“Here Comes Peter Cottontail” first aired in 1971.
The special was produced by Rankin/Bass Productions, the studio behind several celebrated holiday television programs. It used the company’s stop-motion process, known as Animagic, in which physical character models were moved incrementally and photographed frame by frame.
The original United States broadcast took place on April 4, 1971, on ABC. The story follows Peter Cottontail as he attempts to become the chief Easter Bunny while facing the villainous January Q. Irontail. Danny Kaye narrated the special and also supplied several voices, while Casey Kasem voiced Peter.
The program was based on the 1957 children’s book The Easter Bunny That Overslept by Priscilla and Otto Friedrich. It is sometimes confused with the 2005 computer-animated film Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie, which is a later sequel rather than the original television special.