Little Audrey (1956 film)

Little Audrey (marketed as Little Audrey: The Movie in 1992) is a 1956 American animated comedy-drama fantasy adventure musical film produced by Famous Studios and released by Paramount Pictures.

Plot
In a big American city, circa 1950, this story is just about Little Audrey is a caring, funny, lovable good girl with a little kind heart. On Christmas Eve, 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 other side of the room, where Audrey is pretending to sleep, sneaking open one eye to check on Santa's progress.

On his way to school, Little Audrey, alone and full of good intentions, heads off to school, but is sidetracked by Lil' Patches. Little Audrey torn between playing hookey and going fishing, or going to school, chooses to go fishing. In landing it, she bumps her head and has a terrible nightmare, complete with "Swinging On A Star"- or would you rather be a fish? During her dream, she sees singing stars. One of the stars is Bing Crosby, the second is Bob Hope and the last one is Jerry Colonna. The theme of her dream is that Audrey should be at school learning. Little Audrey, while fishing, falls to the bottom of the sea, where she encounters all types of sea-life and then is arrested by the local fish-constable. She is tried by a jury of sardines who find her guilty, and she is sentenced to the 'eelectric chair." She makes an escape attempt; however, she gets caught and she sits on the eel-ectric chair. It begins shocking her and screaming in pain. Just then Lil' Patches wakes Little Audrey up to find it has all been a dream.

Back at school along with Patches, Little Audrey is sitting in the middle desk of the second row, behind Melvin who says the right answer. She is reading "Pinhead and Birdbrain" comic books, but she doesn't like Mother Goose rhymes. She gets so involved in the crooks in her comic books that she doesn't hear when asked by the teacher to recite a rhyme. Instead she comes up with hip-gangster talk. Her punishment is to wear a dunce cap and sit in the corner. She goes to sleep, has a dream and finds out that Mother Goose is a "hep" character and that there is more excitement in the nursery rhymes than in her comic books.

Meanwhile, because it is an Audrey dream, peril awaits; this time, it is in the form of Pinhead and Birdbrain, loosed from Audrey's comic and ready to turn the pleasantness to instant nightmare. They mug a piglet for a single penny, and when they discover a sideshow displaying The Goose That Lays the Golden Eggs, Pinhead imagines an egg slicer turning the eggs into a pile of gold coins in his hand. They stage a stick-up, and Audrey screams at them that they don't belong in here. They swipe the goose and make their escape. Audrey chases after them, but the duo crash through a wall, on top of which was perched, as expected, Humpty Dumpty, who crashes to the ground. What is not expected is that Humpty is played as Edward G. Robinson. Assuredly, he has been unharmed by the incident. The Old Woman in the Shoe and other nursery rhyme residents join in the chase, but it is Audrey, atop the goose, who brings down the evildoers.

When they fire their pistols at her, she bravely turns their bullets back at them through Little Boy Blue's horn. She arrests them, and tries to drag them off to jail. Of course, this is the point where Audrey wakes up, and she is being laughed at by the class because she is wrestling the stool that she was asleep on. Back outside, Lil' Patches kisses Audrey's head, blurs in her face in red.

Sometime afterward, her mother and father take a small trip, and leave Little Audrey in the care of Petunia the Maid. When Petunia tells Little Audrey the story of The Grasshopper and The Ant. Seeing how the grasshopper (possibly her name Peppy) wasted his money, and could count on no help from the ant, Audrey promises Petunia that he won't waste her money any more.

At before midnight, Petunia tells Audrey not to read under the moonlight it would give her bad dreams. Little Audrey lay down on his bed, listening to the sound of the rain. Little Audrey ready for sleep, but just couldn't take his eyes off the falling raindrops. Audrey dreams about visiting a realm where dreams are made, this causes a lost dream to miss his dreamboat. Audrey meets a lost dream in her sleep and takes him back home to dreamland. On their wacky adventure, they see sweet dreams scrubbing stars and sewing silver linings. So, Audrey goes with him to Dream World and meets the Sandman. He tells the Lost Dream to show his Audrey what dreams are made of, then he warns "Keep away from the black door". Knowing Audrey's curiosity she keeps sneaking away to try to open it! After several dream sequences despite being told, Audrey open the black door and the nightmares in it! Her tour ends badly when she opens The Black Door, an ominous door that keeps Bad Dreams from tearing apart the realm.

When the next morning, Little Audrey sees a baby bird learning to fly and shoots it. The mother bird tries to revive her baby, but to no avail. She begins to cry and mourn the baby bird's death, and Little Audrey feels remorse and guilt for killing it. She runs back into the house and hides under her bed. The animals and plants of the forest arrange an elaborate funeral for the little bird. Audrey watches from her bedroom window and says a prayer, insisting she did not mean to do any harm. As rain begins to fall, the mother birds gives her child a kiss goodbye. The baby bird wakes up, revealing it was only unconscious. Overjoyed, the birds celebrate and fly in a circular formation in the sky around the mother and baby. Audrey sees what has happened and happily rushes out with her rifle. The birds flee in terror and hide in a tree. However, Audrey breaks the gun in half over her knee and stomps it into the ground. She also sprinkles bird seed to make amends, but the birds do not understand. Audrey sadly begins to walk away, but the baby bird flies onto her shoulder and rubs its face on Audrey's. The other birds realize Audrey wants to be their friend, and make the circular formation around her as the baby bird eats seed from her hand, then she revealed her bird's name, Timothew.

Little Audrey bakes a gingerbread man while listening to a radio cooking show. When the dough is in the oven, she falls asleep. The gingerbread man comes to life and takes her to Cakeland, a colorful musical land of candy canes and ice cream cones. There is a big celebration because the Gingerbread Man is taking Miss Angel Cake as his wife. There is a song, "Gay Holiday," with dancing and singing confections, including a drunken rum cake and a caricature of Maurice Chevalier as Mr. Eclair Debonair. This sends the Devil's Food Cake into an jealous rage. Interrupting the wedding, he kidnaps Miss Angel Cake and paddles her up the old milk stream. It's Audrey to the rescue. When Audrey wakes up

At night, Pinhead and Birdbrain across town, they meet a coachman who promises to pay them money if he can find many children for him to take to Pleasureland. Encountering Little Audrey finds Patches, he convince him that he needs to take a vacation there. On the way to Pleasureland. Without rules or authority to enforce their activity, Melvin and the many children soon engage in smoking, gambling, and vandalism, much to Peppy Grasshopper's dismay of Little Audrey.

Later, while trying to get home, Peppy Grasshopper peek the hole in the main doors of the fairground to find the Coachman and his ape minions loading little animals into crates going to place such as the New York Circus. One donkey, named Alexander, is able to speak. The Coachman throws Alexander into a pen of other animals that "can still talk". Peppy Grasshopper realizes that the little animals are the same kids that went to Pleasure Island, meaning that they were somehow transformed into little animals and being sold into slavery. They rushes back to warn Little Audrey, the Coachman having indirectly imparted to Peppy Grasshopper the knowledge that Little Audrey needs to escape. Back in the pool hall, Melvin is still saying that something weird to affect to them when he suddenly sprouts donkey ears, a tail and even his head is transformed into a donkey. Then he uses the mirror looks into it and panics after witnessing the changes. He pleads Little Audrey for help, but she is only able to look on in fright as Melvin's hands turn into donkey hooves. Melvin's loses the ability to talk and turns into a donkey completely. Losing his mind, Melvin starts to kick everything in the pool hall, breaking a mirror and a table, and kicking his clothes off. Peppy Grasshopper arrives just in time to tell him that Pleasureland is cursed to avoid the same terrible fate as Melvin until Petunia wakes Little Audrey up from his nightmare.

Petunia is at Audrey wits end concerning what to do about it. In desperation she finally searches the entire house, discovering Audrey’s hidden stashes everywhere and destroying them all. When Audrey discovers her candy missing, she causing her to scream and faint, and enters a dreamland of Candy Horror Land. But even enough of a good thing can become too much and Audrey ends up locked in a dream world where the very things which she craves all seem to turn against her which is candy monsters narrate her painful plight in a swing song until Peppy Grasshopper returns to him.

At the city park, Audrey and Patches embrace. As they're embracing together, Audrey and Patches magically lifted themselves off the ground and up into the sky. While flying upwards, Audrey and Patches shares a very long kiss.

At the end, Audrey and Patches flying higher and higher through the sky, as they're kissing, and then, they magically disappears.

Cast

 * Mae Questel as Audrey
 * Also she uncredited voiced a little fishes in The Seapreme Court and The Teacher/The Real Mother Goose from Goofy Goofy Gander
 * Norma MacMillan as Patches
 * Dennis Day as Peppy Grasshopper, Narrator (uncredited)
 * Jackson Beck as Gingerbread Boy, Sandman, Devil Cake Foodman & Judge Fish
 * Also he voiced a radio announcer (uncredited), the Devil's head (laughing, uncredited) , Sheriff (uncredited)
 * Mary Costa as Audrey's mother
 * Jack Mercer as Prince Melvin/Various Fish #1 (uncredited) /Johnny (uncredited) /Piggy (uncredited) /Timothew Bird/Ant (uncredited)
 * Cecil Roy as Lost Dream, Little Dot (uncredited), Little Child Fish (uncredited)
 * Martha Wentworth as Little Lotta (uncredited)
 * Ray Milland as The Coachman (as The Landlord in the end credits), Audrey's father
 * Sid Raymond as Pinhead & Birdbrain
 * Also he uncredited voiced Carnival Barker/Humpty Dumpty/Whale
 * Ruth Clifford as Angel Cake (uncredited), Mother Bird (uncredited)
 * Allen Swift as Various Fish #2 (uncredited)
 * Thurl Ravenscroft as Dragon (uncredited)
 * Also in 1992, Walter Gustafson resounded (archival footage from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) as Dragon roaring and groaning
 * Murray Spivack as the Coachman's Gorilla Form (uncredited)
 * Louise Beavers as Petunia the Maid (uncredited)
 * Also in 1992, Thea Vidale as re-dubbed as Petunia in this movie

Development
There were numerous attempts to make a Little Audrey feature film, mainly in the late-1940s after the successful reruns of the original Paramount cartoons and the airings of the new TV animated versions (although there have been debatable possibilities of making attempts in the golden age of cartoons).

Originally, a cute and comedic sequence before the further events of the duo talking was drafted as homage and footage to the original Noveltoon cartoons (in 1948-1950; except 1954 for The Seapreme Court) after the credits, but it was later decided to drop the idea and partially replaced by the animated slapstick scenes during the credits for the sake of moving forward on the situations for the story.

The movie was infamous for being in development hell with many people, some of whom worked at Disney & Looney Tunes figures such as Vladimir Tytla, George Germanetti, Seymour Kneitel, Tom Golden, Al Eugster, Larry Moley, Buddy Kaye, Sammy Timberg, Ray Bradbury, Charles Brackett, Ken Anderson, Laurence Heath, Hal Geer, Treg Brown, Al Wahrman, Robert Owen, Louis Jambor, Robert Little, Anton Loeb, Tom Ford, Miklós Rózsa, Paul J. Smith, Leigh Harline, Doane Harrison, Bill Melendez, Lloyd L. Richardson and Donald W. Ernst being involved with the movie.

After a scenic died, Louis Jambor being put to dedicated to his memory of this movie.

Consultants
Some creative consultants was outsourced to Vi Zimmerman, Robert Ogle, Fredreic Leahy and Ben Sharpsteen as an assistant and secretaries.

Animation
Animators on Little Audrey: The Movie include Bill Hudson, Irving Spector, Vincent Cafarelli, John Gentilella, Harvey Patterson, Virgil Ross, Bob Carlson, Nick Tafuri, Eli Brucker, Dick Hall, Joseph Oriolo, Graham Place, Robert Bentley, Larry Silverman, Ted Berman, Morey Reden and Steve Muffati. Some animation was outsourced to Arturo Moreno and J.M. Vendrell in Spain served as an animator. Uncredited additional animation was provided by Walt Disney Productions and UPA.

Some also animation directors on James A. Pabian, Armando Tosquellas, Art Babbitt, Myron Waldman and David Tendlar. And some character designers on Robert W. Youngquist, Milton Kahl, Rowland B. Wilson, Michael G. Ploog and Al Wilson.

Release
Little Audrey: The Movie was released in theaters in December 1956 after the premiering The Ten Commandments, and was Paramount/Famous Studios' first full-length animated film. The film was re-released to theatres in the United States in 1967, 1978 and in 1986 for the film's own 20th anniversary by Paramount Pictures.

After Turner/Cartoon Network began to create a re-dubbed cartoons for Tom & Jerry cartoons with Mammy Two-Shoes (Lillian Randolph replaced by Thea Vidale) in 1990, Universal decided that dub technology had caught up to his "original dub" with Petunia the Maid for this movie. For the film's 35th anniversary in 1992, Little Audrey was some re-dubbed for Thea Vidale (replaced Louise Beavers) have often been re-dubbed lines and re-animated shots as Petunia the Maid in a less-brown skin and a less-black lips in later showings and re-released to theaters in 1992 by Universal Pictures.

Home video

 * Main article: Little Audrey: The Movie (video)

It was then made available in North America on home video in 1979 by Paramount Home Video.

Transcripts

 * Little Audrey (1956 film)/Transcript

Gallery

 * Little Audrey (1956 film)/Gallery

Trivia

 * This scene features many references to Disney's Pinocchio:
 * Prince Melvin turns into a donkey which Little Audrey looking at him in horror, a very similar script and a re-reusing animation on the relationship between Pinocchio and Lampwick in the Disney film.