Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend
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Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend was a newspaper comic strip written and drawn by Winsor McCay beginning in 1904. It was McCay's second successful newspaper strip, after Little Sammy Sneeze secured him a position on the cartoon staff of the New York Herald newspaper. Rarebit Fiend was published in the Evening Telegram newspaper, which was published by the Herald at the time. The editor of the Herald required McCay to use a pseudonym for his work in the Telegram to keep it separate from his Herald strips, so McCay signed all of his Rarebit strips as "Silas."
McCay intended his Rarebit Fiend strip to be an amusing morality play, meant to comment on the dangers of overindulgence. It focuses on various people who have a passion for Welsh rarebit (Welsh rabbit). Each strip takes place after a protagonist known as the Rarebit Fiend (who is never named in the comic strip) has eaten a rarebit. It causes him to have strange dreams and nightmares, thus exacting the price for his folly.
McCay's famous character Little Nemo — who later had his own strip, Little Nemo in Slumberland — first appeared in Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend within the first year of its existence. Unlike Rarebit Fiend, which was intentionally created for an adult reading audience, Little Nemo was intended for children. McCay went on to write and draw Little Nemo for the New York Herald.
McCay produced four hand-drawn animated movies based upon his Rarebit Fiend, all within the same year (1921):
- The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
- Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Pet
- Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Flying House
- Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: Bug Vaudeville
Film pioneer Edwin S. Porter had earlier produced a movie version of Dream of the Rarebit Fiend in 1906, though this is not considered to be a true "animated film" but rather an early exercise in trick photography.