1977 cartoon
Rating: 14/20 (Buster: 20/20)
Plot: A pair of mice--the titular ones--get help from a bug and an albatross in their efforts to save a little girl named Penny from a villainous woman who is looking for a diamond.
This isn't exactly the classic that poster or dvd-cover up there is suggesting, but it's entertaining enough and has this shot:
That's always been my favorite of those hidden Mickeys, those sneaky little adult visual in-jokes that the Disney animators are always being accused of inserting in the otherwise child-friendly movies. Like the spelling of S-E-X in The Lion King or the guy's boner in The Little Mermaid. I can understand somebody arguing a lot of those. ("What? That's not a boner!") But there's no way you can argue about what's going on in that shot in this cute little story about talking animals. I mean, those are non-animated boobs.
The movie's not bad at all, but the characters aren't exactly memorable. The mice are dull, even the ones who are stereotypes of various nationalities. Newhart and Gabor are adequate as Bernard and Miss Bianca, but the characters just seem a little too insignificant to be the main characters in a movie named after them. The bird and bug are fine. I like the redneck mouse voiced by the great Pat Buttram. I just wrote about villians, and Madame Medusa doesn't quite live up to her name but is at least sufficiently nasty. She's got a doofus for a sidekick, a pair of alligators (or are they crocodiles?), a great villain lair, and a pretty sweet ride. The animation isn't great, but the use of color is and makes up for what I believe was a pretty low budget. I really liked the flight through New York City although one of the worst songs ever plays during the last part of it. And the credits, a series of still images that show a bottle's journey, are cool.
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