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Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey

Disney
by yo go re

In 1936, Walt Disney was disappointed that his star character, Mickey Mouse, was losing popularity to new introductions Donald Duck and Goofy, so he determined to put the little guy in something very special.

In the most famous sequence of Disney's Fantasia, Mickey Mouse stars as The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Dreaming of being a great sorcerer like his mentor, the great and powerful Yen Sid, Mickey's bold ambition mixed with his lack of magical ability - and rookie laxness - manage to get him in a torrent of trouble!

Mickey Mouse is the most famous character in the world, and the Sorcerer's Apprentice is his most famous incarnation. Yes, even more than the red shorts. After Fantasia opened, Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey basically took over as the symbol of Disney, the icon that represented the entire company. Heck, even if you've never seen the movie, you're probably familiar with the imagery of Mickey's segment - that's how famous the appearance was.

Mickey is dressed like a medieval peasant, wearing a simple red robe tied with a rope belt. He has blue shorts under the robe, and his brown shoes are just floppy shapes, like sacks worn on his feet. Super7 probably could have done a sculpted robe, working the articulation into the molds, but instead they did a simple black body and put a softgoods robe over it. This does make him look more realistic, more like a little guy in a situation than simply a toy representation of the same. It's a dark, velvety material, and contrasts with the light color of the rope (as well as Mickey's trademark gloves).

Naturally, Mickey is wearing his hat. Or, well, Yen Sid's hat, not his; he was just the apprentice; he didn't have a hat of his own. And therein lies a problem: the set includes three heads, and all three of them are wearing the hat. Yes, I know this hat and these robes are the iconic combo, but he didn't wear them for the entire segment. Imagine if Super7 had given us even one bare head, and a loose Sorcerer's Hat accessory, for display or even handing out to your other figures. Doctor Strange may be the Sorcerer Supreme, but wouldn't he be even more supreme with this hat?

The problem is Super7 had to cheat things to turn 2D drawigs into a 3D toy. Disney's animators could simply draw the hat disappearing behind Mickey's ears as needed, but a physical object doesn't have that luxury, so his ears clip through sides of the hat like it was designed by Bethesda Softworks. Perhaps Super7 could have made the hat removable, but there would still be big notches in the sides where the ears would need to fit. Thus, a bare head and a separate hat would have been an ideal solution for multiple display options.

All three heads are distinct. Right out of the tray, he's got the "corporate mascot" head, with his mouth open in a wide smile and his hat standing up proudly. There's a second happy head, though with the mouth closed this time, and the tip of the hat flopping a bit to his right. Finally, we get an angry head, frowning and with the brow furrowed, and here the hat tips forward slightly. We've talked before about how Mickey Mouse's eyes became his hairline, but Fantasia was an imporant step in that process: this was the film that finally adjusted his pupils to have whites around them, distinct from his "skin." The pupils on the three heads are inconsistent: they're large on the angry head and small on the second happy head.

Super7's Ultimates began as a spin-off/tie-in line for Mattel's MotU Classics, so most of them are in a not-quite-seven-inch scale. Mickey's height tends to vary based on where he's interacting - in his cartoons, he's treated as generally "human" size, but when interacting with real humans (like that famous statue of him and Walt, or shaking hands with Fantasia composer Leopold Stokowski in the film), he seems to be two-to-three feet tall. He was that size next to Yen Sid as well, so in Ultimates scale, even counting his hat the toy doesn't reach the 5" mark! His ears top out at about 3½".

The articulation is great for the size. He moves at the head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles, and tail. Being softgoods means the robe doesn't get in the way of any of it, but the ankles would have been better as balljoints, so they could be flat on the ground without the legs needing to be perfectly vertical.

The set includes five pairs of hands: fists, open, pointing, holding, and geturing magically. We also get the Sorcerer's giant spellbook, which Mickey floats on while desperately trying to find a way to solve his dilemma, and the axe he uses when he goes on his angry rampage. Even without any footpegs marring the surface of the pages, Mickey can stand on the book nicely; just make sure you balance him on your own before you expect him to stay.

Most importantly, though, we get what amounts to a second character: the broom the Apprentice brought to life. It's just an unarticulated piece, but it's sculpted to look like it's walking, and its little arms are held out to the side to allow it to carry its two buckets of water. If Super7 wanted some extra money, they'd offer a broom two-pack, allowing army-builders to surround Mickey with an army of the things.

The figure is sold in the usual Super7 Ultimates style box, with a stony design on the outside to make it look like a castle. Appropriate! The insert behind the tray is the staircase up to Yen Sid's private quarters.

Originally, The Sorcerer's Apprentice was going to be a standalone short; but Walt was so excited by the premise of adapting the story (technically Paul Dukas' orchestral version of Goethe's 1797 poem, though the exact premise can be found as far back as second-century Greece) that he kept spending more and more money on it - hiring a famous conductor to be in charge of the music, developing new recording techniques that would help form the basis of surround sound - and it was soon apparent it would never be able to make its budget back. At least, not as a short; so they decided to do a whole group of pieces set to classical music, and Fantasia was born. World War II meant it never got the chance to live up to its promise (a perpetually rereleased concert film with new segments swapped in and out over time to keep things fresh and showcase the heights of animation), but it definitely succeeded in returning Mickey Mouse to prominence.

-- 10/25/23


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