“Bugs Bunny’s Easter Special” marked the launch of a string of prime-time television specials that sliced-and-diced Golden Age cartoons with new animation into productions tied around a specific theme. In this case, the theme was Easter – the secular aspect of the holiday, not the religious celebration (thus, we never get to hear Bugs say, “I knew I shouldn’t have taken that left turn at Nazareth”).
In this offering, the Easter Bunny is too ill to deliver colorful eggs for the holiday, and Granny takes it upon herself to lobby Bugs Bunny to fill as a substitute. Alas, Bugs is contracted to complete work at the Warner Bros. studios, but he offers several of his movie lot colleagues for the job. But Granny isn’t convinced that Sylvester, Pepe Le Pew, Foghorn Leghorn, or Yosemite Sam are right for the job. Daffy Duck keeps nominating himself for the job, albeit in costumes that are inappropriate (he dresses as an Easter basket and an Easter egg). Ultimately, Daffy disguises himself as the ailing Easter Bunny and goes off to deliver the colorful eggs thinking he fooled Bugs and Granny. But they acknowledge they knew it was Daffy in disguise all along.
“Bugs Bunny’s Easter Special” is curious because none of the 10 Golden Age shorts incorporated into the special have anything to do with Easter. The one Bugs Bunny film connected to that holiday was the 1947 “Easter Yeggs,” but that was part of the pre-1948 package of Warner Bros. cartoons sold to Associated Artists Productions, which was later acquired by United Artists.
Instead, the classic cartoons shown here are framed as either Bugs’ ongoing projects (including “Knighty Knight Bugs,” “Hillbilly Hare” and “Bully for Bugs”) or are set up as audition footage for Granny to review, either in a Moviola or in a screen room.
Of course, there is a sharp contrast to the vibrant animation and inventive stories of the Golden Age cartoons and the dullish animation and connect-the-dots stories of the new footage. Even worse, the Golden Age cartoons are clumsily edited (especially the “Rabbit of Seville” sequence).
Still, it is an amusing half-hour distraction and, in retrospect, it was among the better of the television specials that appeared in the late 1970s. Plus, Mel Blanc is joined in the credits by June Foray, who gets credited as the voice of Granny.
Oddly, the production was renamed “Bugs Bunny’s Easter Funnies” when it was released in home entertainment formats. Go figure.
You can watch the full production in a 17-part unauthorized upload to YouTube: