When Rebecca asked me to do “a pop culture thing” for Easter, I was not so sure about it. Mostly because my first thought was Easter Parade and Stephen and I already did something about that during an Easter livestream one time, and what would even be the point if I could not grace all of you with my Judy Garland impression? Besides, I’m not sure I have much to say about it other than “It’s not really about Easter!” and that the age difference between Judy Garland and Fred Astaire is a tad unsettling in retrospect (though to be fair, it was supposed to be Gene Kelly, but he was injured and couldn’t do it), though nowhere near as unsettling as the age difference between Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire in Funny Face.
So instead, I have chosen to turn my focus on another Easter classic — auteur David Decoteau’s seminal work, The Easter Bunny Puppy.
DeCoteau has directed well over one hundred movies, including several Puppet Master sequels, classics like Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Assault of the Killer Bimbos, My Christmas Grandpa, Leeches!, the 1313 horror/softcore gay porn movie series, Bigfoot vs. DB Cooper, the The Wrong … series of Lifetime movies starring Detective Vivica A. Fox (pretty sure I’ve seen all of these, actually, except for the most recent, The Wrong Life Coach) and the interrobang series, A Talking Cat!?!, A Talking Pony!?! and My Stepbrother is a Vampire!?! — many of which, like An Easter Bunny Puppy, were filmed in his actual home where he lives.
Narrated by Russ The Corgi, who informs us at the beginning of the movie that this is possible because we have been blessed with the power of telepathy for the next 90 minutes (which will seem like 10,000), the film tells the story of Jennifer Diamond, world-famous writer of the “Miss Marble” mystery series.
Diamond, by the way, is played by former Playboy model and star of 1976’s Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy (which you can actually watch at the Internet Archive) Kristine DeBell.
One day, while she is sitting in her home, wearing a turban and writing up the end of her latest novel — which she does by speaking it into a tape recorder while sitting in front of but not typing on a very large, duct-taped laptop (which eagle-eyed viewers may recognize from A Talking Cat!?!) — Diamond gets a call from her publisher informing her that her mystery novels have not been doing well, so she will have to write a children’s book.
Wait. I thought it was a turban, but it actually might be a bad old lady wig haphazardly pulled over her regular hair.
Anyway! The plot of the book is up to her, but her publisher tells Jennifer that it must be called The Easter Bunny Puppy and feature very specific cover art, which said publisher faxes over immediately.
What an incredible glimpse into how the publishing industry definitely works in real life!
Alas, as Jennifer Diamond tells her daughter (who is currently preoccupied with her own crush on the boy who recently moved next door), she doesn’t know anything about Easter at all … because of how they are Jewish.
It is around this point that we are treated to a Casio keyboard demo version of “La Cucaracha,” for reasons I cannot explain or even possibly imagine. Actually, the entire soundtrack for this movie sounds like a Casio demo, but this is the only recognizable “song.”
Naturally, Jennifer decides that she must learn about this “Easter” holiday and really immerse herself in the world of a hypothetical Easter Bunny Puppy, as such, asks her daughter Lucy to dress up in a full-on bunny costume that they just happen to have lying around the house (possibly from the set of Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy? Who can say?), and act out story possibilities for her. Because sure, that’s exactly how writing a book works. Why not?
At some point during all of this, the doorbell rings and, naturally, the daughter answers the door, in the bunny costume. It’s the new next-door neighbors, including Jake, the son she has a crush on and his mom, played by Lisa London, who coincidentally starred in another Alice In Wonderland-based B-movie, titled Darling Nikki, which I think (as a Prince fan) I am legally obligated to watch at some point. She then gets very upset at her mother because now the neighbor boy will think she is crazy and never love her.
So they decide to dye some eggs! Because obviously this is something Jennifer Diamond needs to do in order to write a children’s book about an Easter Bunny Puppy. And I promise you that I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this is the longest egg-dying sequence in cinematic history. I think it had to be eight minutes long.
At some point they notice that Russ the Telepathic Corgi has disappeared! But (phew!) the doorbell rings and surprise! He has been found by Dreamy Neighbor, which Russ telepathically tells us he did as a favor to Lucy, who then pretends that she wasn’t the one to answer the door in a bunny costume, but rather her twin sister Marion. Who, uh, wears glasses?
Dreamy Neighbor comes in and they talk about how neither of their dads are around and he explains that the reason his dad isn’t is because he is in prison. Why is he in prison? Because last year, there was a robbery and a fancy piece of jewelry worth tens of millions of dollars was stolen and though the police didn’t find said jewelry, they found “pieces of the crime” around their cabin and “they took him.” That’s why they left their town —but they’re going back this week for the big Easter egg hunt and, naturally, he invites Lucy and her mom to join them.
Lucy doesn’t want to go, but Jennifer insists because it’s such a perfect opportunity to study the traditions of the little-known holiday of Easter — and not only does Jennifer go along with her daughter on this imaginary twin sister thing, she insists that “Marion” must come with them so that no one thinks she is a bad mother.
The rest of the movie, should you care to indulge, is filled with all kinds of imaginary twin hijinx, more bunny costumes, egg hunts, romance and intrigue. Also, it turns out to have been a Fabergé egg that was stolen instead of jewelry, but why need to go and reshoot a whole entire scene over that small plot change?
Unfortunately (spoiler alert) I don’t think we ever actually figure out what an Easter Bunny puppy is even supposed to be.
Anyway, have a lovely Easter or a lovely Sunday and I hope you get to eat everything you want!
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