Countdown to Halloween: Heavenly Puss (1949)

Heavenly Puss (1949)
Dir: William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
Animators: Irv Spence, Ed Barge, Kenneth Muse, and Ray Patterson
TC4P Rating: 8/9

In preparations for attending a special event in Little Tokyo a few days before Halloween last week -- a screening of John Carpenter's 1987 horror epic, Prince of Darkness, at the historic church in which many of the scenes were filmed -- I took it upon myself to watch the film first on the Blu-ray disc I had purchased recently. Being a big fan of Carpenter's films in general, but not being exactly over-acquainted with Prince of Darkness (I had seen it in theatres on its original release, but not very much since), I wanted to be up on the film in case the Q-and-A sessions with people who had worked on the film happened before the movie was screened.

This being maybe the fifth time I was watching the film overall, the extra sits through it were helpful in both establishing where I stood with the film in Carpenter's filmography (I now like it more than I once did; good, but not great) and being able to discuss it with my writing partner at length. In revisiting the film, though, I was reminded of a quick scene that is not of any large consequence to the film at all, but occurs as a nice in-joke for Carpenter and his audience. Much in the way that he included scenes from Forbidden Planet and The Thing from Another World playing in the background on a television set in his bonafide classic, Halloween, Carpenter saw to it to pay for the rights to show a clip from MGM's Heavenly Puss, a fairly morbid Tom and Jerry heaven-and-hell romp from 1949, in the middle of Prince of Darkness. The inclusion is apt, seeing as how the Carpenter film is loaded with talk of Satan and his never-ending quest to subsume humanity and battle the church.

Directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Heavenly Puss may not be one of their Oscar-winners (or even nominated ones), but it definitely ranks near the top of being one of Tom and Jerry's more memorable outings. This film goes out of the bounds of the normal, heavily violent cat vs. mouse theme and wraps it up in a theme of spiritual consideration, at least in the simple terms of having Tom trying to change his grim, fiery fate to that of a more angelic afterlife.

It looks like Jerry might be making an attempt to get in the first shot of this cartoon, as we see Tom having a cozy catnap in front of a lovely fireplace setting. Jerry sneaks out of his whole and tiptoes his way across the room to take refuge underneath the chaise lounge. Then it becomes apparent he is simply trying to sneak past Tom, and as Jerry takes off to his next destination, the dining room table, Tom's eyes open as he sneers his usual wicked best. Jerry scurries up the tablecloth and hides behind a candleholder, and Tom pops up and grabs a very saber-like cutting knife. As Jerry reaches for one of the cookies set around a teapot, Tom brings the knife down savagely at Jerry's arm, but the mouse manages to pull his appendage away in time.

Tom slices the candlestick in twain right above the top of the mouse's head, and Jerry speeds off and starts hopping up the stairway clumsily, as only a tiny mouse beset with monstrous set of stairs would. Tom grabs the runner at the bottom of the stairwell and pulls it up, making it taut so Jerry's efforts to run up the straightaway are for naught, especially as Tom begins to pull the runner towards himself. However, at the top of the stairs, the runner goes under an upright piano, which comes flying down the stairwell. Tom flees fearfully, with good reason, but the piano rolls after him and smashes the cat against a wall. The top lid of the piano swings open like a door and a flattened Tom slides off, and pops back into three dimensions (even if, as a cartoon character in this film, he is always in 2D; it's all in your perspective of their existence).

It appears Tom has met his maker, and indeed, this is where Heavenly Puss not only gets its title, but also takes a wild swing away from the routine (as excellent a routine as that is, given the high quality of this series). There is a bright beam of light shining down as if from heaven (which indeed it is) upon poor Tom, and a great, golden escalator materializes from out of the nowhere. Tom's spirit lifts away from the cat's body, steps onto the escalator, and looks back confusedly at the body on the floor as he ascends up the escalator out of frame. The next shot is of the escalator's length, and how it winds casually a huge distance up to some far away clouds representing the heavenly gates.

Those gates have a sign on them reading "Heavenly Express," and through the fence, Tom spies a gilded train onto which other cats of a similar design are boarding. He looks to his right, and he sees a ticket counter where an cat of older disposition (voiced by none other than Daws Butler) is checking names off on a reservation register. The first cat in line is none other than Tom's old sometimes friend sometimes enemy Butch, a black cat covered in bandages and wearing a sling. We find out exactly why, when the agent states "Cause of decease: lost fight with bulldog. Pass granted." Butch steps forward, and a full set of bulldog teeth clamber along the ground behind him, still gripping Butch's tattered tail.

The next cat in line is Frankie, a gray cat wearing a top hat. "Struck with flatiron while singing on a backyard fence." Frankie lifts his hat, and a very tall, red bump on his head is shown. "Pass," says the agent, and Frankie makes his way to the heaven-bound train. The third cat is Aloysious, who appears at first to be a very rotund feline but then we find out the real reason for his portly appearance. The agent asks of him, "Oh, so you didn't see the steamroller coming, eh?" Aloysious nods his affirmation, the agent says "Go ahead," and cat turns to show that he is completely flattened out like bread dough as he passes.

The film takes a left turn to a truly gruesome joke as the agent says the names "Fluff, Muff, and Puff." A sloshing sound is heard and the agent looks over the side of the desk. A bag with its top tied shut comes hopping up, and it becomes immediately apparent that these are the names of three drowned kittens. (Every single time I watch this cartoon, my jaw hits the floor.) The bag pops open to reveal three happy, smiling but mewling kittens. They crawl out of the bag and start to head forward to the train. The agent makes a tsk-tsk noise and says, "What some people won't do."

Thomas knows he nowhere close to being an innocent party in this scenario, and he makes to tiptoe underneath the edge of the counter. The agent is not fooled for a second. "Thomas! Just a minute," he says as he consults his register. Tom steps back to take his punishment. "Apparently, your whole life was spent persecuting an innocent, little mouse. Now, with a record like that, I can't let you through. I'm sorry, Tom." But there is some light at the end of Tom's very dark tunnel. "However," the agent continues, "the Heavenly Express doesn't leave for an hour." He hands Tom a sheet of paper. "If within that time, you can obtain the signature of that little mouse on this Certificate of Forgiveness, you will be permitted to pass."

But, there is a catch, and it's a big one. "Now, if you fail, it's this." The agent turns to a rather ornate television monitor behind his desk. He pushes a button, and the screen turns on to show flames at first. They make way to show the devil, portrayed by the usual MGM bulldog, with red fur and wearing green horns and green slippers. In his right hand is a green pitchfork, as he tends a large cauldron atop a wood fire inside a hellish series of caves. He laughs like a maniac and screams, "Ah, let me have him! Send him down. Give him to me now!" He laughs again, and the camera cuts back to Tom, his yellow eyes bulging from his head, with his mouth agape in fear. The agent turns off the screen, and as Tom is shown gripping the desk, he is told, "Remember, you have only an hour."

Tom turns to race off, but disappears in a puff of smoke. His spirit is next shown back in the room of Tom's supposed demise, and drops back into his body with a slam, waking Tom up at once. As he comes to with the Certificate of Forgiveness in his left hand, his uses his other arm to wipe his brow in relief. Then he remembers why he has the certificate, sees a glowing clock reminding him of the hour he has left, and runs straight to Jerry's mousehole. He offers the mouse a large cake with candles and frosting that reads "To My Pal" on it, but Jerry thinks something devious is up instead. When Tom signs to Jerry the cake is on the up and up, Jerry speed-eats the entire thing like a buzzsaw and leaps back into his hole, leaving the six candles in his wake to clatter to the floor. Angry, Tom reaches into the hole and grabs the mouse, and forcefully puts down the certificate and the mouse, handing him a pen in the process, and points at the paper to make Jerry sign it. Jerry's response is to shoot all of the ink in the pen at Tom's face (as you would expect him to do).

Tom, seeing the clock, figures that he will have to forge his way to heaven. He runs behind the chair to start signing Jerry's name to the paper, but the disembodied voice of the reservation agent says shamefully, "Thomas! Uh, uh, uh, uh..." Tom speeds back to the mousehole bearing a large wedge of swiss cheese. This time, Jerry actually reads the certificate, but when Tom signs to him that if Jerry signs it, Tom will give him the cheese, Jerry angrily tears up the paper. Tom has had it with that reaction, and he grabs Jerry and prepare to smash his brains in with a fireplace shovel. Suddenly, in a puff of smoke, the bulldog devil appears. "Thattaboy, Tom!," he implores the cat. "Hit him and let's go! Come on!" The devil poofs away, and Tom kisses Jerry's head several times.

He gathers the torn pieces of the certificate, runs off, and comes back with the entire thing taped together. He begs and pleads Jerry to sign it, using a wild series of gesticulations to explain his story. Finally, the clock appears once more, and the conductor for the Heavenly Express is heard calling, "All aboard!" He begs and pleads again, but Jerry is still not buying it. Finally, he gives in, but when he tries to sign, no ink will come out of the pen. Tom grabs it and splats ink several times on the wall, and gives it back to the mouse. Jerry signs, and Tom zips back to the gilded escalator, but as he tries to climb onto it, the escalator disappears, a large trapdoor heading straight to Hades opens up, and Tom falls down, waving goodbye as he does. The cat falls straight into Satan's cauldron, and the devil bulldog continues to laugh loud and wildly.

Tom tries to escape, but the scene shifts back to the sleeping cat in front of the fireplace, where hot coals have shot out of the fire and have started to burn Tom's tail. He wakes up screaming, but then realizes he is not dead after all, and is home safe and sound (if not a little bit scorched). He runs to the mousehole and knocks on the wall above it with a huge, genuine grin on his face. When Jerry appears, Tom swoops him up and starts kissing and cuddling him. Mystified by this behavior, since nothing we saw in the film has actually happened, Jerry turns to the camera, and throws out his arms and shrugs his shoulders. Iris out.

Heavenly Puss only appears in Prince of Darkness for a few seconds (the scene where Tom falls into the bulldog's cauldron), but its cameo is a welcome one within the film, watched on a small television screen by one of the characters inside the church where much of the film's action takes place. When we watched the film on the big screen built on the stage at the church -- which is now the home of a local theatrical company, the East-West Players -- there was the noticeable sounds of recognition of Heavenly Puss from members of the audience, and one person near the back even clapped twice when Tom showed up. It reminded me of how I often get when I notice a movie cameo inside another film, and how I also make certain to point it out to my wife, whether she cares or not what it is (in most cases, she doesn't).

Despite my rampant and ever-growing atheism, I seem to have a soft spot for films where characters are caught between either heaven and hell or heaven and earth, such as Angel on My Shoulder, The Horn Blows at Midnight, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, its modern (if 1978 is modern to you) remake Heaven Can Wait, and A Matter of Life and Death (to name just a few). I don't believe in upstairs and downstairs at all when it comes to spiritual matters, but I really don't mind when they are portrayed in films. I can suspend disbelief with the best of them, as long as the visuals are groovy and the plots are fun. (A little less so with me when they head for heavier terrain, though there are always exceptions.) Heavenly Puss certainly succeeds on both fronts -- the backgrounds and animation are always pleasing to the eye and the story is a delight -- and it remains one of my favorite Tom and Jerry cartoons.

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.]