From Ryan Kilpatrick at The Disney Film Project : Funny Little Bunnies is not for the faint of heart. I’ll be honest, if you can overload on cuteness, you should avoid this short at all costs. This is quite possibly the most cutesy short ever made by any cartoon company. Disney merchandising today would have bunny plush throughout the land if this one was a hit.

The short itself starts from a good place – Easter. It purports to be an inside look into the world of Easter bunnies as they get ready for the holiday. As such, it’s a good companion piece to Santa’s Workshop, in that it shows how the holiday comes to pass. But the bunnies and their antics are too much.

You might get the impression from this that I did not like the short, which is not the case. It’s just way too much with the cute little bunnies. The bunnies go through all sorts of routines to prepare for Easter, and that is very well done. The design of the characters, though, is almost overwhelmingly cute.

The faces on the bunnies look very rounded and full of smiles, much like a young child’s face. I’m sure that’s intentional, because the short seems like it was made for children. You get the impression when watching it that you are supposed to marvel and wonder at the magic of Easter. That’s easy to get when working in Santa’s Workshop, but it’s a little tougher for the bunnies.

That said, the processes in this short are well done. By that I mean the ways the animators thought up for various Easter treats to be created. We have chocolate bunnies being chiseled out of chocolate, eggs dropped from a group of hens into a boiling pot, pain being applied by tails, brushes and other ways. All of this shows you the different things the bunnies do to make Easter baskets.

You can’t help but smile while watching this short, because everyone in it is smiling as well. There is no story or conflict to speak of, as it’s very much an “assembly line” sort of cartoon, showing us how things are made. That’s where I think it falls down. If there had been some sort of backup in the works or an issue with the production, it would have made this short much more interesting.

As it stands, Funny Little Bunnies is the type of thing that young children would really enjoy, but it lacks the sophistication or storytelling style of the better Silly Symphonies. That said, around Easter time, watch this with your kids and have a blast.

From Mac Mac : The Silly Symphonies are now firmly rooted in a story-book world and there's two types. There's the retelling a classic tale or there's the insight into a story land with tons of inventive gags. This is the latter.

I like this one more than I should. By all means I should find it too cute and be put off. But I love it! One thing that helps is that singing aside, (and check out the lyrics - they're terrible!) there are no cutesy annoying voices or a character you're supposed to pity. It's just constant music, movement, bounce and perfect synchronization in a constant stream of visual ideas.

There's not an ounce of cynicism or a hint of being tongue in cheek - even when the cuteness gets really ridiculous. And the cute levels do get REALLY ridiculous – the bunnies take their paint right from the rainbow and one rabbit prints love hearts onto the eggs with his buttocks!!

An hilariously perfect world of unabashed kitsch!

From Jerry Edwards : This is the only Easter-themed Disney cartoon that I can think of. I love the imaginative ways the bunnies prepare the Easter eggs and candies. A fun, fascinating, very colorful short.

From Henry : Thanks a million for providing this opportunity. I was ten years old. I saw it in a Los Angeles movie house in 1937. The most delightful cartoon for young ones I've ever seen. Nothing scary not even the egg paint-shooting by the soldiers. And what wonderful paint colors, too. I made a deal with a video-store manager. His copy of this (Silly Symphonies, I guess) hadn't been rented for a year. He sold me the tape for-----$6. Can you imagine I'd come upon the tape a year or two earlier but only for rent. Here now it was mine, all mine. MY GRANDSON CAME OVER FROM EUROPE AND WATCHED IT SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT TIMES! Again, heartfelt thanks for giving people like me a forum. I absolutely rate this a 10 in your system.

From Deb : I caught this short a couple of years ago on the Disney Channel. It is delightful. Very colorful and charming. The way the bunnies paint the eggs is clever.

From Pam : My kids 3 and 5 -two boys who love very action oriented cartoons (though we eschew the violent ones) ADORE this cartoon! No matter how many times they've seen it, they are completely fascinated with the processes the bunnies go through to make the Easter goodies! I love this one too! Really clever and wonderful! Another one along the same lines that they can't get enough of is Fleischer's "Bunny Mooning" - two bunnies getting married and the preparations they and all the guests make for the big day!

From Amanda : I love the Funny Little Bunnies. Ever since I was little my mom would rent "How the Best was Won: 1933-1960" every Easter just to see the bunnies paint the Easter eggs. My favorite was always the checkerboard egg. Now that I know it is available on a DVD, I will be sure to go out and get it.

From Ryan : This was Disney's only Easter cartoon. Some of the highlights of it include hens laying eggs in rhythm, a rabbit stamping a heart "buttprint" on the eggs, and two blind rabbits weaving a basket. One of them reaches for a straw to weave into the basket, but cannot see, so he takes off his glasses, spots it, and picks it up.

A beautiful cartoon to view, but not among my favorites.

From Per Nilsson : This is another 'conveyor belt' cartoon, just like Santa's Workshop. It's very cleverly made and I really like the way everything makes sense. I just sit and smile while the whole process of producing Easter eggs is shown. Some people might say it's boring, but I like it!

From Marit van der Hoek : I really loved this cartoon when I was young. I used to make drawings of some scenes, they really fascinated me. Even now, when I'm older, I still like to watch it (I've recorded it on a vhs.) The song, the animation itself, etc... are all wonderful!

From Gijs Grob : 'Cute Little Bunnies' would have been a better title for this short, for the bunnies are very cute, not funny. In fact, Funny Little Bunnies is so cute it can only have been meant for children. It makes one wonder what movies it was supposed to support in the theaters (surely no grim gangster thriller). Because everybody copied Disney at that time, other studios, like Fleischer, Walter Lantz and Harman and Ising (at MGM) were copying this 'new cuteness' as well. This resulted in a spread of cute (and severely unfunny) cartoons in the thirties. One is therefore particularly thankful that in the late thirties Tex Avery (at Warner Brothers) restored nonsense, wackiness and absurdism in the animated cartoon. These qualities Disney sometimes seemed to have forgotten during his pursuit for greater naturalism and beauty. (Notice how, for example, Funny Little Bunnies uses animation to tell a story that cannot be told in live action, but how it tries to tell this story in the most conventional, 'live action-like' way).

From Baruch Weiss : Truly a beautiful cartoon to view. I have no complaints about this one!

From Ben : It's a lovely film, it's a catchy song and it's great fun watching it backwards!

From Bryan Hensley : Strangely, this was Disney's only Easter cartoon... until 2004 that is. That's when Winnie the Pooh and his gang's very first Easter movie debuted on VHS and DVD, and weeks later on TV. That was Winnie the Pooh: Springtime With Roo. Just think of all the inventive ways these Easter bunnies are putting all sorts of sweet stuff and Easter eggs together for Easter. They did have help from some chickens for the eggs, of course! I wouldn't be sure of Miley Stewart's "bunnies stealing money" song would make an Easter classic. At least "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" from Rankin/Bass in 1971 has always and will continue to be an Easter classic! Funny Little Bunnies from 1934 would've been a great bonus feature if Pooh's own Easter classic were released on DVD again someday! I hope you enjoy Disney's first Easter short, as well as its only one for 70 years!

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Funny Little Bunnies

A Silly Symphony

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Released by United Artists Pictures

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