Rip’s Toast to Hudson (1896)
Article 5634 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-19-2019
Directed by William K. L. Dickson
Featuring Joseph Jefferson
Country: USA
What it is: The fifth episode of the first serial

Rip Van Winkle makes a toast and has a strange reaction.

I’ll dispense with a repeat of the historical context of this short that I covered in the second episode. This is perhaps one of the more entertaining of the episodes; he’s partying with the dwarfs and makes a toast, but then starts having a strange reaction. I suspect that it’s the moment when the grog he is drinking is starting to overcome him and he’s preparing for his deep sleep. The story as a whole has definite fantastic content, but like the previous one I’ve covered, the primary fantastic content here is the presence of the dwarfs, although if you didn’t know the story, you probably wouldn’t know who they were.