I "fake-swapped" (I.e., worked on a themed project without actually exchanging it with anyone) this figure for Craftster's Disney & Pixar Swap. Cursed with an indecisive nature, I often have difficulty choosing a character/thing to focus on, but, in this case, it so happened that the Magic Broom from Disney's 1940 Fantasia film had been on my "to-do" list for years, I still had the reference images for such a project, that I'd collected in the past, saved on my computer's hard drive, and, in the last few months, I purchased a plush Apprentice Mickey Mouse toy and Random House's 1973 The Sorcerer's Apprentice children's book, so, the stars were in alignment. While I like it, I haven't ever watched Fantasia start-to-finish, but I have seen many of the individual segments repeatedly over the years (unless my memory is playing tricks on me, I believe that, in my youth, the Disney Channel used to air truncated versions of them pretty frequently).

The Sorcerer's Apprentice symphonic poem was composed by Frenchman Paul Dukas in 1896-97, which was in turn based upon German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1797 work of the same name. In the musical world, it's Dukas' best-known piece, and Disney's 1940 Fantasia did much to increase its recognition with the general public. At first, Walt Disney had intended for his interpretation of Dukas/Goethe's work to be a stand-alone Silly Symphonies short, with the goal of revitalizing the Mickey Mouse character, whom he felt was suffering a decline in popularity at the time, but, as the cartoon grew too ambitious and costly for that format, Disney expanded the concept into an animated feature film, and thus, Fantasia was born.

The plot of Disney's take on The Sorcerer's Apprentice is simple, but memorable. Whilst working, novice Mickey Mouse witnesses an impressive display of magic performed by his ancient master, Yen Sid (who, in my opinion, has the creepiest eyes ever.) When the sorcerer retires for the evening, setting aside his magic cap, Mickey decides, against his better judgement, to give the enchanted hat a try himself. Donning said garment, Mickey elects to give life to his broom (which grows a pair of arms) and supplies it with his two buckets, his idea being to have it do his chores for him--namely refilling a cistern with water. Everything goes well at first, and Mickey is quite pleased with himself, but, it being late, and the labors of the broom monotonous, the mouse soon falls asleep in a chair. Alas, his tireless wood-and-straw minion continues to fill the cistern while he dozes, eventually to the point of it overflowing and flooding the room, which awakens Mickey. The apprentice frantically tries to stop his single-minded creation, but, he lacks the knowledge and power to do so, thus, in desperation, Mickey resorts to chopping the broom apart with an axe instead. Unfortunately, the magic he invoked is too strong to be stopped by even that extreme measure, and every single splinter of the shattered implement soon rises again and reshapes itself into a complete broom creature, identical to the original, forming an entire army of the things--who promptly return to emptying buckets of water into the submerged cistern, despite the absurdity of continuing with the completed task. His problems increased a hundred-fold, Mickey is overwhelmed and almost drowns in the resulting deluge created by the relentless brooms. It is at this point that Yen Sid makes his timely reappearance, sees the results of Mickey's mistakes, and immediately, and easily, puts a stop to the whole affair, dispelling the water with a few gestures and changing all of the wooden workers back into a single, inanimate broom. Having learned his lesson, the sheepish mouse gingerly hands the magic hat back to its rightful owner, who angrily snatches it from his hands, directs the mouse to return to his duties, and, finally, delivers a well-deserved swat to his irresponsible apprentice's rear end with the broom. While there is no spoken dialogue in the cartoon, in the pages of the previously mentioned children's book, Yen Sid also offers this sage advice to Mickey: "Don't start what you can't finish."

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Materials:
Newsprint, tissue paper, white glue, wire twist ties, and acrylic paint.

Dimensions*:
5.0 cm (2.0") wide (including buckets) x 5.9 cm (2.3") tall x 2.5 cm (1.0") deep.
* The measurements given will vary slightly depending on how the joints are positioned.

Articulation:
Nine points; Shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, and bucket handles.

Time:
Two days; March 18th and 20th, 2016.