Hansel and Gretel

## Stats

**Hansel and Gretel** (aka Hanselito and Gretelita) is the third episode of the first season of Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child, and the third in total. It aired on March 26, 1995.

## Summary

This story opens up with two children named Hanselito and Gretelita, who live in a tropical rainforest in Cuba. They were very poor and had little to eat. But, they were very playful. They are playing a baseball-esque game and Gretelita catches the rock, so Hanselito says that she gets peppermint sticks. This gets their mother, Dolores, worked up, and she scolds them for always talking about winning food even though they are struggling. She gives them a random talk that neither of them understand, and goes back into the house crying, and blaming her husband for their poverty as apparently he was supposed to make them rich. That night, the family has bread, and even later that night, Dolores writes her will, singing and talking loud which wakes Alberto her husband, and even Hanselito and Gretelita up. Alberto tells her that they will have a miracle one day and won't die, but Dolores gets an idea and decides that to have two less mouths to feed, she will take Hanselito and Gretelita to the forest and leave them. Alberto isn't on board, but Dolores goes to sleep with this thought in her head, besides, she even thinks that the beasts in the forest won't be starving, too. Hanselito and Gretelita hear this, so Hanselito has an idea and gets some rocks.

The next morning, Alberto leaves to attempt and make some money, while Dolores wakes them up telling them to get up and to the forest for some sticks to brooms. They get moving into the forest while Hanselito drops his rocks on the path that they walk on. Dolores tells them to separate as they'll get "more work done" and she says she'll meet them at the spot they are at by the end of the day, walking off and laughing at the spiders and quicksand they'll face alone in the forest. When night falls, Hanselito tells his sister not to worry, and they can easily follow the rocks which glow thanks to the moonlight. When Alberto worries about the disappearance of his children, they come running right back home, which ultimately foils Dolores' plan. But she plots to take them again the next day, this time locking the windows so they can't get rocks. The next morning Dolores gives them bread crumbs which Hanselito drops as they walk, and she leaves them in a farther spot in the forest and races home. Alberto worries again about Hanselito and Gretelita, but Dolores tells him that they must come back again. Unfortunately for the two siblings, that will have to be the next day, because the crumbs don't shine in the morning. The next morning however, there are hungry birds that eat the crumbs particularly due to the fact Gretelita said they are bread.

While Alberto skips going to work to find his children, Hanselito and Gretelita now have to find an alternate way back home. They find a river where if they cross, they can find a short way back home. Hanselito warns Gretelita about the quicksand and they must cross very cautiously, but they have to also dodge crocodiles which they fortunately pass by safely. They get to the other side where they find a house made entirely of candy and confections. Hanselito bites into a candy cane railing and they both feast on the house until the person who lives there, Susanna, meets them. Hanselito apologizes and asks if they can work for it, but Susanna isn't sure if they are good at anything, but lets them in her house when they say they helped their father make brooms. She sits them at a table and is excited at the fact that she is having children over "for dinner". Hanselito and Gretelita eat sweets while Susanna gets out a bag of Garbanzo beans, that turn into a miniature band. They all have a moment of dancing until one band member tells Gretelita to escape while she can, and starts explaining himself until Susanna gets tired and makes the band stop. Later that night, Hanselito and Gretelita are woken up by sweeping sounds. They look in a room and see Susanna using magic to make brooms sweep themselves, and she transforms into her real form,a witch.

Susanna flies out, and the two children are locked inside the house. Hanselito sees a cookbook that lists some recipes including children inside, which they realize that Susanna will eat them. Susanna the witch returns and confirms this, but first, she tells them that they will fatten them first as the bigger they are, the greater the meal would be for a witch. Her laugh wakes up Dolores, and since her husband is gone as he went into the jungle, she runs out the house feeling scared and lonely. Susanna locks Hanselito in the cage and with a plate of sweet junk food with Gretelita monitoring. Hanselito decides to not eat one bite of it, and each day when Susanna comes in to check Hanselito's arm, he uses a stick which fools the witch. One day she has enough and decides to eat Hanselito chubby or not that same day. She demands Gretelita to check the oven if fire is burning, and she is unable to tell or not. Susanna shows her how to check if the fire is burning by sticking her head in the oven, giving Gretelita the opportunity to push her inside and closing the door. She frees her brother and they escape the house, which disappears in a black wind after the witch's demise. The Garbanzo bean gang is freed, and Alberto meets his children once again. Because the story of Hanselito and Gretelita's adventure had spread, Alberto's broom business becomes a success and the family is saved, and they lived happily ever after, minus Dolores who is no longer seen after falling in the quicksand.

## Trivia

* Being a Mexican spin, the cookbooks are in Spanish. One book that can be seen is called "Pies a la barilla". This could be a mistranslation, as "pies" is "feet" in Spanish. "Barilla" isn't directly a Spanish word, rather it refers to a plant containing sodium carbonate obtained by burning it.