Category: default || By jt3y

There are two sure signs of spring: The swallows return to San Juan Capistrano and the inflatable plastic Easter bunnies return to West Mifflin.

For more than a decade, McKeesport physician Rudolph Antoncic and his family have been decorating the outside of their home on Skyline Drive for Easter, and what started years ago as a few plastic rabbits and eggs has become a legion of colorful rabbits and other critters that now sprawls out across the front, back and side yards and lately seems to be invading the neighbors' yard, too.



And this is no mere haphazard assemblage. These are bunnies set up with imagination and a purpose. There are bunny mobsters planning a heist, a bunny crime scene investigation, bunnies exercising, bunnies playing sports, bunny crocodile hunters. In fact, if you look hard enough, you'll probably find just about anything it's possible to do with an inflatable plastic Easter bunny (except that, you weirdo) someplace in the Antoncics' yard.



Setting up the annual bunny display takes days, but given the number of cars that slow or stop to peruse the tableaux lapins, you'd have to admit the effort is worth it.



So if you're in a bad mood, hop into your car and scamper up to Skyline Drive. You'd have to be pretty hard-hearted (or Elmer Fudd) not to get a kick out of this. Thanks to the Antoncics for putting on this display each year for no remuneration or compensation --- just the sheer silly pleasure of doing something for the community.

. . .

‘Big Top’ Folds: Speaking of silly pleasures, one of my favorite comic strips, "Big Top," seen in the Daily News and about 40 other papers, has come to an end after five years. Creator Rob Harrell told Editor and Publisher that the strip never caught on with newspapers and it was time to move onto other projects. The strip, set in a run-down traveling circus, ran its last new installment on Sunday.

Harrell, 37, made national headlines last year when he underwent surgery for eye cancer and other artists filled in for him while he recovered.

And there's more bad news on the comics pages: Sources say that "Beetle Bailey," "The Phantom," "Marmaduke," "The Family Circus," "The Lockhorns" and other so-called "funnies" are expected to continue "indefinitely," or until the last newspaper subscriber dies.