Musical Mondays Week 12 An American Tail (and Squeakquels)

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

Sorry I was MIA. I had a busy weekend and then ended up getting sick on Sunday/yesterday, so I just got around to watching this, and I think it still holds up really well (MUCH better than All Dogs Go to Heaven...). But one thing really bothered me.

 

When Fievel first meets Tiger, Tiger quizzes him on his favorite things before they start the song "A Duo." One of the things he asks him is what his favorite book is, and Fievel says, "The Brothers Karamazov."

 

Now, I know this was inserted because they're Russian. But there's no way that happy-go-lucky kid has read Dostoevsky, and especially not Dostoevsky at his most bleakly philosophical.

 

So I got to thinking, "Well, what Russian Literature would be 1) immediately recognizable to American audiences as such and 2) would be age-appropriate for Fievel?" And after racking my brain, I realized that this is a stupid question because 1) who cares and 2) where the fuck did this kid even learn to read?

 

This is a stupid thing to be angry about, but goddamn it, it's the hill I'm gonna die on.

If Fievel had said Crime and Punishment maybe it was because he read the comic book.

[tomspanks 9039]

I noticed this hair tonic bottle on the lower left corner, because earlier in the movie, there was a similar bottle for Princess hair tonic.

 

 

Well, John Pomeroy was involved with not only this movie but the other Bluth movies as well.

[Cam Bert 8145]

2

3

Wait, so they move out west and then back to New York?

[IMAHUGEHDTGMFAN 1837]

Sorry I was MIA. I had a busy weekend and then ended up getting sick on Sunday/yesterday, so I just got around to watching this, and I think it still holds up really well (MUCH better than All Dogs Go to Heaven...). But one thing really bothered me.

 

When Fievel first meets Tiger, Tiger quizzes him on his favorite things before they start the song "A Duo." One of the things he asks him is what his favorite book is, and Fievel says, "The Brothers Karamazov."

 

Now, I know this was inserted because they're Russian. But there's no way that happy-go-lucky kid has read Dostoevsky, and especially not Dostoevsky at his most bleakly philosophical.

 

This is a stupid thing to be angry about, but goddamn it, it's the hill I'm gonna die on.

 

(A bit of a long setup... Please bear with me)

My personal bone to pick with Fievel (and the movie) is even more superficial...

 

According to The Internet he is 7 years old, so he is a little kid right?, he asks a lot of questions and wanders around sure... And oh yeah, I almost forgot He has a death wish!!! MY WORD!!!

 

To name a few instances of recklessness:

 

*He takes some metal pots/pans & spoons and goes on his own to "scare off" the Cossack Cats

 

*He tosses the family heirloom hat so he has a "valid excuse" to go outside to a crazy tide thunderstorm

 

*He follows the sound of classical music played by Violin to an appartment where everything but the kitchen sink is trown at him and a little later into the sewers where there are cockroaches, and alligator that eats them (acording to the H.I. S.D.H. subtitle) and is the underground H.Q. for the cats

 

There are more, but you get the point

 

 

So... how does this naive, present-driven, impulsive, father defying mouse with a short attention span that is constantly ignoring logic and warnings left and right had the retention and memory to store, remember and repeat the "Giant Mouse of Minsk" story to anybody after only hearing it ONCE and inmediatly be shocked scarred and scared multiple times at life shattering leves?

 

<-----------------------This is a more appropriate reaction every time he survives all those near death situations, don't you think? Or is Fievel so green and naive that his mind does not get the severety of the events he has lived through?

 

Now "THIS is a stupid thing to be angry about, but goddamn it, it's the MOUNTAIN I'm gonna die on." (An analysis of Fievels memory of the "Giant Mouse of Minsk" story was one of my notes)

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

Okay, I have a stupid question but mostly because I was drifting in and out by the last half hour plan.

 

I must have this wrong, because it's so stupid that it can't be right.

 

The mice are all worried about the cats, and Madeleine Kahn's rich mouse says, 'we need a plan', and then Fievel says 'yo I have a plan', and they all agree to the plan and enact the plan, which is a living Rube Goldberg machine of an idea, where you wait for the whistle and then you release the thing and then the big mouse goes boom and the cats run and they jump off the pier and then they go to China.

 

Is that really the plan? What happens if the cats, instead of going to the pier, go, oh, I don't know - anywhere else? What if they choose not to forcibly emigrate? What happens when the mice figure out there are more than eight cats in America? What happens if the cats say 'okay, that thing that chased us wasn't a real mouse, let's jump off this anchor and go back and eat all those mice'?

 

But no, the cats love the plan, they nail it at every turn. Off to China we go. Welp, we're on an anchor, guess we go to China now. And they're going to be on that China boat for fucking months before they get there. Why do they give up before the anchor's even finished going up?

 

Plus - if stray cats are found on an open-ocean-going vessel, that little bastard's going straight over the rail, no discussion. This is a death sentence.

 

And please tell me the China angle had nothing to do with the stereotype of Chinese people eating cats. Right? Surely not. But then why China?

 

Well, actually, not China, Hong Kong was British then. The magic cockroach wouldn't need to learn Chinese money, they used Hong Kong dollars.

 

And why did the magic cockroach go too? The mouse of Minsk has no beef with him!

 

Surely I've interpreted this all incorrectly. Right? RIGHT? There's no way this is actually how this movie ends. I had a fever dream and really it is much more logical than this.

[tomspanks 9039]

Why do they give up before the anchor's even finished going up?

 

Because of this:

 

 

They made it sound like cats were gonna drown, so I guessed that the cats couldn't jump off the anchor into the water. I remembered this because I was horrified that those cats might drown. And also, some cats actually don't mind the water, but those mice knew very little about their natural enemy.

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

 

Because of this:

 

 

They made it sound like cats were gonna drown, so I guessed that the cats couldn't jump off the anchor into the water. I remembered this because I was horrified that those cats might drown. And also, some cats actually don't mind the water, but those mice knew very little about their natural enemy.

But don't they jump into the water and then get on to the anchor? I might be misremembering this. How do they get over to the anchor? HOW!@!@!! Why don't they jump onto a pontoon or a buoy or a dinghy or a passing seagull?

 

If the plan is to hear the whistle then let the mouse free and then make the cats jump on the raising anchor at an exact moment, this isn't 'American Tail' anymore, this is a 'Fast and Furious' movie. This makes the climactic train scene in 'BTTF 3' look pedestrian.

 

This plan is BANANAS

[Cam Bert 8145]

I want to know whose idea it was to write "Great Mouse of Minsk" on the machine. I mean were they sitting around talking and one of them said "You know what my favourite part of that story is? When he gets his name tattooed on himself," Who is it for? It's coming at the cats, so they can't read it. If a person who was at the docks in the morning saw it they wouldn't say "What's that? The great mouse of Minsk? Huh, thought it would be bigger." They'd have no idea what that even meant.

[Cameron H. 23786]

I found it funny that the music coming from the gramophone was John Philip Sousa. You also hear multiple women shrieking when they catch sight of Fievel which to me implied to me that these lovely, mouse-fearing women were just about to sit down to a lovely tea with the relaxing clang and clatter of marching band music in the background. Relaxing. Just like my yoga studio.

[tomspanks 9039]

But don't they jump into the water and then get on to the anchor? I might be misremembering this. How do they get over to the anchor? HOW!@!@!! Why don't they jump onto a pontoon or a buoy or a dinghy or a passing seagull?

 

No, they just end up jumping into the water, presumably to their watery graves, at the same time the boat's anchor was going up.

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

 

No, they just end up jumping into the water, presumably to their watery graves, at the same time the boat's anchor was going up.

So the mice were just trying to straight up murder the cats, and the China boat was a convenient way to ease their consciences? If they just wanted to get the cats in the water, why wait for the boat horn at all? And if the ship is moving by, shouldn't it have weighed anchor entirely before moving? I clearly need to watch this scene again, but yeah, I'm not gonna.

[Cam Bert 8145]

 

No, they just end up jumping into the water, presumably to their watery graves, at the same time the boat's anchor was going up.

Remember how corrupt drunk Irish mayor was so insistent that they wait for the correct time, is that because he was waiting for the boat to leave so the cats would go into the water? Rather if they went early the cats could easily run on the boat and be saved? Was that part of Fievel's plan?

[tomspanks 9039]

So the mice were just trying to straight up murder the cats, and the China boat was a convenient way to ease their consciences? If they just wanted to get the cats in the water, why wait for the boat horn at all? And if the ship is moving by, shouldn't it have weighed anchor entirely before moving? I clearly need to watch this scene again, but yeah, I'm not gonna.

 

Lol, no, I mean from the cats' perspective, they jumped in without knowing that there would be a deus ex meowchina. The mice knew that the anchor would be going up at that precise moment.

[tomspanks 9039]

Remember how corrupt drunk Irish mayor was so insistent that they wait for the correct time, is that because he was waiting for the boat to leave so the cats would go into the water? Rather if they went early the cats could easily run on the boat and be saved? Was that part of Fievel's plan?

 

Yes, I think they timed it so that the cats would get onto the Hong Kong right at the departure time. In earlier scenes, the Hong Kong was shown docked.

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

Yes, we all know that those old timey steamers plying the high seas between Hong Kong and New York City run on a precise nuclear-clock like timetable. This is a very reliable plan.

 

[tomspanks 9039]

Yes, we all know that those old timey steamers plying the high seas between Hong Kong and New York City run on a precise nuclear-clock like timetable. This is a very reliable plan.

 

 

Hmm...maybe the mice should've lured the cats to the train tracks and have them run over.

[Cameron H. 23786]

 

 

Hmm...maybe the mice should've lured the cats to the train tracks and have them run over.

 

Who do you think they are? Mouseolini?

[Cam Bert 8145]

Can't decide which pun I like more Mouseolini or deus ex meowchina

[FisterRoboto 7499]

I found it funny that the music coming from the gramophone was John Philip Sousa. You also hear multiple women shrieking when they catch sight of Fievel which to me implied to me that these lovely, mouse-fearing women were just about to sit down to a lovely tea with the relaxing clang and clatter of marching band music in the background. Relaxing. Just like my yoga studio.

Also, RIGHT before that, Fievel hears violin music coming from that apartment, so he assumes it's his dad, which is why he goes to investigate in the first place. Then, they were like, "Well, this gentle violin music is just too tame for the fucking rager of a tea party we're about to have!"

 

 

Hmm...maybe the mice should've lured the cats to the train tracks and have them run over.

That would be almost as stupid as

cats having a plan to lure all the mice into what is CLEARLY a giant mouse trap.

 

 

Good thing that never happened in this series....

[FisterRoboto 7499]

Can't decide which pun I like more Mouseolini or deus ex meowchina

Weird. I was trying to decide which goddamn mouse pun I hated the most.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

I noticed this hair tonic bottle on the lower left corner, because earlier in the movie, there was a similar bottle for Princess hair tonic.

 

 

Well, John Pomeroy was involved with not only this movie but the other Bluth movies as well.

I don't want Pomeroy! I'm a Dapper Dan man!

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

 

Hmm...maybe the mice should've lured the cats to the train tracks and have them run over.

I don't think Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat would have allowed that to happen.

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

I don't think Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat would have allowed that to happen.

I want to see an alternate version of this story from the cats' perspective, where we realise that Warren T. Rat's real name is actually Macavity the Mystery Cat, and the cats are after the mice because they're messing with the Jellicle Ball. Cross-over mash up! Get Dame Sir Andrew on it!

[Cameron H. 23786]

Weird. I was trying to decide which goddamn mouse pun I hated the most.

 

Wow, that's not very mice...

[FisterRoboto 7499]

 

Wow, that's not very mice...