Storyteller's Classics presents The Nutcracker

Here is a half hour animated adaptation, but it's not listed on IMDb. The end credits say it was produced by British company Mad Man Movies for Castle Communications, whose sole IMDb credit is a 1996 Christmas themed special titled Silent Night. This carries a copyright date of 1994, and according to a WorldCat listing, it was released on VHS by the Orion company. A YouTube video transfer of a commercial for the Storyteller's Classics series reveals four other titles in the series: Peter and the Wolf, The Toys' Symphony, and animated adaptations of Tchaikovsky's other ballets: Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, all narrated by Dudley Moore or Helena Bonham Carter. Moore narrates this one, which is animated well and looks nice, but is not "breathtaking animation" as the commercial says.

This adaptation opens with a party at Marie and Fritz's home (yes, they have their original Hoffmann names). A couple of servants are getting everything ready while mice raid the food. Drosselmeyer arrives and among his gifts is of course the Nutcracker, which Fritz breaks some of the teeth off of. The mice spot the Nutcracker and inform their king.

Marie sleeps with her Nutcracker and the mice invade her room to try to steal it. When she gets up to investigate, they scurry away. The Nutcracker comes to life and Marie shrinks. He explains that he was the prince of Candyland who was going to marry a princess, but her father didn't want them to marry, fighting with the prince. When the king gets a wizard to turn the prince into a nutcracker, he refuses to pay for the service, and is turned into a mouse king.

The mice attack the castle Drosselmeyer brought, Marie and the Nutcracker making a stand, but Marie is captured. The Nutcracker manages to free her and they go to Drosselmeyer's workshop, which leads them to Candyland. (Apparently, riding the carousel does it.) The Sugar Plum Fairy brings them to her castle, where she pays the wizard to break the curse on the Nutcracker to restore him to the form of a prince and Marie becomes a princess, while the Mouse King arrives.

Marie confiscates the Mouse King's crown and disposes of it, rendering the king a regular mouse, and the other mice rebel against him. The prince and Marie kiss, then the scene fades to Marie and the Nutcracker still in bed on Christmas morning, but the living room is still a mess from the battle. So was it a dream?

I was reminded a bit of the 1973 Russian Nutcracker while reviewing this one, in which the Nutcracker also tells a different origin story for himself and uses no dialogue (there is a version narrated by Shirley MacLaine, but I haven't seen it). Still, that one had style, deciding to time the animation with the music, while this one just has the music play in the background. It also alters the plot in an unusual twist, what with Marie being imprisoned and later defeating the Mouse King—revealed to be a transformed person who is never restored—just by removing his crown. I can't exactly say it was bad, but it wasn't that great either.

This version seems to be hard to find. Copies pop up on eBay, and it doesn't appear to have been reissued on DVD. I found it on YouTube, the uploader unsure of its origins and their tape starting after the title and possible opening credits had already passed. The sound had an unfortunate loud tape hiss. They claim to have made the video from a DVD transfer of a VHS recording from a TV broadcast. If you're interested in collecting it, copies may be out there, but I wouldn't recommend spending too much on it.