The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep



The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep is an animated short that is based on the Danish fairy tale of the same name by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. It is an episode part of the series "Animated Tales of the World".

Summary
After a mother takes her two children to bed, a portrait of Hans Christian Andersen comes to life and tells the story of two protagonists made of porcelain: a shepherdess and a chimney sweep. The shepherdess asks the chimney sweep to know if he is asking her to marry him. The chimney sweep then explains that he is practicing to marry her to know if he could marry the chimney sweep properly. Watching over the two is the grandfather of the shepherdess named Grandpapa. Even though the shepherdess and the chimney sweep love each other, Grandpapa wants her to marry the mahogany-carved satyr, Goat-kneed Major-Minor Star Commander Sergeant instead who adorns a cabinet in the room full of porcelain wives.

However, the shepherdess dislikes the idea of marrying the Goat-kneed Commander, since she doesn't like living inside the dark cabinet of the satyr where the porcelain wives live as she loves to live with the chimney sweep in rooms with light. Suddenly, a drawer opens by itself reveals lots of playing cards flying out of the drawer as the two find out to know what is happening. A joker card tells the couple to join him for true love at the chimney-sweeping trade as the two imagine if they were in the place joker lead them to the to a place where they would find true love. The couple imagines if they were in a place that the joker card mentioned, where a queen card sings a song about love as the shepherdess and the chimney sweep fall in love together. It is revealed that the place where the two would be is a figment of their imagination; the shepherdess and the chimney sweep plan to escape from a forced marriage between her and the Goat-kneed Commander, but the chimney sweep tells her the only outside world he knows is the chimney as she tells him to take her to the chimney.

As the two decide to escape from the part where the marriage will take place, the Goat-kneed Commander and Grandpapa are worried that they have escaped the spot where they would be married as the two decide to go to the chimney. Suddenly, after failing to go after the two and return them to the spot where they would be married, Grandpapa suddenly falls on the floor and is shattered into pieces. Meanwhile in the inside of the chimney, the chimney sweep tells the shepherdess to look up to know they are in the chimney as the two decide to climb up the chimney where they love each other as they see the outside world on the rooftop. Overwhelmed at the vast expanse of the outside world, the shepherdess decides that she would rather return to the parlor to know if everything is okay with Grandpapa and the Goat-kneed Commander as the two decide to return to the parlor.

Back at the parlor, the two discover that the porcelain Grandpapa fell on the floor and is shattered into pieces when he failed to go after them so that the two wouldn't escape as the shepherdess is disappointed that escaping from her grandfather was a bad idea. Although they try to put the pieces of him back together, the porcelain figure of Grandpapa still cannot be fixed by just putting the pieces back together as the shepherdess and the chimney sweep notice that someone is entering the room. Meanwhile, the household's maid discovers as she thinks that her two children have broke this figure despite her warning not to touch it; the porcelain figure of Grandpapa actually broke when he fall off the parlor table as he was trying to go after the shepherdess and the chimney sweep who were escaping to reach the chimney.

Thinking that Grandpapa would come back, the Goat-kneed Commander tells the two that if he came back, he would tell the shepherdess to marry him instead of the chimney sweep so that she could live with a lot of porcelain wives in the dark cabinet. Meanwhile, the household's maid fixed the porcelain figurine of Grandpapa by gluing the pieces as she puts the fully reassembled Grandpapa on the parlor where he was supposed to be. Suddenly, the Goat-kneed Commander tells Grandpapa to know if she could marry the shepherdess, but the Commander gets no response from Grandpapa. It is revealed that a newly-placed bolt prevents Grandpapa from nodding his head. The shepherdess is finally able to fall in love together with the chimney sweep.

Voice Cast

 * Samantha Spiro - The Shepherdess


 * Chiwetel Ejiofor - The Chimney Sweep


 * John Normington - The Portrait of Hans Christian Andersen


 * David Burke - The Goat-kneed Commander


 * Paul Bigley - The Joker / various Stags on the Goat-kneed Commander's cabinet


 * Robert Lang - Grandpapa, the Mandarin porcelain


 * Lucy Robinson - The Household Maid


 * Adam Sandford - The Boy


 * Meghann Murdock - The Girl


 * Hanne Damm - The Queen (singing voice)

Trivia

 * Unlike most animated shorts that are animated in the style of traditional animation and stop-motion, this one uses the style of CGI animation.