Roo is upset when Rabbit cancels Easter and declares "Spring Cleaning Day" instead. Both Tigger and the narrator work to get to the bottom of Rabbit's Scrooge-like behaviour.
This is notable as being the only Winnie the Pooh holiday special not to consist of any Stock Footage from New Adventures Of Winnie the Pooh episodes or any previous outings.
Tropes in this work include:
- Armor-Piercing Question: Played With: When confronted by how much he had hurt Rabbit by taking away his Easter Bunny role, Tigger tries to weakly claim that he and the others only did it to give Roo a happy Easter, and asks "I mean, didn't you want to give him a happy Easter, too?" This backfires, as Rabbit simply orders Tigger to go away, saddened by being excluded and over Tigger getting Roo's praise instead.
- Aside Comment: After Rabbit's change of heart about Easter. Tigger makes a comment lampshading the Yet Another Christmas Carol nature of the story.Tigger: "What the Dickens-*to the audience*- And I do mean 'Dickens'-*turns back to Rabbit*- is going on here?"
- Bad Future: The end result of Rabbit if he does not reconsider his hatred of Easter. His friends, Roo especially, have grown sick of him cancelling Easter and hosting Spring Cleaning Day in its place, that they've moved out of the wood and their homes have become deserted. They even took their Easter decorations with them, and Rabbit is alone.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In the hypothetical future Mr. Narrator created, Rabbit is happy to have everything ready for Spring Cleaning Day. Except that there's no one else to "celebrate" it with him.
- Big Brother Instinct: The biggest motivation for Tigger trying to convince Rabbit to bring back Easter is because he wants Roo to have a happy Easter. Unfortunately, this instinct played a big part of Rabbit banning Easter in the first place, as it led to Tigger getting everyone to do the egg hunt behind Rabbit’s back the previous year, leaving him feeling very bitter and left out, especially since he wanted to impress Roo himself.
- Big "NO!": When Rabbit tries to undo his Bad Future where everyone leaves the Hundred Acre Wood due to his bossy attitude, he opens the chest where he locked away everyone's special Easter things, but finds the chest empty, proving that they were serious about leaving him for good and they took the decorations with them when they left, and he lets out an anguished "NOOOOOOOOOO!". Fortunately, this entire sequence is revealed to be All Just a Dream.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Rabbit screams "STOP!" at the very end of "The Way It Must Be Done", frustrated that no one is following his rules.
- Borrowed Catchphrase:
- After Tigger bounces Eeyore, he is helped back up, only for Roo to do the same.
- When trying to solve the problem with Rabbit, the whole gang imitate Pooh's "think" method, even Kanga and Eeyore.
- After Rabbit's giddy epiphany, he notices he's starting to sound like Tigger, and mimics his trademark "Woo-hoo-hoooo!" in amusement.
- At the very end of the film, Roo does a variant on Tigger's "But Now I Must Go" catchphrase to end it all off: "BBFN: Bye Bye For Now!"
- Both Sides Have a Point: The fallout of Easter. While Rabbit was being too much of a control freak and was forcing everyone to follow his draconic rules, the others ultimately did decide to have their own Easter without Rabbit, leaving him alone and miserable, despite how important the holiday is to him. While the focus is on Rabbit's epiphany, the others clearly feel bad after realising this and try to make amends for him.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: This special doesn't so much break it as bulldoze it to oblivion, with ceaseless asides from the cast, and the Interactive Narrator routinely helping them move the story along.
- Control Freak: Rabbit has this attitude throughout last year’s Easter, demanding everyone to follow his rules. When they disobey him, he becomes upset and vows never to celebrate Easter again.
- Dark Reprise: Roo sadly singing the song about what he loves about Easter after Tigger's attempts to have Rabbit bring back Easter all while Rabbit is watching this outside.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Roo and Rabbit. The narrator also gets a more proactive role than usual.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Rabbit cancels Easter after seeing everyone having fun at last year's Easter without him.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: After finding their Easter decorations hidden in Rabbit's closet, the group assume that Rabbit just innocently forgot it was Easter and surprise him by decorating his house. He promptly goes berserk.
- Easter Special: The movie is about the Hundred Acre Wood trying to celebrate Easter combined with the story of A Christmas Carol.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Roo waking up to find the tattered Easter Bunny hat on his bunny plushie gives him a bright idea on how to make Rabbit happy. By letting Rabbit be the Easter Bunny like he was supposed to be last year.
- Freudian Excuse:
- The reason Rabbit banned Easter was because last year when his Control Freak tendencies got too much for his friends, they took the Easter decorations and did the Easter Egg hunt behind his back. And what really got to Rabbit was hearing that the others (Roo in particular) happily declaring Tigger to be the "best Easter Bunny ever", causing him to decide to never allow them another Easter again.
- On the other hand, the reason Tigger and the others did the above was that Rabbit wasn’t allowing them to have any fun, with Tigger even claiming that they only wanted to give Roo a happy Easter when they did it.
- Gilligan Cut: Just as the gang nearly finish singing about having a "flippity, floppity, hippity, hoppity, hap-py..." *zip* "Spring Cleaning Day!"Tigger: Well that wasn't quite what I had in mind.
- Green-Eyed Monster: It's implied that Rabbit became so obsessive with Easter specifically to impress Roo, unfortunately it backfired and only made the whole thing finicky and militant. While he's only annoyed when the others run off to do the egg hunt without him, he's crushed when he hears Roo say he prefers Tigger as the Easter Bunny.
- Guilt-Induced Nightmare: After Rabbit has angrily canceled Easter, he dreams about the narrator showing him what will happen if he doesn't overcome his Control Freak tendencies or uncancel Easter; everyone will move out of the Hundred Acre Wood, leaving him all alone. This convinces Rabbit to bring Easter back.
- Ignored Epiphany: After the Dark Reprise and Roo going to bed, Rabbit has none of that and mutters how it's everyone else's fault, not his.
- Interactive Narrator: Even more so than usual, due to "Mr Narr-at-tor" playing the role of the three ghosts for Rabbit's Yet Another Christmas Carol.
- Innocently Insensitive: What kickstarted Rabbit's "Spring Cleaning Day" mindset? Him overhearing Roo's Big Brother Worship for Tigger being the Easter Rabbit after everything else went downhill. Tigger apologizes for how they treated Rabbit, but Rabbit has none of that.
- Tigger and the others also fall into this, as they failed to realize or even remember what they had done to Rabbit the past year, expecting him to continue hosting Easter for them despite esstienally casting him aside in favour of Tigger. It takes Tigger also being taken to the past with Rabbit for him and the others to realize what exactly they had done to Rabbit and how much they had hurt his feelings.
- It's All About Me: Rabbit makes the Easter holiday "Spring Cleaning Day" and cancels all the activities and wants everything done his way and not even caring about the others wanting to have fun.
- Jerkass Realization: Downplayed as he and the others hadn’t meant to be hurtful, but when he and Rabbit revisit the previous Easter, Tigger realizes how much he and the others had hurt Rabbit when they excluded him from their Easter egg hunt, and he and the others spend the rest of the movie trying to think of how to make it up to Rabbit.
- Kicked Upstairs: After too many frustrations from Pooh during Spring Cleaning Day, Rabbit "promotes" him to supervisor, which is apparently someone who sits on a stool and doesn't cause trouble. Amusingly he still ends up getting the plot going by accidentally uncovering all of Rabbit's easter decorations.
- Lampshade Hanging: At the start of "The Grandest Easter Ever (Rabbit's Reprise)" Rabbit sings that Pooh and the others won't believe it's true as he knows exactly what to do to celebrate Easter.
- Leitmotif: Instrumentals of both the original Winnie the Pooh theme and "The Most Wonderful Thing About Tiggers" are used in scenes introducing the respective characters.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": Everyone gets it in the final act of the movie when Rabbit arrives at Kanga and Roo's house, knowing that Rabbit is absolute pissed off about anything Easter-related.
- Musicalis Interruptus:
- As Pooh and the gang reach the climax of "We're Huntin' Eggs Today", they are suddenly stopped by Rabbit who exclaims, "Spring Cleaning Day!".
- "The Way It Must Be Done" is abruptly halted by Rabbit stopping everyone from doing their own things.
- Must Make Amends: Roo, after he learns how much he and the others had hurt Rabbit's feelings the past year, even being more concerned with making Rabbit again rather then not having his Easter egg hunt.
- Never My Fault: Rabbit blames everyone else for not following his rules or doing as he says as to why he hates Easter, not realizing that it's his Control Freak attitude that is what caused everyone else to have fun without him. It takes the narrator showing him a vision of a Bad Future to set him straight. In contrast, Tigger realizes that he and everyone else were insensitive to what they did the year before when he sees how hurt Rabbit is over what happened.
- Never Trust a Title: Despite the movie's title beginning with "Winnie the Pooh", it's Roo and Rabbit who are the main stars here. Pooh's name is just there for branding sake.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The Narrator's vision of Easter the year after shows everyone having left the Hundred Acre Wood after they got tired of Rabbit's Control Freak tendencies.
- Not So Above It All:
- Eeyore borders on uncharacteristically jovial about Easter in parts of the film. He apparently loves wearing fluffy bunny ears as an Easter tradition, and can even be heard laughing during last year's egg hunt.
- The narrator gets rather playful trolling Rabbit, even taking on a ghostly voice at one point.
- Kanga joins in on Pooh's "Think Think" moment and at the end, she even celebrates Easter with the rest of the gang in a childish fashion.
- Rule of Symbolism: The Easter Rabbit hat which is worn by whoever is the Easter Rabbit. Rabbit stomps on it in the beginning to emphasize how there will be no more Easter, but it's only when Roo gathers everyone else to patch it up that Easter is brought back. Roo gives it back to Rabbit to finalise the latter's mending.
- Scare 'Em Straight: After Rabbit doesn't get the hint about bringing Easter back, the narrator decides to take things into his own hands.
- The Scrooge: Rabbit is left incredibly bitter about Easter, after his attempt one year ago ending up going crazy, trying to abolish it in favour of Spring Cleaning Day.
- Secondary Character Title: While Roo is an important character in the movie, the story is really about Rabbit.
- Serious Business: Rabbit takes Easter very seriously, wanting everything perfect, on schedule and how he wants it to go. This gets deconstructed as Rabbit is so focused on doing Easter/Spring Cleaning Day his way, that it would potentially cause everyone else to leave for good.
- Tears of Joy: Rabbit, after Roo gives him back his mended Easter Bunny hat.
- Trauma Button: Easter has become one for Rabbit, due to the bad blood from last year. He has a brief BSOD from seeing his house littered with Easter decorations before angrily throwing the others out.
- Triumphant Reprise:
- Following Roo's Dark Reprise as said above, "Easter Day With You" returns in a more celebratory fashion at the end.
- "The Way It Must Be Done" also returns in a more peppy manner as Rabbit has a change of heart and declares Easter for everyone.
- T-Word Euphemism: Rabbit doesn't want to hear the word "Easter," so at one point Tigger tells Roo to not say "the E word."
- Unfulfilled Purpose Misery: Rabbit tells Tigger "Every spring, I look forward to one thing most of all. Being the Easter bunny. You took that away from me."
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Christopher Robin, Owl and Gopher aren’t mentioned in the Bad Future, implying that they left the Hundred Acre Wood, along with everyone else.
- Yet Another Christmas Carol: An Easter variation centered around Rabbit. Tigger plays a Marley type role, while the narrator uses their manipulation of the book's timeline to play the three ghosts and Roo is a stand-in for Tiny Tim.
- You, Get Me Coffee: After too many blunders in "Spring Cleaning Day" duties, Rabbit "promotes" Pooh to supervisor, which is apparently someone who sits perfectly still "and doesn't cause trouble".
