It’s hard to remember that far back, but I think that, when I was a child, I pictured the Easter Bunny as an actual, normal-sized rabbit who came around and hid Easter candy on Easter morning.
But some pictures of the Easter Bunny show him (is the Easter Bunny a him?) as a cartoony, human-sized anthropomorphic figure. And occasionally there are opportunities to take your kids to see the Easter Bunny, and maybe get their picture taken with him (like with a mall Santa Claus). Of course, what you get if you visit “the Easter Bunny” is a person in a bunny suit, who could never be mistaken for an actual rabbit.
So, in your mind, do you imagine the Easter Bunny as a real rabbit, or as something more humanoid?
As a kid, I pictured him as something in between. More anthropomorphic than a regular rabbit, but more like Peter Rabbit or the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland- still more-or-less rabbit-sized.
Even as a little kid, I could play along with the idea that the guy in the red suit with the fake beard in the mall was Santa (except the time I met one with a real beard, which was clear proof that he really WAS Santa), but found the big giant cartoony Easter bunny mascot things silly and wrong.
As Vaderling came into this world on Easter, we’ve always referred to him as being brought by the Easter Bunny. In my mind this lends great credence to what Stranger said.
I pretty much always pictured him as anthropomorphic. I didn’t necessarily always picture a bunny costume, but to be an entity that could carry Easter baskets and go hide eggs, he had to be more human-like than rabbit like.
The costumes probably did influence how big I assumed he was, though. As did the TV representations. And these days I do tend to think of a guy in a suit.
We’ve been known, to ahhh, dabble in creepy clowns for Halloween.
Even SNL called Easter ‘warm Halloween’ last night.
There’s a haunted hayrideegg hunt somewhere in MI next week. Even the regular maul Easter bunny head is creepy. Hip-Hop was nightmare-inducing level of creepiness!
IOW, I’m seeing more & more scary bunnies. Imma thinkin; we might just need to do a scary bunny photo for next year.
While I wasn’t aware of the movie Harvey as a child young enough to believe in the Easter bunny, nor familiar with the concept of a púca until several years more after that, what I pictured as kid definitely falls into this scope. Large bunny, definitely over 3’ tall, who was smart like a person, had Santa’s breaking and entering skills and for some reason was very generous with candy.
For what it’s worth, in Germany it’s not the Easter Bunny, but the Easter Hare (Osterhase). It’s traditionally depicted slightly bigger than a real hare, walking on two legs and carrying a pannier filled with the eggs it brings, like this:
There’s a horror anthology movie called, “Holidays.” The Easter one is sooo bizarre: Mom kisses little girl goodnight – Go to sleep so you won’t scare off the Easter Bunny. Later, the girl goes for a drink of water and all hell breaks loose. This EB has a couple twists that are neat, weird, sad and nasty all at the same time: the EB is adult sized and looks like representations of crucified Jesus (except for the rabbit face and ears) – crown of thorns, wound in its side, holes in the hands and feet (baby chicks squeeze out of the holes [remember the old joke of why Jesus couldn’t eat M&Ms for Easter?]). Just strange. You’ll probably see the ending coming a mile away.
Next up: Kevin Smith’s take on Hallowe’en (not for kids, of course).
