My wife tells me there was an old, old cartoon she once saw when she was little, maybe old Disney or Max Fleischer style. It was about two little kids, a brother and a sister, who were very poor but one night (Christmas Eve?) settled down to sleep, and then dreamed that they went to some kind of fantasyland where cornstalks yielded ice cream cones.
Any ideas? Sounds vaguely familiar to me as well, but I can’t put my finger on it.
I’m pretty sure I know the one you mean. When they wake up in the morning, they find that the local baker, butcher, what have you have taken pity on them and brought an amazing feast? I’m think it was Fleischer, and is the kind of thing you get on those public domain cartoon DVDs.
ETA: Here we go, “Somewhere in Dreamland”:
The first cartoon I thought of was The Little Match Girl (I think this is Ub Iwerks, but the credits missing), which is a maudlin and tragic little piece. The Match Girl dreams she’s in a Heaven full of all the things she needs. Then she dies:
That’s incredible, thanks! Thanks also to CalMeacham. – Koxinga
From my wife’s description, I was sure that was it, but . . . she says it’s very, very similar but still not the cartoon she remembers. She says the style was a bit more modern, and the kids weren’t as poor, so I’m guessing after the Depression. Was there maybe a remake or knockoff by another studio later on?
I think I saw it, too. Does it end with the little boy eating his whole dish of ice cream and then for some reason poking himself in the butt with his fork?
He wanted to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw20NxGJg4A
Ah! There it is.
Their mom looks suspiciously like Olive Oyl.
I got nothin’, I’m afraid. Paramount, which came to own the rights to the Fleischer cartoons, sold them to companies that treated them brutally, so I suppose someone could have re-drawn and softened “Somewhere in Dreamland”, but I’ve got no evidence to establish that.