MarzGurl Discusses An American Tail: Mystery of the Night Monster

(Clips from the movie are shown)

MarzGurl (vo): An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster is easily the worst movie in the American Tail franchise. Yes, it's another movie based on a title directed by Don Bluth, with absolutely no involvement from Bluth whatsoever. Hey, so long as Dom DeLuise keeps showing up, I'm there.

Tiger: So? So what did Mr. Daley say? Did he vote for you to become a reporter?

MarzGurl (vo): Fievel keeps having recurring nightmares around the story that keeps appearing in newspapers and on the lips of mice all over town. There's a monster out there in Manhattan and it's kidnapping mice in the middle of the night. Now this story doesn't deter Fievel's sister, Tanya from going to work and doing her job at the newspaper. Wait a minute, Tanya is old enough to work for the newspaper? Well, I guess, I just didn't think she was that old; then again, this is the late 1800s.

Mama Mousekewitz: Then I want you should take Fievel to work with you.

Tanya: Huh?

Mama Mousekewitz: And have this fabled Nellie Brie tell him that this monster is a bunch of bobble and bowelderdip!

MarzGurl (vo): Do you want Tanya to lose her job?! Asking your child to take their younger sibling with them while they're going out to meet their friends? Okay, that I can understand, even if it's really incredibly lame. This, however? Aside from being a totally unprofessional thing for you to have to do at your job, there's all kinds of things that could go wrong when one kid is having to watch another kid while on a high stress job. Along the way to work, we're introduced to Nellie, a fantastic field reporter who gets tons of praise for the quality investigating she does, and yet, she never feels like she's given the most fantastic of assignments from the boss. Speaking of the boss, here he is now, Reed Daley. Reed is voiced by Robert Hays, who I can only ever successfully picture as...

(Cuts to a clip from Airplane!)

Ted Striker (vo): It was at that moment that I first realized Elaine had doubts about our relationship. And that, as much as anything else, led to my drinking problem. (He misses his mouth when he drinks and it splashes on his face)

MarzGurl (vo): Instead, we get this guy.

Reed: Blast it all, Nellie! (slams his fist on his desk) OW, ow, ow!

MarzGurl (vo): So Reed finally gives Nellie a chance to work on this story about the disappearances of the mice around town, calling it a Night Monster in order to incite panic among people and sell more newspapers, which is disgusting yellow journalism, and they should all be ashamed that they work for this newspaper. But, eh, it wouldn't be a long time before good journalism was ever revolutionized. Anyway, somebody got the bright idea to let Fievel tag along with Nellie to check out where the monsters are hitting.

Nellie: (singing) When the night is dark, shadows all around you, and the monsters are everywhere you turn / There's a very simple secret I have found, that anyone with courage can learn

MarzGurl (vo): Yeah, there's bad musical numbers in this movie, too, so what? What follows is one of several incredibly racist interactions with families who have been affected by this so-called Night Monster.

Female Chinese mouse: Husband come home, I serve him dinner. Eat real good, then room shake. Room split, awful sound, like million angry wasps! Ayyyyeee! Also smell, smell like fiery breath of dragon! (exhales) Then monster rise up, eyes bright with fire, teeth flash, hear cry of husband, "AYEE!" Then...nothing! (sobs)

MarzGurl (vo): Yep, pretty offensive. Let's go get introduced to another new character, because, you know, we simply can't get enough of all these new, deep characters. There's a French poodle in town by the name of...Moosey, Mousey? Whatever, the name slips between the two pronunciations, as does her accent quite frequently, yet she somehow manages to fool the mice in Manhattan into thinking she's a fortune teller.

Mousey: (French accent) No! (chuckles) I am a miniature poodle. We are, by design, tres petite.

Fievel: Well, I think she looks like a rat.

(Fievel is then picked up by Mousey and gets shook up)

Mousey: (Normal accent) Look, mousey, I am NOT a rat! You got that?! NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT!

Fievel: Okay, okay, okay, okay!

MarzGurl (vo): What follows is an extensive investigation of the suspicious dog, and we see lots of racism as well as lots of...Fievel not really doing a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. I mean, he's drawing pictures of what the mice are reporting they've seen, but they're all different. The movie tries to spin this, like, despite the fact that all their monsters look different, they're all seeing the same monster. But really, if that's the case, they definitely didn't need Fievel tagging along at all. In fact, this movie could have been done completely without the assistance of the American Tail cast, but it HAD to be An American Tail movie, didn't it, Universal? So anyway, they get some tip-off from a dog named Lone Woof. Yeah, yeah, very punny. This dog, strangely enough, is being voiced by the current guy whose taking up the job of being the next "In a world" narrator on top of trailers and stuff, John Gary.

Lone Woof: You may call me Lone Woof.

MarzGurl (vo): Whatever. So actually, you may be wondering, why are Tony and Tiger tagging along? Frankly, I have no idea. Okay, that isn't entirely true; Tony wants to be a reporter real bad, even though he's too stupid to do it, and Tiger...is bored and will tag along with anybody who lets him. Tony picked up some dangerous tips from the poodle and eventually nearly leads Nellie and Fievel to their deaths at the hand of the Night Monster inside a condemned house, but I guess he was useful enough and saved them from getting killed. What they eventually find underneath that house is a sewer system, and in the sewer system is a bunch of cats who, for some reason, have agreed to be led around by the poodle to build some nightmare machine with lights and saw blades to kidnap mice and sell them to other cats. The remainder of the movie is a bunch of shenanigans, leading to the release of all the mice in town and getting the poodle returned to the owner that she ran away from. Tony gets this bright idea to fill the sewers with water. Yes, that's right, save everybody by drowning them, wonderful idea. The newspaper offices are almost entirely destroyed in the chaos, and yet seem to be back in business the next day. Tiger at least did something useful by calling in a group of dogs from the park to chase out all the cats, and Nellie and Reed fall in love. I guess that's cool. Then Fievel finally isn't too busy running around with a newspaper reporter and isn't afraid of going to sleep, so he just sorta passes out, much to the amusement of his family. "Hahaha, we threw our son into stupid, overworked, dangerous situations, and now, he's too tired to live. Hohoho, isn't that adorable?"

I don't know what this was, but it most certainly was not An American Tail movie. As I said before, it could've easily been made without the cast of An American Tail in it at all, there simply was no point. And the animation took a steep downward turn, even after the last direct-to-video release. The characters move less realistically, the colorization is murky, and there is almost zero shadowing or shading to any of the characters ever, at all. The movie was an unfortunate quick buck movie on the part of Universal, and now hopefully since it's been a good twelve years since its release, we won't have to worry about any more unnecessary additions to the story.