#an american tail

[disney-is-mylife]

THIS IS NOT A COMPREHENSIVE LIST. I just wanted to highlight some beloved and underrated nostalgic classics.

I am NOT counting: Studio Ghibli, DC, Marvel, Scooby-Doo, sequels/prequels, and most other franchises. I made an exception with MLP and Care Bears because both films were produced at the beginning of their franchises, as opposed to the G.I. Joe series, Transformers, etc. There's a LOT to cover in the 80s-90s, hence why I split the two polls. This is basically Don Bluth's Era lol.

90's Poll

Happy voting! ❤

[propalahramota]

Found out from Twitter that in the animated movie "An American Tail", the protagonist's family comes from Shostka, which is a real town in Northern Ukraine. And now I'm wondering if the writers specifically chose Shostka because they knew it had a big cheesemaking plant or was it a thematically happy coincidence.

[littlemousywitch]

Little mice on big adventures 🐁

[proverbialschoolmarm]

[whispsofwind]

I wonder why there's so many children stories about mice and other small critters behaving like people.

I mean, on the top of my head, I can name the Redwall books (I was OBSESSED with Martin as a child), Don Bluth's An American Tail and The Secret of Nihm (with their sequels), Disney's Basil of Baker Street, and the absolutely adorable Brambly Hedge series (I had the one about the four seasons as a child and the illustrations are so absolutely charming).

Like, when you think about it it's SUCH a specific trope. I am sure the anthropomorphisation intrinsic to many classic tales and parables is partly at the root of it, but it goes beyond it because it's not just speaking animals, it's speaking mice and rats specifically behaving and dressing like tiny people.

Dunno I just find it cute

[princessmisery]

Interest check for a possible Don Bluth inspired sticker sheet

[geeky92]

Don Bluth movie posters (1982-2000)

[romancemedia]

Classic Animated Movies about Mice

[justladders]

@skeletoninthemelonland's oc, the Graveleaper, in the style of An American Tale. Bc I've been having character style-change brainworms and anon suggested it.

[disneyfemslash]

Miss Kitty²!

[ydotome]

An American Tail - Dir. Don Bluth - November 21, 1986

[goblinsatchel]

More movies and tv shows

[whowouldwininafite]

[mice-rats-daily]

Today's mouse is the Mouse of Minsk from An American Tail (1986)!

[usssnarfblat]

Did Anastasia deserve to die for her family's crimes against Fieval's family?

I've always found it interesting that "Anastasia" and "An American Tail" were made by the same guy...

My mom got us "An American Tail" as kids, since we were Jewish, and a Disney-like movie with Jewish characters was a one-of-a-kind thing. ("The Prince of Egypt" was still a few years away. Yes, I'm that old.) More to the point, my dad's side of the family is largely Russian Jews, who immigrated in the early 1920s, for exactly the same reasons as the Mouskewitz. Being a child of this background and very literally obsessed with cats, I had mixed feelings about the movie.

When "Anastasia" came out a few years later, Mom didn't let that history stop us from enjoying the new princess movie, but she didn't shelter us from it either. We regarded it like we did the real history behind any sugar-coated princess movie. She even got us some history books about the real Romanov family, and we were fascinated by the subject.

Still, it's an odd elephant in the room, watching "Anastasia" and knowing that her granddad was the one who sent those Cossack cats after Fievel's village, and her dad himself continued doing it to the Jewish mice who didn't leave.

"Go, Pompom, Kibble and Fluff-Baron! Kill those Jew mice, and I'll give you extra catnip treats tonight!"

Don Bluth presents both the Romannov family and their victims with equal sympathy, even opening both movies with the family celebrating a holiday, with the kid heroes getting a plot-specific present, before being viciously attacked.

"Wow Grandmama! Fieval and Tanya could use this as a merry-go-round!"

*Cough* "Yes uh, about those Jewish mice Sweetie..."

Bluth's portrayal of the Romanov family is not entirely inaccurate. By all accounts, Nicholas II was a deeply loving father who both doted on his children, but raised them not to be spoiled. Despite being royalty, the princesses shared bedrooms and did charity work at hospitals.

It's a baffling irony that Nicholas was nevertheless was a tyrant, and not remotely just to his Jewish subjects. When I was about twelve, Mom got me the Dear America book A Coal Miner's Bride, about the Catholic Polish immigrants who also fled the oppression of the Russian Tzar. (Anastasia's family conquered part of Poland in the 1800s, banning the Pols from speaking their own language and drafting their sons into the Tzar's dick-measuring contest wars.) Anyway, that's what my mom's side of the family was fleeing when they immigrated. Yes, my family has double reason to hate the Romanovs.

So, I personally don't have a lot of sympathy for Nicholas II. But the horrors his poor wife and children endured in their final moments never fails to get the reaction from me.

The rationalization for the murder of the children and queen was that it was the only way to ensure that the monarchy never returned. But I assume most modern-thinking people would say that the ends do not justify the means in this case.

That said, millions of families like Anetka's and Fievel's suffered as bad or worse than the Romanovs, because of the Romanovs, and no one remembers them because they didn't wear tiaras. This no doubt was another factor that killed sympathy for the Romanov children. But they were still children.

The question today is, if we can feel for a family that was literal royalty, despite their father being an undeniable tyrant against our own families...can we also feel for Palestinian and Israeli families, during a conflict that is vastly more complicated than Imperial Russia?

Or do they need to be cute mice and glittery princesses to get our attention?

[atomic-chronoscaph]

An American Tail “wave monster” concept art by Don Moore (1986)