Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Rankin/Bass Plotholes


I watched P. Cottontail tonight. It is one of the Rankin/Bass holiday specials (like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer). While it is cute, there is definitely a huge plot hole in the show (despite all the other odd things that aren't explained – which really don't matter).

Anyway, the Colonel who is the Chief Easter Bunny is going to be retiring and he picks Peter Cottontail to be the next Chief Easter Bunny. A rabbit named Irontail (because a kid once ran over his tail and now he wears a fake tail that is made of iron [one of the many odd things that don't really matter for the show]) brings the April Valley (it's where the rabbits live) constitution where it says that the next Chief Easter Bunny is the one that delivers the most eggs.

Since Peter Cottontail isn't responsible, he holds a party and he doesn't go to bed on time. He had set his alarm clock, but Ironside sabotages it (there's a chicken on it and he gives the chicken magic corn flavored bubble gum that keeps it from making any noise).

Peter sleeps all day. Irontail is only able to give away one egg as almost nobody wanted an egg from him. However, Irontail wins because Peter didn't deliver any eggs due to sleeping all day.

So, Peter finds Sassafrass (who I guess plants all of April Valley) and he has this vehicle that is basically a time machine and it goes to the different holidays. Peter travels with a caterpillar named Antoine. Somehow Irontail sabotaged the time machine.

It skips over Easter and it first lands on Mother's Day. Nobody wants eggs on Mother's Day.

It then goes to the Fourth of July. Peter repaints the eggs. He lies to two boys and tells them that they are egg shaped grenades. The boys take the entire basket. They bring the basket back complaining that the eggs aren't grenades. However, they couldn't have known this without throwing one down on the hard ground. Thus, Peter had to give away one egg. This would make Peter and Irontail tied.

The next holiday is Halloween. Irontail tries to send a witch to scare Peter, but he isn't scared. Instead, he gives her an egg. That means that Peter has no successfully given away two eggs. He should win. However, the special keeps going. It goes through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and St. Patrick's Day.

Of course, there was a way Peter gave away the eggs. It goes back to Easter. Still, there was no reasons that he had to give away the entire basket of eggs. The show easily could've ended after Halloween because Peter should've won by then.


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