Madam Mim
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Madam Mim or Mad Madam Mim as she is sometimes referred to is a fictional witch, best known from the Disney movie based on The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White, where she was voiced by Martha Wentworth.
In order to rescue Arthur from her clutches, Merlin challenges her to a sorcerous duel in which the combatants transform into various animals:
- Mim becomes a crocodile and bites off Merlin's tail after he has changed from a tortoise into a rabbit.
- Mim then turns into a fox and chases Merlin into a tree trunk, where he turns into a caterpillar and slithers out.
- Mim then turns into a chicken and pecks Merlin so he is catapulted into the sky, and turns into a walrus.
- Mim is crushed by Merlin; she reacts by turning into an elephant, but Merlin then turns into a mouse and scares her away.
- Mim turns into a tiger and re-appears, landing on the ground and creating a massive hole.
- Mim then turns into a snake and goes to bite Merlin, only to bite herself after Merlin thinks quickly and gets away.
- Mim then disappears into a hole in the ground and Merlin intimidates her after turning into a crab.
- Mim then becomes a rhino and proceeds to smash Merlin against a tree, only for him to jump off and turn into a goat.
- Mim is wedged through a tree at the top of a cliff, and Merlin charges into her and she falls off the cliff into the water.
- Mim turns into a dragon - "Did I say no purple dragons? Did I?' - and Merlin runs away, turning back into a mouse. Mim then captures Merlin between her hands and appears to have won, but she then hears Merlin telling her that he is a germ - and that she caught him!
- Back at Mim's house, Merlin tells her that her illness is not too serious and that in a few weeks should be "as good - I mean, as bad - as ever".
(Part of this sequence was later replicated in an episode of Darkwing Duck, in which Darkwing, shrunk down to the size of a microbe, infects the villain Lilliput--as well as himself, Gosalyn, Honker, Launchpad and two germs that he had befriended.)
It is easy to gain the impression that Mim originated with the movie, as White published several different versions of his novel over the course of his life and the final version of the text does not mention her at all; but she is there to be found in earlier editions, magical duel with Merlin and all. Notably, Mimi's subplot was the only nonessential portion of the story that was kept for the Disney adaptation, because the wizard's duel lent itself so well to animation.
The Disney version of the character was adopted into the Donald Duck universe where she sometimes teams up with Magica De Spell and/or The Beagle Boys. She also sometimes appeared in the Mickey Mouse universe where she teamed up with Black Pete on occasion and even with The Phantom Blot at one point. She also was in love with Captain Hook in several stories. In many European Disney comics, she lost her truly evil streak, having taken on an Addams Family-esque personality instead; morbid, but still relatively polite.
