TV Guided: Spring Holiday Programming!

Martinex1:  The Christmas holiday season is stock full of movies, specials, and programs on the TV schedule.   In the Spring, however, with the Easter and Passover holidays, the programming is a little more sparse.   I always found it curious that the networks did not capitalize on these springtime holidays as much, but I still have some enjoyable childhood memories of TV viewing at the time typically at my grandparent's house where we would gather in the evenings.

Rankin-Bass, the stop motion puppet masters of animated classics like Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town, had a few offerings for Easter. 

The first, and perhaps the most well known, was 1971's Here Comes Peter Cottontail.  It tells the tale of a lazy rabbit who is destined to inherit the mantle of the Easter Bunny, but he is challenged to a contest for the post by his nemesis Irontail.   Irontail lost his fluffy tail  when a child ran over it with roller skates and he is bent on making Easter miserable.  I particularly like that Irontail delivers grey and brown dull eggs while riding on the back of a bat.  Peter parties and oversleeps and loses the initial egg delivery contest to the villain.   The story is fun and includes a time machine called a Yestermorrowmobile in which Peter travels to other holidays and tries to deliver eggs during the Fourth of July, Halloween, and St. Patrick's day.   In the Rankin-Bass tradition, Santa Claus gets involved and everything works out in the end. Voice talent includes the work of Danny Kaye, Casey Kasem, Vincent Price, and Paul Frees.

In 1977, Rankin-Bass brought back the narrator S. D. Kluger (Fred Astaire) from the Santa Claus classic to tell the story of The Easter Bunny is Comin' to Town.  It follows a similar and familiar story vein, as an orphaned rabbit Sunny is taken in and raised by a happy group.  In an effort to deliver his chicken friends' eggs he paints them different colors.  He runs into Gadzooks, a ferocious bear, who learns the true meaning of friendship.  This special mines much familiar Rankin-Bass territory and feels redundant despite the good animation and technique.

There didn't seem to be too many traditionally animated shows for the season.  Rankin-Bass had one with The First Easter Bunny in 1976 about a stuffed toy brought to life to help a sick girl and bring joy to everybody.  Bugs Bunny and Fat Albert also had Easter specials.    The Peanuts returned in It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown which had a wonderful sequence with Snoopy imagining the dancing Easter bunnies.

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Another tradition over the holiday weekend was watching Cecil B. Demille's The Ten Commandments.  What can I say except to rattle off a litany of details about the classic:  Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Yvonne De Carlo, 1957, seven Academy Award nominations, most expensive film ever made at the time of its release, sixth on all-time gross equivalent adjusted for inflation (~2 billion dollars), 3 hours and 39 minutes, Moses, Rameses, Nefretiri, the Red Sea, over-acting, special effects, the plagues, the burning bush, VistaVision, Technicolor,  "Let my people go!"

I still watch it almost every year.  It is a true Hollywood classic.  It is campy and overwrought but sometimes particularly moving.   They sure don't make them like that any more. 

So what did I miss?  And what were your favorites?   Were you a fan of the animation or did you prefer the extravaganza from DeMille?  Share your thoughts and enjoy the weekend.