It's A Very Special Cel Bloc Xmas: Santa's Surprise (1947)

Santa's Surprise (A Paramount/Famous Noveltoon, 1947)
Dir.: Seymour Kneitel
Cel Bloc Rating: 5/9

And just what are you getting dear ol' Santa Claus for Christmas? After all, he's going out of his way for you, and what are you planning to give him in return? Milk and cookies again? Have you even considered that he might be either lactose intolerant or have a terrible time with gluten? He's also a pretty hefty guy. What if he has the diabetes?

I'm sorry, but these things simply must be asked these days. Sure, Santa Claus is flying wildly around the entire globe in a single night, giving out presents all willy-nilly, but you can be sure he has kept his records up on you, and knows about your vinyl allergy or that time you shoved a Lego up your own nose when you were seven and couldn't get it out for a fortnight. The guy does his research -- he has a whole year to prepare -- and it doesn't mean you can just crack open a bag of Chips Ahoy and pour out some 2% into a glass without finding out whether your actions might have some serious medical consequences for the guy. Be a little more considerate of your elders, especially when they have been around for several hundreds of years. We don't get a lot of those anymore.

Little Audrey cares. Oh, sure... over the next few years, she is going to come down with some serious problems in her cartoon series such as a nasty sugar addiction, harming little animals, attention deficit disorder, and bringing a major drought to the land simply from her wishing. And dreaming... the girl has some seriously, crazy-ass dreams. I think she has tapped into another dimension entirely built of weird fantasy worlds -- some of them nightmarish -- and she seems to get stuck in one those dreamworlds nearly every other picture. Little Audrey is nothing if not tapped in fully to her neuroses.

But in her very first picture for Famous Studios, Santa's Surprise from 1947, she is just a caring, lovable good girl. Sure, she goes a little overboard with her caring and runs away with a bunch of other little kids to the North Pole, but she is a good girl nonetheless. She had better be good, because this cartoon is all about Santa as he winds down from his annual Christmas sprint. After a warm and cozy credit sequence filled with images of a Christmas tree, cards, and presents, we see the silhouette of a very familiar sleigh pulled by reindeer across the shining moon. Santa Claus is singing from the very moment we see him in close up:

"Every once a year,
when Christmas comes,
I pack my sled 
with dolls and drums.
And I'm on my way with happiness
for little girls and boys!"

We see Santa and his reindeer fly down through a landscape filled with windmills, signifying his arrival in Holland. Inside a home, we see Santa's shadow as he fills a stocking, and crawling out from under the bed is a small, smiling, blonde-haired boy. Off on his way to the next stop, Santa continues his song:

"Oh, there isn't any
place too far.
I go wherever 
children are.
Always on my way with happiness
wrapped up in fancy toys!"

Santa next arrives in China, and while he fills the next stocking, he is scrutinized by a small Chinese boy watching Santa's reflection in a mirror. The song continues as the reindeer fly:

"On my Christmas list,
I have many names and places!"

The reindeer chime in as a chorus:

"Though we've never seen their faces,
we know each one and the good they've done!"

In a big American city, Santa fills the stockings in another home. This time, there are names for each stocking hanging from the mantle: "Mom," "Pop," and "Little Audrey". As Santa fills up Audrey's, he realizes that the toys are falling through the bottom of the stocking, but then sees there is a waiting basket collecting everything, and he chuckles warmly. The camera pans to the other side of the room, where Audrey is pretending to sleep, sneaking open one eye to check on Santa's progress. Just as he starts to leave, Santa suddenly discovers he has forgotten one stocking, that of a mouse who peeks out of his mousehole, standing next to a tiny blue sock on a nail. As Santa leans down to place a wedge of cheese in the sock, the mouse hides. Returning to his sleigh, Santa sings once more:

"Over hill and dale,
again this year,
I brought glad tidings
and good cheer!
So until another Christmas day
when I pay another call,
I say Merry Christmas to all!"

On the last line, Santa's sleigh is seen from outer space, circling the globe to reach the North Pole, sticking high out of the earth at the top. We see Santa's mailbox, empty for the moment, and the jolly old elf climbs out of his sleigh wearily. Inside his workshop, he catches the collar of his coat purposefully on a hook and allows it to slide off of him as he stumbles forward. Now dressed in his nightshirt and cap, Santa tucks himself into his bed and yawns. Sitting up suddenly, he looks into the mirror on his vanity table and tells his reflection, "Merry Christmas!" and lays back down to sleep.

As Santa starts to snore loudly, blowing the ball of his nightcap up as he does, the scene cuts to outside his workshop, where Little Audrey peeks out from under a cover on the sleigh. She says, "Hey, kids! I betcha he's asleep now, I betcha!" From inside the workshop, we see seven hands rubbing the snow off the window outside to peer in at Santa Claus asleep in his bed. We see the faces of seven children of different races and nationalities through the holes in the frost. The camera scans the room and shows that Santa has made quite the mess in preparation for the holidays.

Outside, Little Audrey stands in the middle of the kids and says sadly, "I feel sorry for Santa!" A small black boy agrees with her, adding, "Yeah, man! He's sho' tired and worn!" The little Dutch boy we met briefly before agrees, as does a small Hawaiian girl wearing only a lei and a grass skirt. (Damn! That girl has got to be freezing... plus, she's barefoot at the North Pole.) The Chinese boy says, "Him clothes very black like an [indecipherable]!," the first sign that his part in this will include the stereotypical nod to Chinese doing the laundry. A Russian boy with a fur cap agrees with "Da! Da!" and a Spanish girl says "Si, si! He helps everyone at Christmas, but no one they think of Santa Claus." It hits Audrey that what they should do is tidy up Santa's house to help him out for a change, and the entire United Nations of Stowaway Brats agrees.

The kids creep quietly into Santa's abode, each one carefully matching the previous one's tiptoeing across the threshold. But a clomping noise at the end of the line is heard, and everyone shushes the little Dutch boy, who is seen wearing a pair of wooden clogs for shoes. He clomps again once they restart, and after shushing from the group, he points at his feet. Audrey runs forward with the solution, and ties a pillow underneath each clog. He struts forward proudly, saying, "Ja! Danke!" and then blindly walks into a vase on a small table. The crash is loud, and the kids scatter at the noise, but Santa is still clinging fiercely to his snoring rest.

The camera cuts to each child in their hiding places: Audrey in Santa's hanging coat, the Chinese boy inside some long underwear pouring out of a laundry hamper (there's that theme again), the Russian boy inside the mouth of a bear rug, the Hawaiian girl in front of broom so all she had to do was bend over and hide her head so her skirt would look like the broom bristles, the Spanish girl inside a large stein, the African-American boy inside of a pair of Santa's boots (wait for the racist pay off on this later), and the Dutch boy inside the speaker of a phonograph. The Dutch boy tries to step out of the speaker backwards and ends up switching on the phonograph by mistake. He spins wildly on the turntable while a super-speeded up version of Jingle Bells plays faster and faster. Audrey switches off the phonograph, and the Dutch slows to a stop, and a closeup of his face show his eyes still doing laps on the inside of his head.

Audrey tells everyone that Santa is asleep, and as she starts to dust a goldfish bowl (and the fish inside it, which makes him very happy), Audrey sings:

"Oh, we wanna do something for Santa!

We wanna make a real big fuss!
We wanna do something for Santa

'cause he's always doin' something for us!"

As the Spanish girl cleans a pot in the kitchen, she adds (in slightly broken English):

"I'll polish pans that have rusted,

give every one shiny face."

The Hawaiian girl brushes dust and dirt across the floor with her skirt and hula movements, singing:

"I'll see that the furniture's dusted

and in its proper place!"

The Russian kid, with brushes attached to his boots, does a traditional dance with his arms folded as he kicks his way across the soapy floor, and sings:

"I'll scrub the floor all clean and neat,

no spot will test my [??]. [rhymes with "why"]

And the African-American kid shines Santa's boots, which are held in place with the legs from a chair, and adds:

"I'll shine his shoes with a boogie beat

and here's the reason why."

Audrey is standing on a stool in front of the sink, with her back to the camera while she is washing dishes. She continues the song:

"Oh, we know we owe much to Santa,

for making every Christmas gay!

We wanna do something for Santa..."

Audrey whips the clean dishes up in the air, and the camera swings up to show the Dutch boy perched atop the door of the cupboard. He has a stack of dishes already piled up to his face in his left hand, and as he attempts to catch the newly flung dish, he adds to Audrey's line:

"-- and in our little vay,

t'ank him for der happiness

dat came our vay!"

The weight of the plates in his arms is too heavy and makes them drop down low, but Audrey (unseen) flings a tea cup into the air. The Dutch boy goes to grab it, but unthinkingly lets go of the stack of plates when he does. He is successful in catching the cup, but a loud crash is heard. He pretends that nothing has happened, his eyes peering upward as if here were a little angel, polishes the cup on his shirt, and hangs it in the cupboard with a nonchalant whistle.

In the laundry room, the Chinese boy is seen with an ironing board, which the Hawaiian and Spanish girls use like a seesaw, causing the hot iron to run back and forth over each piece of laundry the Chinese boy places on it. The Russian boy is tying the arms of each shirt in Santa's wardrobe together so that they snake continuously through the mangle of the washbasin. Unfortunately, the noisemaking Dutch boy gets caught in the knot of one of the shirts and is pulled through as well. He flies out the washbasin and onto their seesawing ironing board, and the iron promptly burns his biscuits good. The burning send him flying away again, yowling in pain and heading for the outside, where he sits his bottom down in the cooling snow with a great look of relief on his face. When he stands up, the spot where he was sitting is bereft of snow, and a daisy springs to life in his place.

The kids are next seen working as a group and using a pulley to winch Santa above his bed inside a sheet so they can make the bed. They all sing:

"Oh, we know we owe much to Santa

for making every Christmas gay!

We wanna do something for Santa

and in our little way,

thank him for the happiness

that came our way!"

The girls make the bed (of course) while the boys hold Santa aloft above them. The bed made, the boys start to lose their grip on the rope, and when Santa starts to shift and moan, the rope gives way, the Dutch boy flies up to the ceiling, and Santa crashes down on the bed. Somehow, he remains asleep, and the Dutch boy jumps down and clomps his way out of the house and slams the door. The slam finally wakes up Santa with a start, and after he rubs his eyes, he sees a Christmas tree with holiday greetings on it in each language of the children in the group.

From outside, the kids yell, "Merry Christmas, Santa!" and the camera zooms in on a single present under the tree. "A present? For me" says the jolly old elf, and when he opens it, he is seen holding a music box. When he winds it, the faces of each kid in the group pass by a window in the box. There is a note attached with a calendar marking Christmas for the next year, and written above the date of the 25th is "Santa Don't Forget Us Next Year". Santa laughs merrily. Iris out.

No attention at all is paid to the fact that now Santa has to either magic these kids back to their homes, or more likely, shuttle them back via sleigh, making everyone freak out because he has already made his rounds for the year. So, they did do something for Santa after all: wear himself and his reindeer out even more after they have already gone tens of thousands of miles in a single night. Surely he has enslaved elves that can do his washing and cleaning. Stupid kids.

This film never met a stereotype about any race or country that it didn't look square in the face and say, "We're doing it anyway!" The main concern is the then standard attitude towards non-white races. While it is nice that film tries to give us a well-rounded cast and the children all seem like immediate best friends, the Chinese boy does laundry and sneaks about suspiciously even while doing what the rest of the children are doing. The black kid is a shoeshine boy and talks like he is out of Amos and Andy. Its all meant to be cute and good clean fun for children, but at the time, these were some of the only impressions most of the country saw in popular entertainment of people who were different from the status quo in America. (And I realize the costuming is a shorthand for saying, "This person is from this specific land". That's also stereotyping, but that's not what I'm discussing here.)

Santa's Surprise is directed one of the two Famous Studios mainstays, Seymour Kneitel (the other being Izzy Sparber), and the animation here is about par for the course for a Famous product. It was rare that they pushed any boundaries, and remained tied to the formulas set for each of their fairly rigid series. Each Herman and Katnip, each Popeye, and especially each Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon were barely distinguishable from the next. The same goes for Little Audrey for the most part, but they did get some truly bizarre moments tucked away inside that formula in her films, such as in the absolutely nuts addiction tale, Butterscotch and Soda (see my piece on that strange film here).

And at the start of Audrey's career, in this film, she is introduced as a good and kind girl in a Christmas movie. You cannot get more saccharine than that, and this is where the problem lies. I said at the beginning of this article that you have to be careful what you give Santa these days. Are you trying to give that fat old man sugar shock, Little Audrey?

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it:

The Song of the Birds (1935)

The Song of the Birds (A Max Fleischer Color Classic, 1935) 
Dir.: Dave Fleischer
Animators: Roland Crandall; Seymour Kneitel
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

My friends know well my opinion on guns. I am normally fine with them as long as they are not around me. If one is in the room, I leave the room. It is that simple. I am not anti-gun; I am anti-people around or with guns. Give them to a bunch of creatures that have no opposable thumbs and a solid lack of evil intentions, and they end up being, ohhhhhhhh... still only about 84% safe.

I have many dear friends that regularly go to target practice at gun ranges, and my own mother owns a gun (she and my stepfather are shop owners, and rest assured, she does know how to use it). My father has owned guns throughout his life, though he hasn't hunted since I was relatively young, and I'm not even sure if he even owns his rifle anymore, since my stepmother hates them. I have also seen my dear old Granny shoot at gophers in her yard from the side door of her house in Wisconsin. My father even took me to a rifle range once, and it was the first time that I have shot a gun (it was a pistol). It was enough to keep me away from using them for most of my life. Of course, there was the time my buddy Matt shot a hole in the roof of the trailer that Wayne, Tony and I were renting, because he didn't realize Wayne's pistol was loaded. Luckily, I only heard the shot -- I was on the other end of the trailer -- but, case in point. Just keep them far from me. Oh... and there was that time at my first bachelor party... but I digress.

The Song of the Birds is a no-holds-barred, heartrending, tearjerking, manipulative weep-fest, and the first such film in the Max Fleischer Cartoon Classics series. More would come, as soon as two films later, but this is the Fleischers' first stab in this series at ripping your heart out so it can hold it while you stare back it as it pumps and pumps while you slip into unconsciousness and ultimately death. While the film is well done, its intentions don't really succeed, because there is still a certain disconnect emotionally due to the unbelievability of the story. Besides, this is an area that Disney would perfect, and the Fleischers were merely playing catch-up. The only way that the film can work as a heartbreaker is if you go into the film expecting Popeye/Boop-style Fleischer wackiness and are totally taken by surprise by the seriousness of the film. And such a surprise can't really happen because the film strikes that too self-serious tone from the opening notes of the title music onward.

A flock of birds are merrily zipping about in formation at the film's start, but the action concentrates on a mother and father bird who are celebrating the arrival of the newest baby in their family. They are teaching him the bird basics, up to and including learning to fly for the first time. He takes to it like a bird, which is good, because that is what he happens to be. Eventually confident with his newfound skills, he flies off on his own, soon coming to rest on the windowsill of the house nearby.

Inside the house is a rambunctious little thug with a pellet gun. Apparently left on his own, he has turned the entire household into his personal shooting gallery, taking out pendulums, pots, pans, plates, and lamps alike. He is a crack shot with the damnable thing, but he is bored with his surroundings, and decides to take the weapon outside. He sees a bird's nest, with two unopened eggs remaining in it, sitting up in a tree. He takes careful aim and then knocks it out of the tree. Luckily for the eggs, the birds who own the nest not only catch it in mid-air, but they also catch their pair of would-be hatchlings. Like a young Jeffrey Dahmer or that creepy kid living next to you that just stares weirdly as you get in your car each morning, the boy does not recognize he has done anything wrong; in fact, he has turned his attention to the little bird on his windowsill.

The bird takes off, oblivious to the boy, who again takes careful aim. As the baby bird alights upon a nearby branch, the little thug fires off a shot at the poor thing. The shot hits the branch, severing it from the tree, and the baby bird takes to the air, flying about in panicked circles. Their is a slow dissolve to a POV shot of the boy aiming his gun in alignment with the circles the bird is making, and then the camera cuts back to the bird, just before he is hit by the resulting shot from the gun. The bird falls at the boy's feet, and though he is delighted with his kill at first, he suddenly takes on an air of deep regret. He looks about shamefully for witnesses to his crime, and then starts to tiptoe back to the house, eventually breaking into a run. The parent birds fly down and see their baby laying prostrate on the ground. They try to revive him with a worm, which crawls off, and then almost drown him with mouthfuls of water. But it is to no avail. They fear he is dead.

And so does the boy. He goes to bed that night with unbelievable guilt hanging over his head, and he is restless beyond words. The parent birds have finally given up trying to revive their child, and they start to sing a mournful dirge, in the course of which all of the birds in the skies fly down and join the chorus. The boy crawls out of bed and watches the dire concert, crying and fretting. One bird flies to a patch of grass nearby and digs a small grave to place the baby inside, and the parents lay their young on a leaf to transport him. They pick the leaf up and fly it over to the grave, with all of the birds still singing mournfully throughout the procession. The boy can't stand it any longer and kneels at his bedside and prays harder than he has done in his young life.

Suddenly, rain starts pouring from the skies, and a few random drops seem to do what pouring half a fountain of water down its throat couldn't: it revives the baby bird. (It makes no sense at all except for that of pure coincidence.) The birds are overjoyed, and begin singing and dancing in circles around the baby and its parents. They flit through the air in triumph, and the boy runs out to celebrate with them. He carries his rifle out, too, and snaps in twain over his knee to prove that he has learned his lesson. He also brought a box of birdseed, and he draws the birds to him by throwing it all about the ground. The baby bird forgives him by sitting on his arm and sharing a piece of birdseed which the boy holds in his mouth. The bird, in turn, feeds the boy, and the boy pretends to enjoy the meal, winking at the audience to close the film.

The film would work pretty well on the easily impressionable, I guess; I see it as the second weakest Color Classic at this point (after An Elephant Never Forgets) in the still (at that time) nascent series. This is mainly due to a reduction in the use of the three-dimensional backgrounds for which this series, until this point, seemed perfectly fit. Their use in this film is not as showy as the previous films, and The Song of the Birds almost seems like simply normal animation most of the time -- to its detriment. Still, it is reasonably moving, though I personally like the Little Audrey version better. That's right: Famous Studios, which is what the Fleischer house eventually became, would remake this film in 1949 as Song of the Birds, wisely dropping the “The,” which is an article that can be a real drag on artistic success. Seymour Kneitel, who animated this film and possibly served as one of its actual directors, ran the show on that version, as well. It is actually a slightly darker vision, and post-Bambi, it works a sliver better than this one.

Snapping all guns in half isn't the answer, of course. Or is it? This film is not going to sway anyone from their use, unless they are six years old or thereabouts. Here's the thing about guns: If you use them for good, they can be useful tools; if you use them for evil, they can be murderous weapons. Guns are only as good as the people who brandish them. But they sure make the evil part a hell of a lot easier to achieve...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...

The Seapreme Court (1954)

The Seapreme Court (Paramount/Famous Studios, 1954) 
Dir: Seymour Kneitel
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

Apparently, Little Audrey finds fishing as snooze-inducing as I do, though she is actively engaged in pursuing the, ah, craft. What I don't find snooze-inducing is this sweet little revenge story called The Seapreme Court, a Famous Studios cartoon from 1954, where the denizens of the deep attempt to exact thousands of years of bad human behavior on the person of one little girl. This actually isn't a bad idea: it would be like punishing George W. Bush for over a hundred years of non-stop oil company corruption by making him read a book without pictures in it. (It should be very easily proven that the only thing that he can read with over two syllables in it is his middle initial.)

Little Audrey has nodded off beneath a tree on the shore of some form of body of water (more on that later), when she is awakened by a tug on the line she has resting in that water. She is thrilled, but her excitement wanes when she realizes she has only pulled up an old boot with a score of tiny fishes in it. She casts her line back in, and settles against the tree again, swiftly descending back into a deep slumber. She again gets a tug, and wakes up, shouting, "Oh, boy! It's a big one!" (I, myself, have woken up that way on numerous occasions, but the wife couldn’t care less what I have.)

The "Big One" pulls her under the waves and deep down into the murky depths. There is a cry for help, and a passing sawfish cuts the line between her and the pulling fish. Well, we couldn't see Audrey's mouth, but the fish pulling her down into the deep clearly mouths the repeated "Help!" over and over again, but the childlike voice that emits from the creature is eerily reminiscent of Audrey's. So, just who is the sawfish saving?

As it turns out -- it's certainly not Audrey! She is, however, the center of attention here at the bottom of whatever body of water this happens to be. Surrounded by a host of fish, one of them yells out, "There's one of those humans now!" and another fish shouts, "Yay! We finally got one!" Audrey is arrested by one of the "carps on this beat,” with a pair of crab handcuffs placed on her wrists for good measure. Audrey protests, but there is nothing that can be done; she is brought to the Seapreme Court where she is to be put on trial for the whole of all humanity's crimes against fish-kind. The judge bangs his gavel and calls the court to order...

"The Seapreme Court is now in session,
and the trial is about to begin.
The plaintiff is the fish,
the defendant is the human.
Officer Finn, bring the jury in!"

Officer Finn (the bailiff) turns the key on a can of sardines, releasing a dozen of the smelly delights. The canned jury swear themselves in...

"We're the sardine jury both tried and true!
An "oily" verdict we promise you!"

The judge fish jumps right into the trial...

"The first witness from Fish-Land,
Willie Winkfish take the stand!"

A shy fish dressed as a schoolboy (with a voice somewhat reminiscent of Kay Kyser's original recording of Three Little Fishies) tells his tale of being lured to his near capture on a hook under false pretenses...

"While swimming on my way to school,
down where the ocean is sandy,
I nearly swallowed this fishhook,
whichI thought was peppermint candy."

Audrey yells out, "Ah, that's a fish story!" But the judge doesn't care...

"Order in the court!
Order in the court!
Let there be no interfering!
Mr. Sailfish, take the stand!
Let's continue with this hearing!"

One of the sardine jurors holds a shell up to his unseen ear in order to hear the judge better. Mr. Sailfish, who has an Irish accent, tells his tale of woe...

"I was sailin' nonchalantly,
never dreaming of attack,
when before you could say O'Houlihan,
I was mounted on a plaque!"

The camera pulls back from Mr. Sailfish's head to reveal his entire body mounted exactly as described, with the plaque held up by a stool next to the stand. Little Audrey protests, "I didn't do it! I didn't!" and she stomps down hard on one of the octopus' limbs. The octopus hops around holding his appendage, and the judge calls for order.

"Quiet! Quiet!
Let order prevail!
Call in the next witness
to unveil his tale!"

A large whale now sits on the stand, his face sullen as he towers over the jury.

"It was cold December day,
and I was below the ocean's swirls,
when I was netted by a whaling tug,
and drained of my winter oil!"

It's a much nicer account than what actually happens when oil is taken from a cetacean, but to prove his story, the whale pulls a dipstick out of his blowhole to show that his oil reads "empty". Little Audrey uses the octopus' limbs to slingshot her way up to the judge's stand, and pleads, "Judge! That's a whale of a tale!" The octopus pulls her away, and the judge continues...

"Order in the court!
Now let's examine
the testimony of
the Widow Salmon!"

A salmon wearing a bonnet and pushing a baby carriage rolls up to the stand. There is a tear in her eye as she reveals a goldfish bowl underneath a blanket with about forty small salmon fry swimming about in it.

"My children and I were once happy,
and life altogether was grand.
But now I'm a poor lonely widow.
You see, judge, my husband was canned!"

She holds up the can as evidence, and the sardine jurors (themselves working out of a can) start crying and dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs. The judge closes the testimony (without allowing Audrey a defense, mind you -- are there such things as kangaroo fish? Because it seems this is that sort of court)...

"There you are, sardines of the jury!
The evidence is crystal clear.
Make haste in reaching your verdict;
it's late, and my suppertime's here!"

The jury is rolled up back into their can while they deliberate; this takes them exactly 1.23 seconds. It unrolls again and the unsurprising verdict of "We find the human... GUILTY!" is shouted by all twelve of them. The judge turns to Audrey to lay down her sentence for the crimes of humanity...

"The Fish-Land trial is over.
It was just and fair.
And now here is your sentence...
a seat in the EEL-LECTRIC CHAIR!!!"

The camera pans to the left to show eight electric eels formed into the shape of a normal chair, only with the adding threat of their natural body impulses. They light up briefly a few times to show what is in store for Little Audrey, who screams and fights with the octopus to escape. She ties all eight of his limbs together and makes a break for it, running out of the court and onto the ocean floor. Every type of sea creature in the audience swims after her in hot pursuit.

A cry of "Calling All Carps" goes out, and mountie carps head out after her riding atop of seahorses. Audrey runs into the open mouth of the whale, who happily swallows her, but she climbs up and out of his blowhole. A giant clam swallows her next when the whale's tail flicks her into it, but she tickles the clam's mouth open with a feather, sending the huge mollusk into hysterics. She is next cornered by a swordfish who engages her in a fierce duel, but as Audrey is armed only with a piece of wood from a wrecked ship, the battle is easily won by the fish, but Audrey tricks the swordfish into catching his snout in the side of a shipwreck, and she escapes once again.

Finally, other swordfish build a cage around her by sticking their weaponry in the sand and she is brought back to the court. Placed into the Eel-Lectric Chair, it begins to surge... and suddenly Little Audrey wakes up safe and sound on the shore of the water. She then notices a tug on her line, and a small cute fish leaps from the water. Feeling bad about her careless fishing ways, she frees the creature and puts it back into the water, swearing off fishing. At the last second, the fish hops back out and pins a medal on Audrey. It reads "OfFISHial Pardon", and the fish kisses Audrey on the cheek and heads back home.

The Seapreme Court is simple but clever, with the underwater scenes almost entirely done in a rhyming verse. Audrey does apparently have some confusion about the status of whales as fish (though whales have just as much to complain about humans as fish do, maybe more); I'm longing to see an episode where she fell asleep in a biology class while she should have been learning about taxonomy. (I'd like to see the ghost of Linnaeus pursuing the girl through Science Fair Land while singing a swing tune called "You Gots to Learn Yo' Orders or Else!") Also, for a stubbornly rambunctious girl who doesn't think twice when doing anything in her waking life, she certainly has a head full of guilt; this guilty conscience apparently delights in torturing her nearly to death in dream after dream in this series.

As for that body of water, she is clearly fishing by a lake, but nearly every creature in her dream is specifically an ocean-going animal (included a pair of sharks, who only get in on the final chase action, but sadly, only peripherally). I'm sure, like most kids, Little Audrey makes very little distinction made between the animals in freshwater and the animals in saltwater. Hell, we have a world that is convinced that penguins live at the North Pole with polar bears, and that the whole lot share Coca-Colas with each other. Even as an adult, though I fully knew better, I have always, when in lakes, with a large amount of respect for the sharks that must surely inhabit their waters. (I also knew too well of the isolated incidents where sharks actually were in lakes, and had attacked people, such as in Nicaragua.) I knew that I was completely safe, at least from killer sharks, but it was still scary and fun to imagine.

Of course, there are still all of those lake monsters to worry about. Growing up in Alaska, where rumors have always abounded about the creatures living in certain remote lakes such as Iliamna, that was always a very real concern. And don't even get me started on Sasquatch...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...