69 Fun Facts About Easter Bunny

The foil-wrapped Gold Bunny, sold since 1952, is made by a chocolate company based in which country?

Switzerland is home to the Gold Bunny's maker, which has wrapped the rabbit in gold foil since 1952 and gone to court in several countries to stop rivals selling look-alikes.

In German Lutheran folklore, which role did the Easter Hare play at the start of Eastertide?

Judging children's behavior was the Easter Hare's job, much like Santa's list: only the well-behaved found eggs, and German-American lore recalls coal or droppings left for the naughty.

German immigrants brought the tradition of the 'Osterhase' to which U.S. state in the 1700s?

Pennsylvania's German settlers brought the Osterhase, a hare rather than a rabbit; in English it became the Easter Rabbit and, in time, the Easter Bunny.

In Hop, what does E.B. produce instead of ordinary rabbit droppings?

Jelly beans are what E.B. leaves behind instead of droppings in Hop (2011); he also fakes an injury so that Fred, the driver who hit him, will take him in.

The association of bunnies and hares with Easter stems from their historical symbolism of what?

Fertility and new life: rabbits and hares breed so quickly that they became ancient symbols of both, a natural fit for a festival of spring and rebirth.

What hangs from the red ribbon around the neck of the foil-wrapped Gold Bunny?

A small bell hangs from the Gold Bunny's ribbon; the maker's own tale says a chocolatier, after a real rabbit vanished into his garden bushes, made one that could always be found.

President Rutherford B. Hayes started which Easter tradition at the White House?

The Egg Roll moved to the White House in 1878 after Congress, tired of torn-up lawns, barred children from playing on the Capitol grounds; Rutherford B. Hayes opened his own lawn instead.

Which jeweller made the ornate Easter eggs that Russia's last two tsars commissioned as family gifts?

Fabergé made 50 imperial Easter eggs, beginning in 1885 when Alexander III ordered one for his wife; his son Nicholas II kept up the order for his own wife and his mother.

Which chocolatier has fought court battles in several countries to protect its gold-foil Easter bunny?

Lindt has sued rivals for years over look-alike bunnies; in 2022 a top court ordered the discounter Lidl to stop selling its version and destroy its remaining stock.

In German-influenced early American tradition, what did children make for the 'Osterhase' to leave eggs in?

Nests made from caps and bonnets were left out for the Easter Hare to fill with coloured eggs; decorated baskets later took their place.

A medieval belief about how hares breed linked the animal to which holy figure?

The Virgin Mary became linked with the hare because it was thought to bear young without losing its virginity, so hares appear in manuscripts and paintings of the Virgin and Child.

The white Easter lily sold in pots each spring is native to the southern islands of which country?

Japan's Ryukyu Islands, along with Taiwan, are the lily's home; growers force potted bulbs in greenhouses so the white trumpets open in time for Easter.

Which native marsupial do Australians promote as an alternative to the Easter Bunny?

Bilby chocolates stand in for bunnies in a campaign backed by Rabbit-Free Australia, because introduced rabbits strip the native habitat that animals like the bilby depend on.

Which British actor voices E.B.'s father, the reigning Easter Bunny, in Hop (2011)?

Hugh Laurie voices Mr. Bunny, who runs the world's Easter candy factory beneath Easter Island and wants his reluctant son to inherit the job.

Rankin/Bass's 1976 special 'The First Easter Rabbit' is loosely based on which classic children's book?

The Velveteen Rabbit supplies the plot: a stuffed rabbit thrown out after his owner's scarlet fever is brought to life by a sprite and sent north to become the first Easter Bunny.

In a popular modern legend, a spring goddess turned a frozen bird into a hare, which kept what ability?

Laying eggs is the ability the hare keeps in the tale, which is often retold as ancient but is a modern invention with no basis in pre-Christian folklore.

The 1974 Peanuts Easter special debuted on which US television network?

CBS first aired 'It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown' and repeated it every Easter season until 2000, after which the Peanuts specials moved to ABC.

Decorated Easter eggs are often traced to a ban on eating eggs during which Christian season?

Lent's fast once forbade eggs, but hens went on producing them, so households had a surplus waiting to be boiled and eaten when the fast ended at Easter.

In France and Belgium, silent church bells are said to fly to which city before Easter?

In French and Belgian tradition the bells fall silent on Maundy Thursday and fly to Rome, returning on Easter morning to scatter eggs and chocolates.

On Easter Monday in Poland, the custom of Śmigus-dyngus has people doing what to one another?

Throwing water is the heart of Śmigus-dyngus; the old custom also involved switching people with willow twigs, and handing over a painted egg was the way to buy an escape.

Which Australian actor voices the Easter Bunny in DreamWorks' Rise of the Guardians (2012)?

Hugh Jackman kept his own accent for Bunny, and the film's Easter Bunny says 'bloody' so often that parents' guides make a point of flagging it.

Volker Kraft of Saalfeld, Germany, became famous for hanging thousands of Easter eggs on what?

An apple tree in the Kraft family's garden wore 18 eggs in 1965 and about 10,000 by 2015, when the ageing couple decorated it for the last time.

In 'It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown', who keeps cooking the eggs meant for decorating?

Marcie, coached by Peppermint Patty, fries the eggs, bakes them, presses them in a waffle iron and finally makes egg soup, never producing one fit to decorate.

Which braided Greek Easter bread is baked with red-dyed eggs pressed into the dough?

Tsoureki is a sweet braided loaf scented with mahleb or mastic; the eggs pressed into it are dyed red to recall the blood of Christ.

In 'Bugs Bunny's Easter Special' (1977), which character keeps turning up in costume to replace the sick Easter Bunny?

Daffy Duck covets the job Granny has offered to Bugs, and the 'recovered' Easter Bunny who strolls in at the end turns out to be Daffy in disguise.

Decorated pace eggs made for which Lake District poet's children are kept in a museum at Grasmere?

William Wordsworth's children were given the decorated eggs; other pace eggs were handed to pace-eggers, costumed players who paraded the streets singing and collecting money.

Which Hollywood star played Hannah Brown, the novice dancer, in the 1948 musical 'Easter Parade'?

Judy Garland played Hannah opposite a co-star coaxed out of retirement after Gene Kelly, first cast in the part, broke his ankle just before filming.

Which 325 AD assembly is credited with tying Easter to the Sunday after spring’s full moon?

Tradition credits Constantine's bishops at Nicaea in 325 AD with the rule, though later scholarship doubts the council ever spelled it out.

Two years before Cadbury, which Bristol firm made Britain's first hollow chocolate Easter egg?

Fry & Sons made the egg in 1873 by pouring a smooth chocolate paste into moulds; Cadbury's first Easter egg followed in 1875.

For Christians, the Easter egg is a symbol of what?

The empty tomb: the egg looks lifeless from outside yet holds hidden life ready to break out, just as Jesus rose from the sealed grave.

The Ukrainian art of decorating Easter eggs is known by what name?

Pysanky are Ukrainian Easter eggs decorated by a wax-resist method: designs are drawn with a stylus called a kistka, then the egg is dyed in successive colours.

Per Bede, the Anglo-Saxon month named for the goddess who gave Easter its name matches which modern month?

April is the month Bede matches to Eosturmonath in 'The Reckoning of Time'; his one sentence, saying feasts were held for Eostre then, is the only early record of the goddess.

Unlike a rabbit in its burrow, a hare rests above ground in a shallow hollow known as what?

Form is the word for the shallow dip where a hare rests, trusting speed rather than a burrow for safety. One scholar suggests lapwing eggs found in similar hollows linked hares to Easter eggs.

Which naturalist narrated 'Shadow of the Hare', the 1993 BBC film that presented the Easter Bunny's pagan origin as fact?

David Attenborough narrated it for the BBC's Wildlife on One; the film spread the idea that the goddess Eostre kept a hare, though Bede, the only early writer to mention her, names no animal.

Which 1835 work by Jacob Grimm first connected Easter with the goddess Ostara?

Grimm's 'Deutsche Mythologie' (1835) reconstructed a goddess Ostara from Bede's Eostre and tied her to Easter; later writers, not Grimm, made the hare her sacred animal without evidence.

Which dwarf planet did its discoverers nickname 'Easterbunny' after spotting it days after Easter 2005?

Makemake kept an Easter link in its official name: it honours the creator god of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island.

In the Greek Easter game tsougrisma, what do players do with their red eggs?

Crack them: each player taps the end of an egg against a rival's, trying to break it without breaking their own, and the last unbroken egg wins.

The Easter Bunny began as a hare; what is the proper name for a young hare?

A leveret is born above ground, fully furred and with its eyes open, unlike a baby rabbit, which arrives blind and hairless.

An early account of the Easter Hare comes from a 17th-century German physician's essay, written in which language?

Latin was the language of Georg Franck von Franckenau's 'De ovis paschalibus' (About Easter Eggs), which tells of a hare said to hide eggs in garden grass and bushes for children to hunt.

British pace-eggers traditionally boiled eggs in what to give them a mottled gold colour?

Onion skins were wrapped around each egg before boiling, leaving a mottled gold shell; children then rolled the eggs downhill to see whose went farthest without cracking.

A Lancashire legend says broken eggshells must be crushed so witches cannot use them as what?

Boats were what Lancashire witches were said to make of unbroken shells, so empty pace eggs were crushed; the eggs themselves were eaten on Easter Sunday or handed to costumed pace-eggers.

Which country's spring festival Sham el-Nessim, held the day after Coptic Easter, features coloured eggs and salted fish?

Egypt's Sham el-Nessim is a national holiday on which families picnic outdoors on coloured boiled eggs and fesikh, a pungent fermented mullet.

In 'Here Comes Peter Cottontail' (1971), which rabbit schemes to become Chief Easter Bunny?

January Q. Irontail wears an iron tail because a child once roller-skated over the real one; as revenge he plans brown and grey eggs and chocolate tarantulas.

Who narrated the 1971 Rankin/Bass special 'Here Comes Peter Cottontail'?

Danny Kaye narrated and also voiced the peddler Seymour S. Sassafras, whose time machine gives Peter a second chance after he sleeps through Easter.

Which horror-film star voiced the villain in the 1971 Rankin/Bass Easter special starring Peter Cottontail?

Vincent Price voiced the scheming rabbit who wins the top job on a technicality and orders Easter eggs painted brown and grey.

In 'Here Comes Peter Cottontail' (1971), what is the name of the time machine Peter borrows?

The Yestermorrowbile is piloted by a French caterpillar named Antoine; after sabotage it can visit every holiday except Easter, so Peter tries to give eggs away at Halloween and Christmas.

Which radio countdown host voiced Peter in the 1971 TV special 'Here Comes Peter Cottontail'?

Casey Kasem launched American Top 40 in 1970 and had voiced Scooby-Doo's Shaggy since 1969, which is why this Easter Bunny sounds so familiar.

In Thornton Burgess's 1914 book, why does Peter Rabbit briefly rename himself Peter Cottontail?

It sounded more important, he thought, but his friends teased him so much that within a chapter he decided 'there's nothing like the old name after all'.

Which singing cowboy scored a 1950 Easter hit with 'Here Comes Peter Cottontail'?

Gene Autry was asked to record it because his Christmas songs had sold so well; its writers, Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins, also gave him 'Frosty the Snowman' that year.

Who narrates the 1977 Rankin/Bass special 'The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town'?

Fred Astaire returned as S.D. Kluger, the mailman he played in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, this time driving a train as he answers children's questions about Easter.

In Hop (2011), E.B. flees Easter Island to chase what ambition?

Becoming a drummer is E.B.'s dream: he sits in with the Blind Boys of Alabama before heading home to stop a coup at his father's candy factory.

In Hop, which chick secretly plots a coup against the Easter Bunny?

Carlos, voiced by Hank Azaria, is the Spanish-accented chick who plots the coup and briefly becomes a chick-bunny hybrid after touching the Egg of Destiny.

Which comedian voices the teenage rabbit E.B. in Hop?

Russell Brand also appears on camera, briefly, as a production assistant at the talent show E.B. is desperate to play.

Which TV star plays himself in Hop and invites E.B. onto his talent show?

David Hasselhoff plays himself as host of 'Hoff Knows Talent', and it is his on-air advice that sends E.B. home to rescue his friend.

In Rise of the Guardians, what is the Easter Bunny's full name?

E. Aster Bunnymund comes from William Joyce's Guardians of Childhood books, where he stars in a novel of his own; the film calls him simply Bunny and gives him an Australian accent.

In Rise of the Guardians, where do the Guardians help colour eggs before Easter?

Bunny's Warren is where the Guardians help ready the eggs; Pitch's Nightmares then destroy every one, so children wake to no Easter and stop believing in Bunny.

In which country is reading crime novels over Easter such a tradition that it has its own name, påskekrim?

Norway's Easter crime habit is traced to 1923, when a publisher advertised a train-robbery thriller on a newspaper's front page so convincingly that readers took it for real news.

Which biblically named American city is home to the company that makes Peeps?

Bethlehem has been the candy maker's home since 1932, and every New Year's Eve the city counts down with a Peeps Chick Drop.

Who was nicknamed the 'Father of Peeps' for mechanising their production?

Bob Born, son of the company's founder, built the machine that replaced forming each chick by hand, cutting the time to make a Peep from 27 hours to about six minutes.

On Good Friday, people in which Atlantic island territory traditionally fly homemade kites?

Bermuda's colourful hexagonal kites are built as Easter nears and flown on Good Friday, a custom said to symbolise Christ rising.

In US television ads, what sound does the Cadbury Bunny make?

It clucks like a chicken in the Cadbury Creme Egg commercials; in 2019 Hershey began yearly tryouts in which other pets compete to wear the bunny ears in the ad.

Which animal won Hershey's 2021 Cadbury Bunny tryouts from over 12,000 entries?

An Australian tree frog named Betty, from Florida, won $5,000 and a starring role in the Easter ad, becoming the contest's first amphibian and its smallest winner.

Kinder Surprise, launched in 1974, copied an Easter tradition from which country?

Italy's custom of giving children big chocolate Easter eggs with a toy inside was shrunk into a small egg that could be sold all year round.

Which songwriter reworked his 1917 wartime tune 'Smile and Show Your Dimple' into the standard 'Easter Parade'?

Irving Berlin wrote the first version to cheer a girl whose sweetheart had gone to war; in 1933 he gave the melody new Easter words for his Broadway revue As Thousands Cheer.

Who sang 'Easter Parade' in the 1942 film musical 'Holiday Inn'?

Bing Crosby sang it nine years after Marilyn Miller and Clifton Webb introduced the song on Broadway; the same film gave him 'White Christmas'.

New York's Easter parade, celebrated in a 1933 song, proceeds along which street?

Fifth Avenue's parade began when wealthy churchgoers strolled out after Easter services to show off new outfits and hats while onlookers gathered to watch.

The giant Easter egg sculpture in Vegreville, Alberta, was built to mark the centennial of what?

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were honoured because the money came from a grant for the force's centennial; the aluminium egg is built to turn in the wind like a weather vane.

In a Franconian Easter custom, what do locals crown with garlands and painted eggs?

Village wells and fountains are dressed this way as Osterbrunnen, or Easter wells, a custom often explained by how scarce water was on Franconia's dry uplands.

In Orthodox legend, who told the emperor Tiberius that Christ had risen and saw an egg turn red as proof?

Mary Magdalene, the legend says, greeted the emperor with 'Christ has risen'; he scoffed that this was no more likely than an egg turning red, and the egg promptly did.