Thursday, October 25, 2012

Mickey Mouse as the Brave Little Tailor (Porcelain Figurine 1993)


The Brave Little Tailor

Charter Year Members-Only Sculpture

Walt Disney Collectors Society
Announcing the First Animators' Choice.

Finally, the unveiling of the 1993 Walt Disney Collectors Society's Members-Only sculpture.  It's Mickey Mouse in Walt Disney's 1938 classic, Brave Little Tailor, selected by Disney feature animators as the finest moment in Mickey's animation career.

Special free gift: With this exclusive sculpture, you'll receive a "miniature" collectible book of "Mickey Mouse Tales," a $5.95 retail value.  For membership information, or to order, come by or call

Created by the Walt Disney Classics Collection, "I Let'em Have It!" 7 1/4", is the Walt Disney Collectors Society's Charter Year, Members-Only sculpture.  Available at the special suggested retail price of just $160.00

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Brave Little Tailor is a 1938 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon is an adaptation of the fairy tale The Valiant Little Tailor with Mickey Mouse in the title role. The voice cast includes Walt Disney as Mickey, Marcellite Garner as Minnie, and Eddie Holden as the king.

Brave Little Tailor was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 11th Academy Awards in 1939, but lost to Disney's own Ferdinand the Bull. In 1994 the film was chosen as the 26th greatest cartoon of all time by members of the animation field. The list was complied in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons


Plot:

Set during the Middle Ages in Europe, a king is seeking a brave warrior to kill a giant which has been terrorizing the small kingdom. There is much discussion in the village, but no one is willing to take on the task. Nearby in the same village, a young peasant tailor (Mickey Mouse) kills seven flies at once while at his work, and accidentally interjects several other peasants' discussion of the problems with the giant to brag loudly about his accomplishment:
Peasant (to his friends): "Say, did you ever kill a giant?"
Mickey (interjecting unwittingly): "I killed seven [flies] with one blow!"
Gossip that Mickey has killed seven giants with one blow quickly spreads around the kingdom. The king summons Mickey, and asks if he really "killed seven at one blow". Mickey goes into an elaborate re-telling of how he killed the seven (flies, not giants as the king believes), which impresses the king enough to appoint Mickey "Royal High Killer of the Giant". Upon learning the misunderstanding, all of Mickey's confidence disappears and he attempts to stammer his way out of the assignment. The king offers Mickey both vast riches and the hand of his only daughter, Princess Minnie, in marriage if he can kill (or at least subdue) the giant. Smitten with the princess, Mickey proclaims that he'll "cut [the giant] down to my size", and sets off for the giant's lair.
After only a few minutes, however, he is ready to turn back and give up, but the townspeople and Minnie are counting on him. "Gosh," Mickey sighs to himself, wondering what to do. "I dunno how to catch a giant."
Just then, the giant appears, forcing Mickey to scramble for a place to hide. The giant sits down to eat a cart of pumpkins (as if they were grapes), then a drink of water (using a water well as if it were a thermos) and a smoke (rolling a cigarette from a haystack Mickey was hiding in and lighting it with an oven) as Mickey briefly ended up in the giant's mouth. Mickey is caught in the giant's cigarette, and gives his hiding place away by accidentally sneezing. The angry giant attempts to squash the tailor, who quickly produces sewing thread and a needle and binds the giant's limbs. With needle and thread, Mickey swings about the giant, sewing him up and causing him to fall and knock himself out. The giant subdued, Mickey returns home and is hailed as a hero. An amusement park is built on the site of the battle (powered with wind power from the snoring giant). The short ends with the king and a newly married Mickey and Minnie enjoying a ride on the carousel.

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