Who remembers the nesting dolls segment?

[Rosewood]

A long time ago I remember seeing a segment for counting from 1-10 using a set of old-fasioned nesting dolls. First, the largest was counted as 1. Then she broke apart, releasing the second one which counted as 2, and so on untill #9 ( which looked to tiny to possibly hold anythng) finally broke apart, releasing a tiny little nubbin of wood, counting as 10. It ended showing all of them assembled and standing in a row, and durring the whole segment some realy cute flute-like music was played. Anybody else remember this?

 

[Ziffel]

Oh yeah, it was a cute one. One of them said, "oops" part way through. Then at the end there was a delay before the tenth one came. Then they all shouted "Ten!". I thought those were pretty neat being inside each other. There were various other toys and items I would see on SS that I wished I had, like the rhino toys shown in one of the falling down baker sketch. And the piano with the man in the lunchbox, though that wouldn't have been possible!

 

[fuzzygobo]

Hey Rosewood! We meet again! (Thanks for your lovely note). I also remember when they go backwards from 10 to 1. If you listen carefully
you can hear their little speeded-up voices as the dolls climb back into their bigger counterparts. One gets in upside down "Wrong way, dummy!", another starts whining "I don't wanna!!!", and most touching of all, as doll #2 climbs back into doll #1, she gets a little peck on the cheek.

With a lot of animation done by computers these days, it's nice to remember films like these, where the dolls were moved BY HAND to create the illusion of motion. I've made a couple films like this and it is a VERY long, painstaking process. But it's a labor of love.

 

[superfan]

That was a great skit...would love to see it again! My grandmother had a set very similar to those and the fact that I was never allowed to play with them bugged me.

 

[SesameMike]

At the very end of the sequence where the dolls nest back into each other, the camera does a close-up on the doll's face. I think the doll did a slow turn to face the camera at that point.

The nesting dolls are from Russia, and were a very popular export/souvenir item even in the days of the Soviet Union. A friend of mine at the time had a nesting apple that worked the same way.

 

[ssetta]

I know those 2 very well. Another thing that's a difference between the 2 of them is the music. In the one where they count from 1 to 10, the music is in a major key, and in the one where they count from 10 to 1, the music is in a minor key.