I said I was going to post on Chernabog in my next post, and I want to make good on that promise. But, I also wanted to note a milestone that has been reached as well. So…off we go!
When I was in the seventh grade, my parents bought me a copy if the Fantasia soundtrack. The 1940 classic had been re-released sometime that year, and I had seen it in the theatre…a few times if I recall correctly. The movie is epic. Most memorable to me were three parts; the Night On Bald Mountain/Ave Maria adaptation, the remarkable adaptation of Stravinsky’s Right of Spring, and the wonderful and whimsical adaptation of Beethoven’s sixth symphony. I had previously seen silent scenes from the Right of Spring off of a film roll at my elementary school. At the time, I didn’t realize that the film clip of the dinosaurs fighting had been done by the Disney Studios…I just loved watching the Tyrannosaurus-Rex and the Stegosaur duke it out!
The end of the show has Chernabog as the evil, devilish winged creature residing over (and controlling?) the frantic dances of his macabre acolytes. Really something…and brilliantly matched to the music of Mussorgsky. This was a a far cry from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!
Postcard-wise…there are only a couple Chernabog cards…one of which has an interesting little bonus. In NT1833, their is a grouping of Villains in the card with Chernabog in the back…but in a less menacing form. If this were for real, I suspect all the other villains would be fleeing for their lives! But the funny part about this card is the added “zombie” Mickey Mouse in the lower left of the card. I had not noticed that before until I happened to pull the card out of my collection the other day. I wonder who’s idea that was?!?
Chernabog can also be found in NT1717.
Finally, for the milestone. The checklist now has ALL of the cards from the Nickel Tour book entered into it! That is over 2000 records that can be searched for any text or aspect of the card all the way through NT4041. Have a card and want to determine the NT#? That is not hard to do now…just enter a search with info you do have…and the card should show up in the result. You can also use this tool to track your collection…so let me know if you want to do that. Going forward, I still need to add a lot of scans and also clean up the appearance of the tool. I also want to start loading Disneyland and WDW cards that are not in the NT and assign them NT or WDW numbers. So stay tuned for that…but for now I wanted to make sure I passed along this news!
Until next time…
Suspect that “zombie Mickey” is from “Runaway Brain”, a lavishly produced Mickey Mouse short from 1995. The plot has a mad scientist switching Mickey’s brain with that of a gigantic Frankensteinian Pete, and the rampaging monster-minded mouse matches the one on the postcard. Mickey, meanwhile, comes to the rescue in the monster’s body. A few million volts of electricity and brains are back in their proper heads, but Mickey’s work is still cut out for him.
While the short was heavily promoted, I didn’t think the new characters had any afterlife in merchandising.
Cool…thanks for the info!