Tucked away in my closet underneath a stack of my teaching bags is a flat box from my childhood.
I hadn't opened the box in years and I was curious as to what was still left of the pieces.
The board was in great shape and still had a picture that I had made long ago.
Naturally I had done Samson, the horse!
I found the other horse pieces and considered changing the picture up for a moment, but then I decided to leave it alone - I liked the idea that something I had created during childhood was still intact.
I did sort out the clings and there are some missing. The clinginess is gone, too, but that is due to dust that got on the board and pieces over time. I can easily clean that off with a damp cloth.
As I looked at Samson, the horse from the film, I realized that the Colorform horse was different from the movie Samson.
The black mane and tail had been changed to a white one. (Probably to make it more visible against the background.)
Movie photo and photo of Hagen Renaker Disney pieces from Google Images.
The white horse/black mane and tail was a very popular depiction of horses in the 1950s and 1960s.
Hagen Renaker's first circus ponies were produced in the fall of 1955 through the spring of 1956. Both have white bodies with black manes and tails.
Other companies that produced model horses used the same color scheme.
Hartland certainly did,
and perhaps Breyer's alabaster color is a tweak on the color scheme. My old mold Proud Arabian Mare from 1958 - 1959.
Breyer's charcoal color, first seen in 1961, is a reverse of the color.
Perhaps the charcoal color was inspired by the pieces with white bodies and black manes and tails?
A recent Samson, one that was designed to be a cake topper.
I've explored the white body/black mane and tail color before. There are several blog posts about it, so instead of putting the links here, go to the search box and type in "black mane" to pull them up.
Tomorrow we will look at some other Disney horses.
Stay 'tooned!
