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The Egg Cracker Suite is a 1943 Easter-themed animated short produced by Walter Lantz, co-directed by Ben Hardaway and Emery Hawkins (also a character designer) and animated by Les Kline (solely credited as Lester Kline), Laverne Harding and Paul J. Smith (both uncredited) that features a redesigned Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. This is the last animated short to feature Oswald until Get a Horse! in 2013.
| The Egg Cracker Suite | |
|---|---|
 Title card | |
| Directed by | Ben Hardaway Emery Hawkins |
| Story by | Milt Schaffer |
| Produced by | Walter Lantz |
| Starring | June Foray Dorothy Lloyd (both unc.)[2] |
| Music by | Darrell Calker |
| Animation by | Lester Kline |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 7 minutes |
| Language | English |
Plot
editOswald leads a line of rabbits, anchored by a small brown bunny, into Bunnyville, where they are to ready Easter baskets for the holiday. He enters one tree, which is a hen house dubbed "Egg Plant No. 1", and conducts them in a symphony to get them to lay eggs. Outside, each rabbit in the line gets an egg. Oswald finishes the symphony getting the lone ostrich to lay her huge egg, which as luck would have it, the small brown bunny winds up with.
The remainder of the cartoon unfolds as the Easter baskets are being prepared. Initially, a rabbit boils eggs, only to discover one is spoiled, prompting a call for its removal by the health department truck. Subsequent scenes depict rabbits crafting egg dye using plant and flower leaves. Another scene showcases a rabbit painting intricate designs on eggs, but a mishap occurs when one egg unexpectedly hatches. The chick inside, upset by the situation, protests in a rapid chipmunk voice and retaliates by painting the rabbit's face.
The subsequent scene revisits the small brown bunny with the ostrich egg. Cheerfully pushing it toward a large vat of egg dye, the bunny encounters a challenge when attempting to propel it over a plank. Despite a failed attempt, the bunny races back for a head start, but the egg tumbles into the vat, and the plank collapses, causing the bunny to crash into the vat's side.
Next, rabbits are carrying baskets on wheelbarrows to first be filled with grass, then one egg surrounded by candy eggs, then each topped with a blue bow. They then take them to Bunnyville Airport where they're loaded into planes resembling B-18 bombers. As they ready for takeoff, the small brown bunny is shown running with the ostrich egg towards a plane, but the egg hatches before he can get there and the newborn ostrich that came out picks him up and throws him into a plane.
The planes take off one by one and are seen flying in formation when they open their bomb bay doors and drop the baskets all over the country. The bows open up like parachutes to slow their fall. The final scene is an apparently empty basket falling, but the brown bunny pops up and looks down initially horrified, but then his bow opens up and he relaxes then he waves to all of the viewers as the cartoon ends.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "The Vault". www2.boxoffice.com. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
- ^ Scott, Keith (2022). Cartoon Voices from the Golden Age, 1930-70. BearManor Media. p. 221. ISBN 979-8-88771-010-5.