I was sorting through some stacks of papers the other day, and I coincidentally discovered a printout of a post made to the VantageNet board on 3/6/00 by Sheila March regarding the original Josette's music box. Apparently this question had come up at the DS festival in 1999, and it was stated that many costumes and props from DS were donated to Fordham University, so that is a likely place where the original music box might have ended up. (I wouldn't be surprised, though, if it ultimately ended up in someone's personal possession after that!) According to Sheila's post, KLS remembered the music box as a lovely item, while Stuart Goodman recalled it as a tacky thing held together with tape.
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Financial considerations, sadly, preclude my attending the festival in NYC this year, so upon a little deliberation I decided to console myself and purchased one of the few remaining Josette's Music Box replicas now in the hands of the Dark Shadows festival.
I just knew that if I didn't buy one now, I'd be unhappy the rest of my life -- and would probably return from the afterlife in search of one ... I had seen one of the replicas at the festival in Anaheim, so I knew pretty much what it looked like, the size, etc. I know some posters a couple of years ago complained that it was tiny, plastic and chintzy.
Well, I must say that I was delighted when I received my mint-condition music box within a week of ordering it from the festival.
The music box actually looks quite attractive on one of my bookshelves. The plastic base with the filagree looks the best; but the plastic lid, though it reproduces the design of the original cover exactly, so far as I can tell, does have more of that "plastic" look. However, we could hardly expect that a collectible item for a TV show would actually be glass and copper (as I take it the original box is supposed to be).
The size seems to be perhaps 2/3 scale, based on visual comparisons with the music box in "House of DS" (the quickest way I was able to do a comparison). Does anyone know if the music box in HODS was the same one used on the show?
A close comparison between the music box in the movie and the MPI replica shows that the original is much bigger around and slightly taller and the filagree pattern does not go up as high on the glass as it does on the plastic model.
The music piece in the replica plays "Josette's Theme" with a clear, ringing quality ... It seems to play perhaps a dozen bars, and I can't recall for certain if that is the extent of the original song or not.
Does anyone know if the 1996 MPI music box (which is the one I purchased) is identical to the one offered in conjunction with DS back in 1970? Were the materials used, the size, shape, pattern, design, decorative features, color, and tone of music exactly the same?
Who produced/distributed the 1970 version of the music box?
One other difference between the replica and the one on the show is that the top lifts off the replica completely (rather than tilting back), and the melody doesn't play when you lift it off -- you have to wind the bottom!
To be continued ...
