With the help of a time machine, Peter Cottontail must rescue Easter from the hands of the malicious Irontail.
When the Chief Easter Bunny retires, he chooses Peter Cottontail as his successor. However, the reclusive January Q. Irontail wants the position as well, seeking to revenge himself upon children everywhere for the destruction of his tail. He proposes he and Peter have a race to see who can deliver the most eggs. Due to his own carelessness and Irontail's meddling, Peter oversleeps and loses the job. Luckily, a strange man and a caterpillar give him access to a time machine so Peter can set things right. Unfortunately, Irontail is there with the intention of thwarting him every step of the way.—cupcakes
Peter Cottontail (Casey Kasem) is a young Easter Bunny who lives in April Valley, where all the other Easter bunnies live and work, making Easter candy, sewing bonnets, and decorating and delivering Easter eggs.
Colonel Wellington B. Bunny (also voiced by Danny Kaye), the retiring Chief Easter Bunny, names Peter his successor, despite his boasting and fibbing, exemplified when his left ear droops. Peter, who's dreamt of becomign the Chief Easter Bunny pretty much his entire life, gladly accepts the offer. However, January Q. Irontail (Vincent Price), a reclusive rabbit villain, wants to be Chief Easter Bunny, only so he can ruin the holiday for children everywhere, as revenge for the loss of his tail, which was run over by a small child who roller-skated over it and had to be replaced with a prosthesis made of iron, thus giving him his name. He then goes to April Valley where Colonel Bunny is about to crown Peter the new Chief Easter Bunny and proposes a contest to see who delivers the most eggs and wins in order to be the new Chief Easter Bunny, so the Constitution of April Valley states. Peter, eager to prove his worth accepts the challenge, though the Colonel refuses. Although Peter promises the Colonel that he won't fail, he stays up late partying with his friends. Though he tells his rooster to wake him up at 5:30 AM, Irontail sneaks into his house and feeds magic bubblegum to it, causing the crows to float so far away that Peter can't hear them, resulting in sleeping through and losing the contest.
Even though Irontail delivers only one egg, it's still more than what Peter delivered -- as a result, Irontail's named the new Chief Easter Bunny, as per the constitution and begins passing laws that will doubtlessly make the Easter holiday a depressing fiasco, such as dyeing eggs brown and gray, making chocolate tarantulas and octopuses instead of bunnies and chicks, and Easter galoshes instead of bonnets. Meanwhile, Peter, ashamed that his overconfidence and irresponsibility led to this tragedy, leaves April Valley in disgrace. The next morning, he meets Seymour S. Sassafras (Danny Kaye), an eccentric and friendly peddler and inventor who supplies April Valley with the dyes it uses to color its Easter eggs with, which he gets from the vegetables he grows in his Garden of Surprises from red, white, and blue cabbages and purple corn to striped tomatoes and orange string beans.
Proving to be very compassionate and understanding, Sassafras lets Peter use his time machine, called the Yestermorrowmobile, which can transport anyone to yesterday or tomorrow. With the help of its pilot, a French caterpillar named Antoine (also voiced by Danny Kaye) , Peter will be able to go back to Easter and deliver his eggs, win the contest, and defeat Irontail. Unfortunately, Irontail finds out about Peter's plan and sends his spider to sabotage the Yestemorrowbile's controls, thereby making it so that Peter and Antoine can go to any holiday but Easter. While Antoine tries to fix the machine, Peter discovers something that could help him defeat Irontail: as it would seem, the rules of contest don't explicitly say that the eggs have to be delivered on Easter. Learning this, Peter tries giving his eggs away on other holidays:
He first tries giving them to a mother and her two kids on Mother's Day, but they don't want the eggs, with the woman's son saying, "Who wants Easter eggs on Mother's Day?"Peter then tries giving his eggs away on the 4th of July, even lying to a pair of kids by claiming that the eggs are actually fireworks (which doesn't work out).After that, Peter and Antoine land on Halloween. Peter ends up meeting a witch named Madame Esmeralda (Joan Gardner) and Peter gives her a Halloween-egg. When she calls the other creatures of Halloween together, Irontail sends his pet bat, Montresor, out to steal and smash Peter's eggs. Fortunately, Peter and Antoine recover all of the eggs.
Fortunately, Peter and Antoine recover all of the eggs.Unfortunately, Peter cannot go back to Halloween to give out the rest of his eggs since Antoine has to land the Yestermorrowmobile to keep up with the repairs. The duo eventually lands on Christmas Eve -- Peter tries but fails to give away his Christmas-eggs while dressed as Santa Claus. During this, he reunites with an old friend of his named Bonnie Bonnet (also voiced byJoan Gardner), who had left April Valley years earlier. Bonnie's all alone in a hat shop and laments to Peter how no one wants to buy her at this time of year -- Peter then makes a deal with the hat shop's owner (also voiced by Joan Gardner): he trade Bonnie for his Christmas eggs. The store owner agrees to this, However, Irontail steals the eggs and Peter and Bonnie go after him, accidentally leaving Antoine behind. After demanding Irontail return the eggs to Peter, Santa returns the eggs to Peter without Peter having a chance to thank him.
Peter and Bonnie eventually land on Valentine's Day, where Peter meets lovely lady bunny named Donna (Iris Rainer) who takes an interest in his Valentine-eggs. However, Irontail finds the eggs and casts an evil spell on them, turning them all green, inside and out. Everyone who had gotten a Valentine-egg returned it to Peter -- even Donna returned hers.
In the end, Peter wins the contest by giving away all his eggs on St. Patrick's Day, especially the eggs are an appropriate color for the holiday. As a result, Peter's made the new Chief Easter Bunny while Antoine returns as a butterfly. Irontail's forced to work as a janitor in April Valley.
