Nutcracker and Mouse-King - Part 1

I'm so glad you're covering this! I can't wait to hear your reactions as the story goes even more off the rails

Stewart Huntsman

It may air at different times on other PBS stations. The trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-bh2EAFs10

Ben Gilbert

South Carolina Public TV is airing 'The Nutcracker and the Mouse King' on December 14 at 9 PM. -- Conceived by John Mauceri, this new work is a re-imagination of Tchaikovsky’s holiday favorite, "The Nutcracker." Based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 book, Alan Cumming recounts the origin story of how a prince got put into a nutcracker. Unlike the ballet, you will also learn what happens when the young girl grows up, having saved the prince, and what they are doing today.

Ben Gilbert

The glass wig and eyepatch were strokes of genius. Mad genius, but genius all the same.

Peter Larsen

Hey, when I was a kid, getting called "unsagacious" was quite the burn. Kids got shanked on the playground for less than that. Of course, that was during the 30 Years' War, when you could get shanked for just about anything. Those were the days....

Peter Larsen

Uncle D is sis AF

Michelle Elbert

In other news, on the subject of children’s books with super sweet adaptations but truly dark source material, you may want to take a peek at Mary Poppins. So dark, so WEIRD.

Michelle Elbert

1stly - Please convince Andrew to do a full reading of this, I would pay money for that. 2ndly, OMG that you guys are doing this is legitimately great. I got a copy of the book and a nutcracker for Christmas when I was about 7, after seeing the ballet for maybe the 2nd or 3rd time in as many years. I tell you what, that handsomely dressed gentleman stood on my dresser until SOMEBODY WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS donated him to Goodwill when my parents moved out of the house I grew up in. (I knew I should have taken him with me to adorn my university dorm room desk…)

Michelle Elbert

Regarding the part where Drosselmeyer gets irked because the kids are bored and I think you said calls them dumb, the book I have has it as “Für unverständige Kinder ist solch künstliches Werk nicht, ich will nur mein Schloß wieder einpacken.” If this is the right part, unverständige is the word in question. I would normally translate it as unreasonable, but in this case unwise or not clever would be more appropriate. One thesarus I checked included unsagacious which really defeats the purpose of sounding pissed off with a bunch of kids. So nothing as funny as what you may have thought up like Dummkopf, Dummerchen, Trottel or Idiotin. Loving hearing you guys tell this tale and the music’s great.

Also I think it’s pretty clear that “children” being delicate seems to come in and out of fashion over the years.

Andrew Brown

Guys I love you but might i gracefully suggest to not have the music behind His Excellencies story narration?

Andrew Brown

Glass hairpiece, you say? Why, I do believe Hoffman has stolen the classy, classy finery of Cornelius Hawthorne from Community. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fcommunity%2Fcomments%2Fi35qim%2Fsolid_ivory_is_the_only_way_of_identifying_myself%2F&psig=AOvVaw2vmkP4faZwhntIQEsvrADy&ust=1638919504325000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCIjGhIup0PQCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

My wife took me to see <i>The Nutcracker and the Four Realms</i> a few Christmases ago, and I left the theater thinking if I was a thirteen year old girl I would have loved that movie, but as it is I enjoyed some of the performances and some of the general concepts BUT my wife, who was much more familiar with the source material - both the ballet and the original Hoffman story - assured me the original was a lot weirder. Drosselmeyer (played by Morgan Freeman in the film, complete with eyepatch} in particular she described as a lot creepier and sinister. So I have been curious about it, not enough to actually read it myself (though that may change) so at the end of "The Sandman" when you mentioned the seven headed mouse king and talked about doing this story, I got excited. This episode did not disappoint. Its definitely living up to my wife's description. I am locked in and looking forward to the rest of the month.

An interesting programme on radio 3 this evening. They certainly agree with you about drosselmeyer and the dark undercurrents https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0001ss8

Also I'm really digging the music! I'm a sucker for remixed classical music

When I was younger, my mother and I would go see the local ballet's production every year. My dad and sister just weren't that interested, which was fine--it was a nice tradition between just my mom and I. I've always known the actual story was different from what the ballet was based on, and I'm really looking forward to hearing you cover it this month.

I actually just got the Oldstyle Tales edition of Hoffman from Amazon not knowing you'll be covering this so I'll have to read the Nutcracker with you guys. I remember reading this edition you are reading as a kid multiple times it was one of my favorite Christmas books. There's definitely some really dark stuff in here and I loved it as a kid lol. Looking forward to hearing you guys cover it over the month.