Somewhere in Dreamland (1936)

Somewhere in Dreamland (A Max Fleischer Color Classic, 1936) 
Dir.: Dave Fleischer
Animators: Roland Crandall; Seymour Kneitel
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

Just how cute is too cute? Just how schmaltzy is too schmaltzy? These questions were apparently never considered when Fleischer Studios were cobbling together their ode to Depression-era depression, Somewhere In Dreamland in 1936. 

Rife with enough opening sadness to make you slit your wrists about four minutes into it, Dreamland features two cutesy-wootsy, hardscrabble waifs (with piercingly eerie beads for black eyes) who fall into a slumber and encounter a magical land far removed from the harsh realm in which they barely get by with their doting but worried mother. How hardscrabble are they? The boy walks around the snowy streets of their burg completely barefoot (and never seems to notice it), and when they go to bed at night, the blankets that they pull up in a meticulously neat fashion are moth-eaten collections of wayward strings, with all of the inner panels long eaten away.

The boy and girl drag a cart through the streets of the town collecting stray pieces of wood (presumably for their stove), and as they make their pathetic way, they attract the notice of first a toymaker, then a grocer, and finally, a baker. When the kids reach the bakery, the boy and girl stare with drooling mouths into the window at a massive collection of cupcakes, muffins and other baked deliciousness, but reality smacks the kids across their brains when they realize that their dreaming is all for naught.

Meanwhile, the baker has run inside his shop to prepare a gentle surprise for the children: two gorgeous looking cupcakes, but the children have disappeared long before the baker steps back out of his shop, having gone around the corner with their cart to return home. The three men confer on the matter, and one of them claims to know where the children live. If you are thinking an evil cabal that plans to cook the children in a pie, then you are in the wrong cartoon.

Meanwhile, the kids greet their mother at home, and their home is the very definition of the word "ramshackle". (Cinematically, possibly the only place more sorry-looking could be Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard's "home" in Modern Times, but that home has Paulette living in it, so how sorry-looking could it actually be?) Their mother, who looks like a far more sedate and prematurely aged Olive Oyl, does her best to feed her children what little food she can proffer: 2 mugs of hot milk and a small loaf of bread that is as hard as granite. The mother has to use all her strength to snap the bread in twain.

The girl solves this problem by smartly dunking her bread in her milk, and the boy follows suit; he complicates matters when he declares, "But I'm still hungry, mama!" The woman begins to weep openly, and the boy manages to console her by saying, "Ah, that's alright! I was only foolin'!" Mom kisses the kids off to bed, and after they change into their nightgowns and pull up those tattered blankets I mentioned previously, the little boy starts to sing the title song in an almost possessed manner with incredibly broad, descriptive hand motions:

"I'll see you somewhere in dreamland
Somewhere in dreamland tonight!
Over a bridge made of moonbeams
We'll find our clouds are silver-lined!"

The little girl takes over the second verse, and her brother rejoins her on the closing line:

"Each little star is a castle
Shining a welcome so bright!
Dreams will come true
For me and you
Somewhere in dreamland tonight!"

Once the kids fall asleep, their blankets dissipate, and their dream-selves float up and away to the pillowed gates of the land of their impoverishment-influenced dreams. When they arrive, and as the title song is now repeated by first female and then male voices, the kids immediately run to a tree on which they find new clothes to replace their tattered nightgowns. The kids change behind two giant hatboxes, and then skip along the cookie-laden pathways to a field full of lilies, underneath which grow magical ice cream cones. The kids pick the flavors they like best, and one of the lilies tips over to pour chocolate or butterscotch sauce over the frozen treasure.

Licking their dream-cones happily, the kids skip joyously past giant cakes, cookies, and other treats, and then pass a sign proclaiming a "Syrup River" as they come to an arch made of ribbon candy. One of the kids says, "Ain't we got fun?" as they climb aboard the animal cracker horses that surround a chocolate merry-go-round. As the kids twirl about, instead of grabbing the traditional golden ring, they grab a doughnut. While the sister only takes one, the brother grabs a handful of them in a flurry of greediness!

They run off munching and stuffing their faces, but the next sight makes them drop their sugary booty in awe: a popcorn field, where the cornstalks shoot the corn high into the air until it comes down like rain, and buttercups are employed as reservoirs of golden butter into which each popped kernel is dipped. After feasting to their hearts’ content, the kids skip along past a great number of toys, and they each pick out their favorite items with which to play. Their arms loaded with swag, they finally chance upon a tree with pillows hanging from its branches, and a pair of beds so comfortable-looking, the kids can't help themselves but to bounce high upon the mattresses. They eventually fall back to sleep, and then they are awakened by their mother come the morning.

The kids get out of bed, and at first, are disappointed when it turns out their dual dream was just that: a dream. But from their beds, they can see the kitchen table, and after rubbing their eyes, they find that their dismal abode (apart from their bedrooms) has been transformed overnight into a cornucopia of food and toys. A large turkey rests upon the table, streamers hang from the ceiling, and there are dolls, airplanes, hobby horses, and other toys scattered all around the room. "For us?", the kids twice ask the three kind merchants, who were hiding on the other side of the wall. "For you!", they twice concur. The kids dive right into plates of delicious ice cream, but then the boy pokes himself in the butt with his fork to make sure it is all not still a dream. He is delighted to find out that he feels a sharp pain, and the kids squeal with delight as they continue to gorge themselves on cupcakes and ice cream. Dissolve to the Paramount logo to end the cartoon.

The Fleischer Brothers briefly tuck the three-dimensional tricks into their backpocket for the first half of this one, with the opening four minutes pretty much portrayed in straight 2D animation, perhaps to add more grimness and focus to the despair of the children's world, meant to reflect reality (though it is still far from it). But, once the kids are floating into their fantasies, the guys snap the special effects hankie back at the film, sharply delineating their sugary dreamland with idealized versions of all manner of desserts, fairy castles, amusement rides, and toys. Especially memorable is the conjunction of ultra-dimensional animation in the chocolate cake merry-go-round scene, certainly the most remarkable bit of animation in the film. It is telling of the film that there is not enough of this world, such is the saccharine success of the vision, and like the kids in the film, we are left wanting more.

I know that the movies were a major source of psychological relief during the Great Depression, and many of them were apt to show such conditions, and then have the characters reach some sort of turning point by which their lives would become better; this film certainly offers no divergence from this “moxie buildin’” mold. Films featuring grand acts of paternalistic altruism by those better off, such as the empathetic shop owners in this film, may have been produced in that age, but just as likely were films showing far more successful businessmen as cruel and selfish individuals. But none of that in the Color Classics series. As sad as the Fleischers want to make you feel, they also have a need to leave the audience cheerful by film's end. So, no matter the amount of pathos ladled on like so much gravy, the audience is still going to come out with a warm feeling in their stomach... and only the slightest case of heartburn.

Just like the kids in this film, we all gotta dream, and no matter the candy-coated fantasia that we travel to in our sleep, sometimes when we wake up, the world actually is just a little bit better than before.

You'd better poke yourself with that fork, kiddo, because obviously, you are still somewhere in dreamland...

*****

And in case you haven't seen it:

[This article was updated with new photos and edited on 12/12/2015.]

Butterscotch and Soda (1948)

Butterscotch and Soda (Famous Studios/Paramount, 1948)
Dir: Seymour Kneitel
Cel Bloc Rating: 8/9

Crash and burn. That's Little Audrey's main problem. The girl eats impossibly large amounts of candy, then burns out once the sugar high finally fizzes off. The girl is a little chocolate speed freak; it's no wonder nearly every one of her early films involves her "taking a trip" to a mythical fairyland, though usually covered by the excuse of a bad dream during a catnap.

Little Audrey was Famous Studios (and Paramount's) replacement for another "Little" girl: Lulu, the famous heroine of Marge's popular comic series, lost to the studio in a contract dispute. Audrey looks nothing like her predecessor, and has her own complete world with which to contend, so there is no copyright infringement at work here; she is merely a different girl on which the studio could (eventually) hang a series, though most of her cartoons came out under the Noveltoon banner. Like other Famous stars, she was quickly draped with a highly restrictive formula that hampered the storylines; unlike many of her fellow characters, her films (due to their fantasy structure) were often a little more inventive, with the writers having to come up with a handful of gags in each cartoon appropriate to whatever fantasy world she was seeing in her head at that time.

Compared to the Casper the Friendly Ghost series, which had a pure fantasy setup due to its ghostly hero and had the potential to be far more inventive, the Little Audrey films are actually (on the whole, and this is just my personal opinion) twice as engaging as Casper's films, especially in a visual sense. This second film for the series (the first was Santa's Surprise in 1947, though she also did a cameo in Olive Oyl For President before this film) is no exception, and is actually a fairly perceptive and shocking, though basic, primer on addictive personality.

Butterscotch and Soda sets the true tone for the series, as it is the first to deal with Audrey's fantasy world within her head (in Santa's Surprise, she and a group of international cuties actually go to Santa's home); the set-up of Audrey, though, runs on longer than normal, so the fantasy world actually gets short shrift time-wise. Audrey also has a slightly more bulbous head than she would have in the cartoons immediately following (typical with the first appearance of a character, her design still seems unfinished, though her ubiquitous blue dress, pigtails, shoes, socks and white panties outfit are already established from the beginning). In the first shot of her, with her wild, widely set apart eyes greedily staring at a monstrous bag of chocolate, she almost seems as if she could devour Tokyo is she so chose (though such a thing was not to be considered yet as of 1948).

Audrey says "Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo! I think that I will choose this one!" and then grabs a handful of chocolates from the bag, devouring them all in a single gulp. She repeats this, causing her stereotypical big black mammy of a housekeeper (replete with kerchief, striped stockings, and a slovenly, though busybody, shuffle) to nag her incessantly about not eating her lunch. Her lunch, it turns out, could feed an army, with a steak so big that I believe it could choke Gwangi, and the housekeeper catches Audrey wolfing down her non-nutritious sack of sweets, and forces the little girl to the table. "I just can't understand a child eating candy 48 hours a day,” the mammy character says, as Audrey not only uses a fork to pick up bites of her lunch, but also uses a second fork to stuff even more candy into her mouth from the bag now tied to the side of the table. The first fork, however, never makes it to her mouth, instead being held out behind her to feed the dog on the floor, who salts each piece before he bites it.

The mammy discovers what is happening, when Audrey reaches behind her to feed the dog another piece, the fork will not come back. She turns around to find the Mammy lying on the floor behind Audrey, with the fork in her mouth instead of the dog’s, glaring at the little girl disapprovingly. She picks up Audrey and locks her in the bedroom for "the whole weekend, if that's what it takes", especially as she notices at the last minute another bag of candy marked "Friday" hanging from Audrey's window sill, followed by bags marked "Saturday", "Sunday", "Monday", and "And Always". (A popular Frank Sinatra tune of the day was Sunday, Monday or Always, and the gag is punctuated by the closing strains of its chorus.) 

Once the mammy leaves, Audrey goes into a true addict's panic, tearing the room apart looking for more candy. She remembers where her final stash is hidden (in the ceiling lamp), but a mouse has beaten her to it. Almost collapsing on the bed, she imagines her umbrella is a candy cane, and bolts towards it but only ends up with a mouthful of umbrella. Her pet bird becomes chocolate in her mind, and when she tries to grab it from its cage, the bird flies about the room. In an astounding moment, the shadow of the bird on the wall transforms into that of a giant vampire bat that cloaks the room in darkness. The darkness then shifts to that of Audrey's open, screaming mouth, as the camera pulls back to reveal the little girl gripping the wall, and further pulls back as she continues to scream, in a true Hitchcockian moment almost straight out of Spellbound, with the girl tiny against the tremendous walls of her room, each one painted a different hue, which then swirl into a kaleidoscope of spinning color.

The ride stops, and we see a shiny red cherry, and when the camera pulls back, the cherry is atop a gigantic sundae, surrounded by candy cane fields. We are obviously in some sort of Candyland setting. Audrey is sitting on a chocolate brick road, and the sweet-addicted little piggy wastes no time in chomping hungrily into one of the bricks. Her attention is diverted by the fields about her, with lollipops growing from the ground, and marshmallows hanging in the sky like clouds.

Little Audrey begins to pick huge handfuls of lollipops, filling up a sack as she goes, even while grazing the entire time. Her bag gets even bigger as she fills it with Boston Baked Jelly Beans, which she pans from a giant pot, and Licorice Drops that are dropped from a dump truck. She passes by signs that read "I'd Walk A Mile For A Caramel" (whether this is an intentional joking comparison with an equally addictive item, I do not know, but doubt highly), and finally the bag is so big that it completely dwarfs the little girl.

Then Audrey reaches her limit. She begins to develop moving red and white stripes on her face like a barber pole and she grows steadily more nauseous. Her tremendous bag of candy shape-shifts into a large, menacing ghost who points accusingly at her and chases her as he sings the following swingin' but evil song, accompanied by various denizens of the Candyland:

Bag Ghost: 
"You've got the Tummy Ache Blues!
The Tummy Ache Blues!
The Tummy Ache Blues!
You've got the Tummy Ache Blues
From eating all the candy you did!"

Flying Black Gumdrops: 
"You'll fret right down to your shoes!
Your woes will all come in bunches of twos!
You've got the Tummy Ache Blues!
You're gonna be the sorriest kid!"

Chocolate Bar Ghost: 
"You bit off more choc-o-late than you can chew!
You went and made a big, big pig of little you!"

All: 
"You've got the Tummy Ache Blues!
The look on your face is tellin' the news!
You've got the Tummy Ache Blues
From eating all the candy you did!
From eating all the candy you did!"

Through this ordeal, the candy fiends keep chasing her and she struggles to keep her distance from them. After some candy canes with sledge hammers (who were working a chain-gang on a Rock Candy Mountain) go after her, she ends up slogging through the muck on Fresh Fudge Road, and a Candy Steamroller driven by what looks like a Tootsie Roll heads towards her for a final flattening. The screen swirls again, and Audrey is sitting on a chair in a dark room surrounded by the all of the candy fiends again. This time, while singing a reprise of The Tummy Ache Blues, they force Audrey's mouth as wide as it can possibly go and pour the contents of an unending bag of candy into her helpless maw.

Audrey wakes up in her own bed with the mammy dripping water on her from a cool washcloth. She offers Audrey "all the candy you want!" and Audrey panics, practically flying from the room. The final shot shows the dog sitting at the table and dining with two forks the Audrey did before, only this time Audrey is the one on the floor, salting each piece as she happily eats her dinner.

I don't know about most people, but this is the sort of cartoon, if you see it at the right age, that will stick in your imagination for life. It is more frightening than probably meant, though clearly it was meant to be somewhat that way. Nowadays, even with the supposed sophistication of kids due to the culture growing up so much faster, we tend to coddle kids of the age for which these old cartoons were once made. They will find nothing even a thousandth so shocking in a Backyardigans or Bob the Builder episode, for examples, even if the filmmakers were telling a story with similar intentions. This is because the fright is reduced to a minimum and any lessons that involve something that might be scary are always always undercut these days with a knowing wink at the audience; no such outlet is to be found in this cartoon.

While I did not see Butterscotch and Soda as a child (I think my track record of collecting my childhood obsessions and fears will show clearly that this one would have stuck with me forever), it is certainly memorable when viewed as an adult, so I certainly understand those friends of mine who have hesitantly fond memories of the terrors within it. Also, the film has a vicious streak of racism built into it due to the design of the mammy character. While this aspect of it was rather expected to be such in the year that it was made, today it plays as highly problematic for most viewers (myself included, though unlike many, I am able to place these things in historical context).

Those gripes aside, all I know is that I have a swell song to sing when those ol' Tummy Ache Blues kick in...

And in case you haven't seen it:

[Editor's note: The text and photos for this article were updated on 12/9/2015.]