Chicory, Mickey Mouse, and the Grueling Life of Apprentices
An old broom and an old moral: don’t fall asleep on the job. #cinema #animation #videogame
Welcome back to Artcade, the tunnel that instantly drops us on the other side of the planet—Australia. Or so I thought. A quick check shows that if you dig straight to the antipodes, you splash down in the ocean. Alaska doesn’t work either. Turns out if we insist on drilling a perfect line through Earth, we drown. Thankfully, here we deal in connections, not straight lines. Where are we heading? Let’s find out!
Here it is: a perfectly ordinary broom—the very one from Disney’s masterpiece Fantasia.
Our star, Mickey Mouse, is the sorcerer’s factotum. Tired of lugging water buckets up endless stairs (see image below), he “borrows” his master’s magic hat.
A few shaky attempts later, the spell works and the broom starts hauling water for him.
Mickey is so pleased he dozes off—what could possibly go wrong? I’ll leave you one hint, the rest is in Fantasia.
AA.VV. (1940) Fantasia [Audiovisual work] [Animated, Musical] [126 min.] Walt Disney Productions
Chicory—the wielder of the enchanted brush that brings color to the world, and the one who gives the game its name—is nowhere to be seen. Once again, the apprentice is left to do all the work. Turns out, we are the apprentice: it’s our broom skittering across the screen to dust the studio.
Suddenly a noise startles us, the lights cut out, and an instant later the entire world turns black-and-white.
We hurry to Chicory’s private rooms and find the magic brush abandoned on the floor.
Be honest—would you keep sweeping, or grab the brush?
From that point on, the brush lets us poke at the world, unlock paths, light dark corners…
…and splash color back where it vanished.
Wishes Unlimited (2021) Chicory: A colorful tale [Video game] [9½ Hours] (Playstation 5) [macOS, Windows, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One/Series X/S] Finji
Information Desk:
Chicory: A Colorful Tale feels like an adult coloring book come to life, but if patience isn’t your thing, there’s a handy six-hour longplay covering the entire game—though, honestly, you’ll still need patience to watch it.
Fantasia got a sequel sixty years later, in 2000. Decades of pondering, and they landed on Fantasia 2000. Bold. You can find it on Disney+. I haven’t watched it, but despite the premise—and a trailer that looks frozen in time—it might be worth a shot.
Semi-obscure yet wonderful, Allegro non troppo is basically an Italian Fantasia from 1976. It mixes live action and animation, features Maurizio Nichetti as the on-screen cartoonist, and is written and directed by Bruno Bozzetto. Even if those names mean nothing to you, stream it free on RaiPlay (Italy’s public-TV app). I said free. Why are you still here?
My last two coins
Up top I mentioned the obvious moral: don’t nap at work. Dig a hair deeper and another lesson pops out: if you’re a fool, don’t crave power. I’m not sure Mickey would love knowing the fool in the story is him, but wouldn’t it be nice if basic lessons were truly basic? Instead, plenty of fools chase power—and sometimes get it. I’m guessing that’s true everywhere, not just in Italy.
The bigger snag? Most fools don’t realize they’re fools, and telling them doesn’t help. I wouldn’t believe anyone who called me a fool. And what if they were right? Nah, impossible. Luckily, I have no plans to run for office.
Until the next episode—ciao!