Easter Special: Here Comes Peter Cottontail & Golden Records

Since today is Easter, we’re going to pivot away from Christmas and talk about something completely different and much more spring Holiday-appropriate. That’s right, Easter Music.

OK, so maybe it wasn’t as hard a pivot as I let on.

Today, we’re following the journey of one particular Easter song, “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” and along the way, we’ll take a quick stop to check out the history of Golden Records.

Now, before we get started, I have a confession to make. This was not the original topic I had in mind when I started writing this post. I was planning to talk about non-Easter songs used in Easter commercials. A springtime companion to my Stealth Christmas playlist if you will.

That turned out to be much harder than I anticipated for a few reasons:

1. There are way less Easter commercials to draw from.
2. The bulk of Easter commercials are for chocolate or candy brands (which in hindsight seems very obvious) and they tend to recycle the same commercials year after year. I’m looking at you Cadbury Crème Eggs.
3. Of the ones that do exist, most utilize stock instrumental tracks, branded jingles, or, just omit the music all together. I’m looking at you again Cadbury Crème Eggs with your recent, music-less commercials. Who stole your whimsy?

That said, I did find a few adverts that included great music.

This year, Target’s Easter campaign, featuring John Paul Young’s disco hit “Love Is In The Air” is a fine example.

And then there’s Walmart’s “FlexinWithGram” advert from 2023. The 15 second spot features Grandma, rolling up to an Easter party in a pink ‘64 impala and matching pink pant suit, grandkids in tow. The commercial is set to song I haven’t heard in probably twenty years, “Tops Drop” by Fat Pat.

But, the one song that kept springing up (pun completely intended) and was used to sell everything from toys to chocolates to housewares was “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.”

If you’re familiar with the song, it’s most likely either Gene Autry’s version or the version from the Rankin/Bass Special of the same name, sung by Danny Kaye. But the story of “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” predates both.

It starts all the way back in 1902 when Beatrix Potter wrote “The Tale of Peter Rabbit.” And yes, I said Peter Rabbit, not Peter Cottontail, but stay with me for a minute. Peter Rabbit was a success and Potter wrote five more books starring the character from 1904 to 1912.

While Potter was actively writing her subsequent Peter Rabbit books, another author, Thornton Burgess was creating bedtime stories for his son. His son, having already been heard the Beatrix Potter stories, would not accept any name for this father’s own rabbit character besides Peter. So, when Thornton published his first book, Old Mother West Wind, he too included a character named Peter Rabbit.

So far we’re still taking Peter Rabbit. It wasn’t until four years and 10 books later that the name Peter Cottontail shows up in Thornton’s 1914 story, “The Adventures of Peter Cottontail.”

No, Burgess wasn’t sued by Potter or anything like that. This was pre-Mickey Mouse, so copyright and intellectual property laws weren’t nearly as strict, nor as fiercely litigated.

It was simply an in-story plot point. In the book, Peter Rabbit is down on his name, finding it too common. So, he changes it to the much more important sounding Peter Cottontail. By the end of chapter 3, he’s learned his lesson on being himself and switched back to Peter Rabbit again.

Burgess’s character would stay Peter Rabbit, going on to be featured in several more book and many of the 15,000 daily syndicated newspaper stories Burgess wrote until he retired in the early 1960s.

So, that was the story of Peter Cottontail, an alias used in two chapters and the title of a single book. That is until 1949 when Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins wrote the song “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” This is the same pair that would pen another and arguably more well-loved holiday classic the following year, “Frosty The Snowman.”

For Peter Cottontail, Nelson and Rollins borrow the name from Burgess’s story, but imagine the character as the Easter Bunny, coming to deliver eggs and presents to children.

The song was first recorded by honky-tonk singer Mervin Shiner and released in 1950. And it was an instant hit. No, seriously. It climbed the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at #8 and selling over 3 million copies!

And because if a little is good, then more must be better, that same year it was also recorded by Jimmy Wakely, Johnnie Lee Willis and yes, this is when we get Gene Autry’s version.

Jimmy’s, Johnnie’s and Gene’s recordings all stormed the Billboard charts as well, with Autry’s version performing the best of the bunch. It hit #3 on the Hot Country Singles and #5 on the Hot 100.

Let’s pause and think about that for a minute. In a single year, 4 different artists all charted with a song about the Easter Bunny.

In 1963 Nelson and Rollins wrote an alternate, non-Easter version of the song for Walt Disney’s album “Peter Cottontail Plus Other Funny Bunnies and Friends.” And like Frosty a couple of years before it, “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” received its own Rankin/Bass treatment with 1971’s stop-animated special of the same name, one of three Rankin/Bass Easter specials.

This is where we get the other familiar version of the song, the one sung by Danny Kaye as his character, Seymour Sassafras.

I won’t spend any more time talking about the special because there is already a fantastic episode of the Totally Rad Christmas Podcast where Gerry D and Avent Calendar House’s Mike Westfall do a deep dive. So, if you want to hear more about Peter Cottontail, a time machine piloted by a french caterpillar and an egg delivering contest to crown the next Chief Easter Bunny, check out Gerry’s episode.

As I mentioned at the top, the song also shows up regularly in easter commercials.

Walmart used an indie version in their 2009 Easter advert, performed by an uncredited (at least as far as I could find) artist. And it worked so well that they went back to the same formula for their 2015 “Easter Joy” campaign, which featured a version of the song from the 1951 Golden Records release, Peter Cottontail and Other Easter and Springtime Favorites Whew. That mouthful brings us to our second topic of this episode.

If you have kids or where a kid yourself, which covers most humans, you’ve probably come into contact with Golden Books at some point. Those thin little cardboard-covered children’s story books with the gold spines.

I had a million of them when I was little, some were even left for me by the Easter Bunny. My personal favorite was, “The Monster at the End of This Book,” featuring Sesame Street’s own lovable, furry old Grover and that amazing Michael Smollin artwork. But I’m getting sidetracked.

Golden books was launched by Simon and Schuster in 1942. Six years later, they helped start Golden Records.

If Golden Books were a child’s introduction to reading, then Golden Records should be their introduction to music.

The label was founded by Arthur Shimkin and released mainly 78rpm singles, which were pressed in bright yellow vinyl, came in sleeves featuring artwork that matched their golden book and sold for $.25.

Scruffy the Tugboat, Tootle the Train and The Saggy, Baggy Elephant all had Golden Records. You can almost smell the early synergy cooking.

“Here Comes Peter Cottontail” was released as both a single and on the aforementioned full album, Peter Cottontail and Other Easter and Springtime Favorites.

As the name implies, the record contained several Easter and Springtime bangers like, “Bunny, Bunny, Bunny,” “Which Came First, The Chicken or the Egg?” and “Easter Parade.”

Peter Cottontail and Other Easter and Springtime Favorites

Label: Golden Records
Released: 1951

Tracklist

• A1. Peter Cottontail
• A2. Oh, What A Beautiful Morning
• A3. Funny Little Bunnies
• A4. The White Bunny And His Magic Nose
• A5. Which Came First, The Chicken Or The Egg?
• A6. Easter Is Loving Time
• A7. Let There Be Peace On Earth
• B1. Open Up Your Heart (And Let The Sunshine In)
• B2. Easter Parade
• B3. Bunny, Bunny, Bunny
• B4. Eustache, The Useless Rabbit
• B5. The Barnyard Song
• B6. Flippity, Flappity, Bunny
• B7. The Lively Little Rabbit
• B8. Pee Wee The Bunny
• B9. Easter Mornin’

Full disclosure - I have never heard of any of these other songs, nor have I listened to any of them, so you term “banger” is being used in a completely ironically and should in no way be construed as an endorsement of the dance-floor worthiness of the album.

Golden Records utilized a set of regular performers including The Singing Ladies, The Sandpipers, Gilbert Mack, Anne Lloyd and The Mitch Miller Orchestra.

They also featured mainstream artists of the day. White Christmas alums Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney all appeared on Golden Records releases. As did Johnny Cash, Tommy Dorsey, and Alfred Hitchcock.

For the Golden Records album, it was Roy Rogers and Dale Evans joining The Sandpipers and the Mitch Miller Orchestra to record the songs.

From the information I could find, the final Golden Records releases came from 1964 and included:

• A Winnie-the-Pooh record
• Captain Kangaroo performing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”
• A Golden Record I never knew I needed but definitely do now: “The Astro Boy Theme” by the Cosmic Rangers

After Golden Records, Shimkin went on to start Sesame Street Records in 1970. And there was also Bell Records which he ran during the ’50s, while also at the helm of Golden.

All said, Arthur had an incredibly prolific career as a producer and label boss. He is credited on over 3,000 recordings and has racked up 14 Grammy nominations, with a majority for his work in the children’s music genre.

Peter Cottontail followed a different trajectory. After the song’s boomtime in the ’50s and its brief rekindling by the Rankin/Bass special in ‘71, it started to fade into obscurity. Which, if we’re being honest, is probably where a an Easter-themed novelty song should be.

That is, until all those kid’s sing-along-groups, the ones that bill themselves as educational and pump out YouTube videos with cheap animation, found it about a decade ago. Now, if you search YouTube for “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” you’ll be greeted by soul leeching renditions by groups like The Countdown Kids, the Kiboomers and a hundred other bands that attempt to shoe-horn the word ‘kid’ into their name.

There have been a couple of stand-out exceptions though. Heinsight Media, has a fantastic metal version.

And hot off the digital presses, we have a brand new version of “Peter Cottontail,” released by Lisa Loeb and The Hollow Trees, just over a week ago.

I had planned on making several egg-related puns here, but instead, I’m going to spare everyone that pain and just say, Cheers and Happy Easter!