page_title: An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
section_title: Release and promotion
hierarchical_section_title: An American Tail: Fievel Goes West / Release and promotion
caption_attribution_description: English: Kennedy Center seen from the Potomac River.
context_page_description: An American Tail: Fievel Goes West is a 1991 British-American animated comedy Western film produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio and released by Universal Pictures. A sequel to An American Tail, the film follows the story of the Mousekewitzes, a family of Jewish-Ukrainian mice who emigrate to the Wild West. In it, Fievel is separated from his family as the train approaches the American Old West; the film chronicles him and Sheriff Wylie Burp teaching Tiger how to act like a dog. Fievel Goes West was the first production for the short-lived Amblimation, a studio Spielberg set up to keep the animators of Who Framed Roger Rabbit working.
  While the animation medium was transitioning in computers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Spielberg wanted almost all of the animation of Fievel Goes West to be hand-drawn, describing animation as "an arts-and-crafts business." He also wanted the animation to have a "live-action" feel. While the first film was directed by Don Bluth, direction was handled by Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells in their directorial debut for the sequel.
context_section_description: Fievel Goes West was initially planned for a fall 1990 release, but it was delayed to a late 1991 date. In 1989, the date was moved again to Christmas 1992 before reverting back to Christmas 1991 in May 1990, when the subtitle Fievel Goes West and a follow-up television series was also first announced. It was moved to the fall of 1991 in November 1990. It made its worldwide premiere at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as their big children’s theatre recital performance, on November 17, 1991, where 275 inner-city kids that were guests of Fannie Mae's company attended the event; the children also made their own American Tail storybook and posed with a costume version of Fievel for pictures. Notable adult attendees includes Chuck Robb, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, Al Gore, Marvin Bush, Margaret Bush, Fred Grandy, Elliot Richardson, and Robert Haft.
  Both Fievel Goes West and Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) began their United States theater runs on November 22, 1991; this was the first-ever instance of two animated films being released on the same day, "a testimony to the revival of interest in feature-length animation" according to the Boston Herald. Along with competing with an unusual number of family films with middling budgets such as The Addams Family, Curly Sue , My Girl, and Spielberg's Hook; both Beauty and the Beast and Fievel Goes West were promoted with, as of the films' release date, the most expensive set of film tie-ins ever.
  40 brands licensed with Universal to promote the film, including the non-profit Reading Is Fundamental, which used the character of Fievel as a mascot for Reading Buddies kits; and Pizza Hut, which used characters from the film on designs their Pizza Packs and soft-drink cups, a decision influenced by their previous tie-in success with the Disney summer film The Rocketeer (1991). Upon the film's release, Universal Studios Tour opened the attraction Mouse Trap, a 2,500-seat interactive version of Fievel Goes West. In the summer of 1992, Universal Studios Florida opened American Tail: Fievel's Playland, a playground featuring set recreations of An American Tail and Fievel Goes West. Boxtress also released a illustrated book version of the film written by Cathy East Dubowski and Beverly Lazor-Bahr.
caption: An American Tail: Fievel Goes West premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts before its nationwide theatrical release.
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