably appreciate the "It's the Easter Beagle" Charlie Brown.

So what's your favorite version of the Easter Bunny? Well I have to admit...I really like Bunnymund for his spunk and attitude, while "E.B." from Hop is probably a close second.

[Murfreesboro]

I think most of these movies must have come along after I was too old to see them. I don't remember most of them (I do remember Velveteen Rabbit & Peter Rabbit, though).

Although the Easter bunny has always visited my house, our collection of Easter movies is all religious in theme.

When I was a little girl, besides going to church on Easter, my mother made Easter all about springtime. I used to get stuffed animals and figurines that represented all kinds of baby animals and springtime motifs.

ETA: Oh, looking at that list, I do see Easter Parade. I have that one, but my family will hide it from me, because they are not enthusiastic about an old-fashioned Hollywood musical. I just love to watch Fred Astaire dance. The story really doesn't have much to do with Easter, except that it ends at Easter time.

[Kolchak]

I miss the days when you could buy baby ducks and rabbits in pet shops. We had several over the years as I was growing up. I had one rabbit that lived to be 15 years old.

Rabbits are not your typical scary Halloween fare. I do recall a movie called Night of the Lepus, where some small town must do battle with giant man eating killer rabbits that attack in packs.

This was no Steven Spielberg production so special effects were not that special. They took a bunch of rabbits and put them in town made up of toy houses and buildings and such. Then they filmed the rabbits jumping around in slow motion. It was so bad that it was funny. You wonder how they ever got the money to make such a turkey? I could just see them trying to sell this idea.....Okay! Here it is! Giant Killer Man Eating Rabbits! Well!? What Do You Think?!

[Murfreesboro]

I think that's hysterical!

[MauEvig]

I know this is an old thread...but to be fair they did have the bunny man legend here in Virginia.
It's hard for me to associate the Easter bunny with something horrific though.

I thought about making a thread for favorite Easter movies, but I guess I kind of already did that here.

I've seen some of the religious Easter movies, like The Passion of the Christ, and some of the cartoons my grandma had me watch.

I feel like some of them were more horrifying than most horror movies are...but for different reasons. Like I wasn't scared, just appalled at what they did to Jesus.

[Murfreesboro]

I just watched Passion of the Christ this morning. It's my Good Friday movie. That said, lots of Christians don't like that film because it is truly horrific. I think, though, that if I'm going to claim to be Christian, I really should watch it once a year. No matter how bad it gets, it's probably not as bad as the real thing was. And I have to admit that, for me, the Roman scourging is actually harder to watch than the crucifixion itself. It has some neat subtleties, though. For instance, most of the film is in Aramaic, but if you listen closely, Jesus switches to Latin in the scene with Pilate. You can see the surprise register on the actor's face when that happens.

Other Easter-ish movies in my annual rotation are Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Paul Apostle of Christ, Risen, Rick Steves' European Easter, Jesus of Nazareth, and The Chosen (I own seasons 1-3). I also own some 60s movies about Jesus, King of Kings and The Greatest Story Ever Told, though I rarely watch them.

[Murfreesboro]

Another movie of this type I own but rarely watch is Quo Vadis. I saw the movie on tv as a girl and liked it, though I'm not sure it's aged especially well. I believe it won an Oscar or two back in the day, though. Anyway, when I was about 15 I read the novel on which it was based and loved it. I'm not sure what I'd think of the book now, but its author actually won a Nobel Prize for literature in the earlier 20th century, so maybe the book would hold up better than the movie.

As I recall, the novel is fairly complex, but the core story is drawn from the epigrapha (fictional stories that grew up around Christianity in earlier centuries). There is one set during the persecution by Nero that resulted in the martyrdom of Peter? Paul? No longer certain which Apostle. Anyway, whichever one it was, he was fleeing Rome during Nero's persecution, and he met Jesus heading toward Rome. He asked Jesus, "Quo vadis?" (whither goest thou?) Jesus replied, "I'm going to Rome to be crucified a second time." The Apostle got the message: he was supposed to go back to Rome and be executed.

Eta: ok, I just looked it up. It's Peter. Both Peter and Paul died under Nero, but the Quo Vadis story is about Peter.

Yet another movie of this type I own is The Robe. I loved that one when I saw it on tv as a kid (and read the book, too), but my own kids laughed at it when I showed it to them, so I guess I'd classify that as another one that hasn't aged well.

I grew up at a time when these Biblical epics were pretty popular, and I realized as a mother that I'd probably first learned a lot about the Bible from the movies. So I started collecting them for my own kids. The ones that they have responded well to are Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments. They also love Jesus of Nazareth, but that was a tv mini series in the late 70s. When he was a child, my older boy liked King of Kings. I have decided that both that one and Greatest Story Ever Told have good moments, but neither one satisfies me completely.

[Andybev01]

Bun Hur, 10 Commandments, even the epically long Cleopatra are my go-to Easter movies.

The Wizard of Oz too, because it was always on TV during Easter weekend.

As far as the Easter Bunny bunny goes I'm sure it's a product of the chocolate consortium.

The most frightening movie rabbit is the antagonist in Donny Darko.

*shudder*

[Andybev01]

Forgot this guy.

https://youtu.be/nTjcp2KjI74?feature=shared

Iron Tail, from Here Comes Peter Cottontail.

[Murfreesboro]

My phone buffers so much I can't get through that clip. I'm sure it's something that came along after my time.

I have Cleopatra on dvd also, but I don't watch it much. I actually saw it in the theater when it first came out, with my mother and my aunt. There was so much hype around it, not only because it was the most expensive movie ever made to that date, but mainly because the married leads, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, were having an adulterous affair with each other. It was all over the supermarket tabloids. (They eventually married each other, then divorced, then married again, then divorced again. But they met on Cleopatra.)

When I watched it again on dvd a few years ago. I was struck by how much better the Rex Harrison half is than the Mark Antony half. Harrison did get an Oscar nom out of it, as Julius Caesar. He was always interesting on screen. But poor Burton had so much less to do in his part of the movie. He was basically just mooning around over Cleo. Since Burton was a fine actor, too, I chalk it up to weak writing.

[Andybev01]

It was supposed to be two movies, but since the 60s were the decade of cinematic excess it went out the door as one huge release.


My favorites of that era are 'Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, both masterpieces.

[Murfreesboro]

I didn't know that it was meant to be two films. It is a long one, for sure. Those "event" pictures were big in the 50s as well as the earlier 60s. I think it was part of Hollywood's panicked response to television.

I've never seen Zhivago or Laurence of Arabia properly, which is to say, at a theater. I've watched both on tv, interrupted by commercials, and haven't been as affected by either as I'm supposed to be. I suppose the LofA story would help explain some of the contemporary Middle Eastern mess if I were to pay attention to it. I did read the novel Dr Zhivago at one point. Mainly I remember how it brought home to me what it means to be in a country that gets taken over by Communists. I wasn't too interested in the romance, but I remember vividly what it meant for the main character to come home to his upper class house and find ten families living in it.

[Andybev01]

If you find an inexpensive copy of either or both give them a shot.

They really are cinematic masterpieces.

[Murfreesboro]

I'm sure you're right. I'll buy them if I should see them somewhere.