Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Dancing Mushrooms from 'Fantasia'

A selection of pieces from the Nutcracker Suite ballet depicts the changing of the seasons from summer to autumn to winter, with no plot.

A variety of dances are presented with fairies, fish, flowers, mushrooms, and leaves, including "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", "Chinese Dance", "Dance of the Flutes", "Arabian Dance", "Russian Dance" and "Waltz of the Flowers".


In September, 1994 the Walt Disney Classics Collection released the Three Mushroom Dancers (Large, Medium and Hop Low) sculpted by Kent Melton. 

In the film six red-topped mushrooms shake off the dew, then become wide, coolie-hatted Chinese men with round heads, long robes and pigtails that are choreographed into a dance. Hop Low, smaller than the rest of the mushrooms, cannot keep up with the steps and routines of the larger mushrooms. He hops back into place just in time to take a final bow.

While working on completing the Pastoral Symphony sequence I talked about in my recent www.wdwfanzone.com article, the Mushrooms were earlier pieces I also passed up on.  On the heels of completing my article, was able to find a Large Mushroom (locating the Medium Mushroom and Hop Low last year) which arrived today and create the grouping above.  Wouldn't it be nice to have the space to actually create the scene as its depicted in the movie with seven mushrooms?




Special Note: The dewdrops on each mushroom are genuine Austrian crystals.  During 1994, the green background logo was replaced with a revised boxed in logo for both the Medium and Large Mushroom. Hop Low was not produced with the teal green logo.

7 comments:

Matthew said...

I always love seeing pictures of other folks' collections. Thanks for posting the picture, Don and congratulations on your new mushroom!

DC Pop Fanatic said...

Thanks Matthew! You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed the photo.

Took me a little over a year to track down all three Mushrooms. Really great pieces, very glad to have in my collection now and look at them and wonder how I passed on them initially.

Did you notice Chernabog's hand reaching for them? ]:)

Matthew said...

NO!!! Leave Cherny out of this!

Karen said...

Hop Low was the very first piece I ever acquired. If I only knew then what he would lead me into!

DC Pop Fanatic said...

Hop Low is such a great piece! It was the 1st of the Mushrooms I acquired when I decided to add the Mushrooms to my collection.

The piece for me, that I didn't know what I was getting into was Charter Member Jiminy Cricket.

lucky said...

This dancing mushrooms are so cute! I really want to have one!

DC Pop Fanatic said...

The Dancing Mushrooms are very nicely done and make a great grouping when displayed together.

I know some collectors who purchased additional medium and large mushrooms to recreate the moment in the film.