When my aunt and uncle took me with them to Disney World earlier this
year, I knew that there would be one souvenir I would have to purchase,
even if I didn’t get anything else. That was a pair of Mickey Mouse
ears, which I would then wear around the parks in order to immerse
myself in the experience as completely as possible. I got those ears on
the first day, but after that, I found myself pretty overwhelmed by all
of the merchandise for sale. How would someone as indecisive as me ever
choose?
In the end, I mostly stuck with a few small goodies,
and I bought the Belle music box both as a reminder of the trip and an
attractive way to store mementos. This box is made of hard cardboard,
but it feels more substantive than that. Until I did a little checking, I
thought it was plastic or perhaps wood coated with shiny yellow paint.
Despite being dressed in blue when we first see her, yellow is the color
with which Belle is most readily associated. This shows her in her
iconic ball gown twice on the outside of the box and once on the inside,
and the box itself is yellow and features a delicate pattern of yellow
roses.
For the most part, the outside is flat, but the top of
the box is textured, and Belle , visible from about the waist up, stands
with a red rose in her gloved hand. Near her is the name “Belle”
scrawled in cursive, and it seems we are supposed to see this as her
signature. She stands in the middle of a pale yellow heart, and her pose
seems rather flirtatious; one side of the collar on her dress is
falling down her shoulder as she tilts her head coquettishly. I prefer
the head shot on the front, in which she rests her chin on her hand and
seems to sigh happily.
On the front of the box is a brass
clasp. Lift it up over the knob and open the box, and you will find a
yellow interior and a tiny plastic Belle in her ball gown spinning
gracefully in front of an oval mirror with brass trim. Three sides of
the bottom of the inside of the box are pale yellow with printed hearts.
The rest of the box is a brighter shade of yellow and has a slightly
fuzzy texture. Assuming that you have turned the key in the back of the
box, a tinkly version of Beauty and the Beast will play when you
lift the lid. It will also play if you turned the key last time and put
the lid down before it wound down again.
This music box is
about five inches in all directions, a good size for a jewelry box. I’m
sure that there are lots of young girls who use it for that purpose. As
for me, I use it to keep trinkets of sentimental significance. I keep
the box on my nightstand, so whenever I want to, I can reach over, turn
the key and get a snippet of that iconic song. While I actually find the
light-hearted Something There to be more romantic, in part
because it is more personal, the movie’s title song is definitely the
right choice for this music box, and it would make a great keepsake for
anyone who loves that Disney masterpiece as much as I do.
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