When I first got this movie on videotape (a long, long time ago), my Siamese cat lowered his ears and gave me a disgusted look when he heard the song, "There Are No Cats In America."
@ShadrakJohn I agree, when I first saw this cartoon with people and with all of them saying that there are no cats in America, the people were saying "what are they talking about, there's cats everywhere?" I guess these mice are just wanting to get their hopes up saying that there are no cats in America and just looking for a way to stay calm.
I'm just about crying at this story of survival. :'-) I think all support groups need to sing and dance to help with their grief at losing someone to "cats." Cats for me means people who killed or raped other people or animals I loved. I'm a human trafficking survivor.
when you really think about it... this movie was actually very dark in a rather amusing way. back then, these kind of animated films really were the best. they had such an amazing sense of scaling and darkness.😊
The Italian part was my favorite. Catchy in spite of the grim topic, relates in an understandable way the historic truth about how Italian peasants in those days (Particularly in Sicily) lived under the thumb of merciless Mafia dons who would kill them for the slightest offense, and tells a good albeit tragic story, all in less than twenty seconds.
It's an allegory, like most of the imagery in this movie. Immigrants came to America to escape the problems of their own country, be it persecution, crime, famine, etc. America was seen as the golden land of opportunity and they thought all their problems would be behind them. But they found out that many of the same problems existed in America, as well as entirely new ones.
It's the first movie I remember when I was like 4. My second is follow that bird and third muppets take Manhatten. Fun times! They all had sad parts like big bird being birdnapped and sitting in the cage and if now its time for saying goodbye didn't get you sad, you have no heart. But they taught me as a kid, and still as an adult, that sad times happen. But if you fight and never give up, good things will happen too
How were all the traveling mice (including the Mousekewitz family) under the impression that there are no cats in America just because one of the mice (referring to "Papa") started singing a song about it? Didn't they know that there may be cats already living IN America *before* they got there? Was there no way they could have done a bit of fact-checking long before they got to America, back when the movie was set?
I mean, to be fair, in the real world a lot of immigrants came to America believing there was no violence happening there, Don Bluth probably based this song on that
Lots of immigrants to America had a romanticised view of it and how the “streets were paved with gold” over there, etc. Actually Fact-checking stuff back in those days would’ve been impossible for most people as all they had to go on were stories and rumors.
The sad truth was despite the hardships in America, there were worse at home. I asked my father when I was young very young why they believed in such silly nonsense, my father who is a legal immigrant told me a lot of times things were tens times better in America. It made really appreciate my home.
"There are no cats in America AND THE STREETS ARE PAVED WITH CHEESE". It's the same as people today thinking our streets are paved with gold when they're really crumbling and full of potholes
Honestly saying, although this movie was a huge part of my childhood and this song is quite good, this was by far the dumbest thing i ever heard.....how does one think there are no cats in America? i mean seriously?!?!!!????!!!
@daybreak2376 I agree. When I first saw this cartoon with some people and hearing them saying, "there are no cats in America", one person said, "why are they saying that, there are cats everywhere around the world?" Perhaps these mice just want to think something positive in life to keep themselves calm about cats as a way of saying "we'll keep a distance from those cats" as we're in America since they knew on the inside that there are cats in America.
If you were a mouse then no cats combined with the streets being made of cheese would be paradise right? Just like if you were an immigrant, the streets being paved with gold sounds like paradise. Same difference
As my Russian translator tells me, it's pronounced: "Fee-vuhl." Still, Don Bluth is amazing. He is a great fellow member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to me. He has implemented much of our Church's doctrine in his films. He's universally beloved. He has used his talents the right way.
This movie made me petrified of the ocean and boats, took mum years to get me to even CONSIDER going on a cruise. Yep, this movie is nightmare fuel for the young-ins (good nightmare fuel, they’ll get over it eventually and get some good life lessons from it too).
Yeah, Don Bluth's early movies were just shit your pants terrifying and depressing. That's why older 80's millenials are always such hardasses. The traumatizing shit we got exposed to in our formative years is just unreal.
We were latchkey aka feral kids too. We were pretty much on our own at kindergarten so he was just preparing us. But agreed, it's why many like myself aren't scared and even semi welcome the chaos today. It's kinda familiar and comforting lol
@kakashidemon321 didnt say they were. fyi i am an american. its just that at this period of time was not our finest hour. Immigrants were coming here with high hopes and grand dreams, of which americans either try to dash or take advantage of those same dreams.
