PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Dawalk-1 For the longest, I've been trying to find the Rankin-Bass special that featured and included a town called Kidville, where all its inhabitants are children and hadn't been successful. I remember catching those scenes of this special some years back on cable. It's no wonder I didn't know that they were part of this special, which I found out after watching it over a week ago on Youtube. I must've missed the title when I first saw those scenes evidently and I don't even remember ever seeing the special in full before then. My thoughts about this special. I was going to give it the highest rating possible until I read the review by the member who gave it three stars. She made some, I guess, sensible points on why it isn't as great as most reviewers of this, and some others outside of this site, may make it out to be. The amount of stars I give it are between the lowest that have been given (or given so far) by the aforementioned female reviewer (my amount a little higher that hers) and the highest that have been given (my amount a little lower than the others). One reason I chose to give no less stars than six is because I like the Kidville concept. Another is it's great to see the mailman, S.D. Kluger, make a recurring appearance here, but there are several, other similarities that will remind viewers who have already seen the Christmas special, Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town, even right down to the title. There may be even more similarities than differences that would've set it apart more from that X-mas special. I just found out it's supposed to be a semi-sequel. In that case, I could overlook that, but then again, more sequels to originals should have more distinctions and be better. There still may be some flaws in this that I may have missed and probably never would've thought much of had the more negative reviewer not pointed them out, like how the villains attempted to stop the yellow train from reaching town and that another, better way could've been made for the villains to attempt. I presume I just have mixed feelings about it. However, I've now decided that the previous two, Rankin-Bass Easter specials are much better than this one, considering this is a semi-sequel. I don't really, completely dislike it, but simultaneously, I don't like it as much as the other two Easter specials and find them more superior. It's still nice and alright. One other thing I'll say is the religious references were a surprise.

syllavus I was a child of the 80s and grew up watching this special every single Easter. We even had a copy on a battered old VHS that my father had taped off of the television. So even if it didn't air on a network, we were still always able to see "The Easter Bunny is Comin' to Town" when Easter rolled around. It had literally been decades since I'd last seen it when I came across it on YouTube and decided to watch it for old time's sake. I vaguely remembered the plot and characters, and some bits of dialog verbatim, but I had forgotten quite a lot about this little special. I sat with my husband and hoped that I would be rediscovering a gem of my childhood that I could share with my own son in a few years. Boy was I wrong.I'm a big fan of all the classic Rankin Bass stop-motion holiday specials, but this one? In a word, terrible. Even the rose-colored glasses of my childhood nostalgia couldn't save this one. In fact, I was shocked when I came on here to see that there was not one negative review for this appalling program. I felt compelled to write my own review, because someone needs to be honest here, this program is just not good.For starters, this special is little more than "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" with the Easter Bunny shoe-horned into Santa's role. Complete with the Fred Astaire character and the reading of children's letters with questions for the Easter Bunny during the intro. Since when do children write letters to the Easter Bunny anyway? But I'll be kind and ignore this. It even looks like they've reused the same set for Somber Town that was used in "SCICTT", so it's very difficult to ignore the similarities. As with the Christmas special, the whole point of the show is to explain why we do certain things at Easter, but the scenarios they come up with to explain why we do certain Easter traditions are ridiculously laughable.By far the worst explained Easter tradition is, "Why do we dress up on Easter?" There is a big mean bear who lives on the mountain that separates Kidville from the rest of the civilized world. Sunny the Easter Bunny decides that in order to warm the bear's icy heart, all he needs is a new suit of clothes. One minute the bear is all roaring and mean, but then once he sees his new clothes he becomes a sobbing mess and is a pushover for the rest of the film. This was the best they could come up with to explain wearing nice clothes on Easter? It makes my brain hurt.Also I understand that this is a children's program and no one is expecting writing on par with Citizen Kane, but there are plot holes in this special big enough to float the Titanic through. It really feels like the people involved in this special didn't even try.Sunny the Easter Bunny lives in a town called Kidville, where everyone is a kid, even the teachers and mayor. As the special progresses, several Easters pass, but not a single one of the children age a day. This could have easily been explained away with a quick mention of Kidville being a magical place, but not even that deus ex machina is utilized.When the villains are trying to thwart Sunny in his attempts to bring a trainload of Easter goodies into town, their "brilliant" plan is that they put butter on the train rails to make the train slip. After this plan doesn't work out, they have absolutely nothing to fall back on. Seriously? You're supposed to be these awful villains hell-bent on destroying Easter, but after your buckets of butter don't work out you just give up? Lamest villains EVER. Not to mention that all it takes for the main villain to give up her mean ways is a flower. Seriously, a flower. One minute she's banning people from having children and forcing an entire town to eat nothing but beans, but give her a nice flower and she's suddenly sweet as pie.The one nice thing I will say about this special, and the only reason I was kind enough to give it three stars, is the fact that all these years later some of the songs are still danged catchy. Also Sunny the Easter Bunny is very cute. So kudos to whoever did the song writing for this Easter special, and whichever character designer came up with Sunny, but shame on everyone else who was involved with it.Needless to say, I think instead of ever watching this special with my son, we'll just color some eggs instead.

johnstonjames some may prefer that other hop bunny, you know, the CGI one, but seriously, i like to sit down and check out the old time stop motion stuff. it's cuter, funnier and a lot trippier to try to figure out how much work went into the process.stop motion animation is basically a lost art form and very few people these days know how to animate the numerous puppets involved in the technique. with computers used in everything these days, it's become as quaint and archaic as the art of hand carved wood.Rankin/Bass were the masters of this form and still the best in my opinion. their animated TV specials are still more colorful and elaborate than more recent efforts.i'm also always impressed at how tuneful and likable the music scores always are too. i wouldn't say they are Sondheim or anything, but they are nicely done and effective.fun to see old timer Fred Astaire reprise his snow mobile mail carrier from the 'Santa Claus' special, only here he drives a bright yellow choo-choo modeled somewhat after the little engine that could story.cute as a bunny's fluffy tail and always suitable for kiddies and families. also as fun and festive as a easter egg hunt. great for baby boomers and their grand-tykes. i'd rate this ooky pooky for everyone.

apfortony If your kids want to see an Easter special, Here comes Peter Cottontail is better. But this Easter special from the late 1970s isn't too bad. Songs and score are harmless and the villain, an ornery bear, won't scare younger kids. The winter warlock from Santa Claus is coming to Town is very scary in comparison. Having seen this show and Peter Cottontail when they first aired, I saw them both again this past Easter. I didn't remember any details from this one even though it was released six years after Peter C.