‘Lobsta Mickey’ statue, featuring the Disney character with giant claws, returns to Boston

Visitors to Boston’s Concepts sneaker store are in for quite a surprise: Disney’s Mickey Mouse will meet them eye-to-eye with an outstretched, giant lobster claw.

A long-forgotten, and somewhat unsettling, statue of Mickey Mouse has found its way back to Boston after having been auctioned off by Disney for charity in 2005 to an unknown bidder, according to oddball landmark website Atlas Obscura.

The 700-pound statue was last seen in the city nearly two decades ago at Quincy Market where it entertained tourists and shoppers.

Disney had commissioned 75 Mickey Mouse-inspired sculptures to commemorate the cartoon character’s 75th anniversary in 2003. The character first appeared in 1928’s black and white Steamboat Willie short, which premiered Nov. 18 of that year in New York’s Colony Theatre, according to the Walt Disney Family Museum.

The new character had actually appeared in two earlier shorts that year — Plane Crazy and The Gallopin’ Gaucho — but those never went further than failed test screenings, the museum states.

The original Sotheby’s auction listing said the statue’s designer was Breanna Rowlette, who was an 11-year-old Lowell resident at the time, and had been deemed Radio Disney AM 1260s Kid Correspondent in March of 2003.

The statue, since being auctioned off in 2005 to benefit the Boston Arts Academy, according to a contemporary press release, had remained elusive and an unsettling curiosity to many.

Artist Bill Griffith commented on the oddity in his Zippy the Pinhead comic strip in 2019, in which the chimeric sculpture introduces himself as “Hi, I’m Lobster Mickey. I may or may not be licensed!”

Deon Point, creative director for the Boston sneaker store Concepts, became fixated on tracking down the creation, according to the Associated Press. Concepts collaborates with Nike on a line of lobster-themed sneakers. After five years, he found the statue for sale on eBay.

Point hired a local artist to refurbish and repaint the statue, which was in need of repair. It’s placement on the showroom floor of Concepts’ Newbury Street store the day before Halloween left people “a little terrified,” Point told the Boston Globe.

Point said he plans to keep “Lobsta Mickey” on display through the holidays, before finding a new, long-term home somewhere within Boston.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/roTSyb6