An American Tail: Fievel Goes West

***An American Tail: Fievel Goes West*** (also known as ***An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West*** or ***An American Tail II***) is a 1991 American animated Western comedy film directed by Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells (in their feature directorial debuts), with producer Steven Spielberg for Amblin Entertainment and animated by his Amblimation animation studio and released by Universal Pictures. A sequel to 1986's *An American Tail*, the film follows the story of the Mousekewitzes, a family of Russian-Jewish 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* (1988) working. It is also the only Amblimation film to use cel animation, the last in the series to do so, and the last to be released in theaters. While the animation medium was transitioning to 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. Phillip Glasser, Dom DeLuise, Nehemiah Persoff, and Erica Yohn reprise their roles from the first film for *Fievel Goes West*. Tanya's original voice actor, Amy Green, was replaced by Cathy Cavadini, and new characters were voiced by John Cleese, Amy Irving, Jon Lovitz, and James Stewart in his final film role. James Horner returned as a composer and wrote the film's song "Dreams to Dream", which garnered a Golden Globe nomination.

Premiering at the Kennedy Center on November 17, 1991, *An American Tail: Fievel Goes West* began its American theatrical run on November 22. This was the same day Walt Disney Pictures' *Beauty and the Beast* (1991) was distributed, making it the third instance of two animated films being released on the same date. *Fievel Goes West* was promoted with a wide array of tie-ins and started in the top ten at the box office. The film grossed $22 million in the United States against a budget of $16 million. Some film journalists and executives attributed this to having to compete with the Disney film.

Upon its release, *Fievel Goes West* was panned for a lack of perceived innovation compared to other animated films of its time. However, it found success when it came to home video sales, quickly reaching the top of the video charts when released on tape in March 1992; at the time, the film held the record for shortest theater-to-home-video transfer and it has since gained a large cult following. In addition to garnering more home media releases, TV airings, and video game adaptations later on, the film has made numerous 2010s retrospective best-of lists from online publications, especially best Netflix-available Western films. *Fievel Goes West* was followed by a short-lived CBS series named *Fievel's American Tails* and two direct-to-video films: *An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island* (1998) and *An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster* (1999).

## Storyline

### Plot

Some time after the Mousekewitz's have settled in America, they find that they are still having problems with the threat of cats. That makes them eager to try another home out in the west, where they are promised that mice and cats live in peace. Unfortunately, the one making this claim is an oily con artist named Cat R. Waul who is intent on his own sinister plan.

### Genres

* Action
* Comedy
* Animation
* Western
* Musical genre
* Adventure
* Drama
* Musical

### Motion Picture Rating

* **Atp** (Argentina)
* **G** (Australia)
* **Livre** (Brazil)
* **S** (Finland)
* **Tous publics** (France)
* **6** (Germany)
* **L** (Iceland)
* **T** (Italy)
* **G** (Japan)
* **AL** (Netherlands) (original rating)
* **6** (Netherlands) (re-rating)
* **7** (Norway) (DVD rating)
* **5** (Norway) (cinema rating, cut)
* **A** (Norway) (iTunes rating)
* **M/6** (Portugal)
* **All** (South Korea) (2018)
* **T** (Spain)
* **7** (Sweden)
* **U** (UK)
* **G** (USA)

## Images

UK VHS cover (1992)UK VHS cover (1993)UK VHS coverUK VHS coverUK DVD cover (2004)UK Blu-ray cover
## Cast and Crew

### Directors

* Phil Nibbelink
* Simon Wells

### Writing Credits

* David Kirschner (created by)
* Charles Swenson (story by)
* Flint Dille (screenplay by)

### Cast

* Phillip Glasser - Fievel Mousekewitz (voice)
* James Stewart - Wylie Burp (voice)
* Erica Yohn - Mama Mousekewitz (voice)
* Cathy Cavadini - Tanya Mousekewitz (voice)
* Nehemiah Persoff - Papa Mousekewitz (voice)
* Dom DeLuise - Tiger (voice) (as Dom Deluise)
* Amy Irving - Miss Kitty (voice)
* John Cleese - Cat R. Waul (voice)
* Jon Lovitz - T.R. Chula (voice)
* Jack Angel - Additional Voices
* Fausto Bara - Additional Voices
* Vanna Bonta - Additional Voices
* Philip L. Clarke - Additional Voices (as Philip Clarke)
* Jennifer Darling - Additional Voices
* Annie Holliday - Additional Voices
* Sherry Lynn - Additional Voices
* Lev Mailer - Additional Voices
* Mickie McGowan - Additional Voices (as Mickie Mc Gowan)
* Larry Moss - Additional Voices
* Nigel Pegram - Additional Voices
* Patrick Pinney - Additional Voices
* Lisa Raggio - Additional Voices
* Lawrence Steffan - Additional Voices
* David Tate - Additional Voices
* Robert Watts - Additional Voices

### Producers

* Steve Hickner (associate producer) (as Stephen Hickner)
* Kathleen Kennedy (executive producer)
* David Kirschner (executive producer)
* Frank Marshall (executive producer)
* Steven Spielberg (producer)
* Robert Watts (producer)

## Details

### Countries

* USA
* UK
* Ireland

### Release Dates

* November 22, 1991 (USA)
* November 25, 1991 (Colombia)
* December 5, 1991 (Norway)
* December 6, 1991 (Finland)
* December 6, 1991 (Sweden)
* December 11, 1991 (France)
* December 13, 1991 (UK)
* December 13, 1991 (Netherlands)
* December 13, 1991 (Portugal)
* December 19, 1991 (Australia)
* December 20, 1991 (Denmark)
* December 20, 1991 (Ireland)
* December 20, 1991 (Italy)
* January 9, 1992 (Argentina)
* January 10, 1992 (Uruguay)
* January 24, 1992 (El Salvador)
* February 21, 1992 (Brazil)
* April 3, 1992 (Singapore)
* June 25, 1992 (Germany)
* July 1, 1992 (Spain)
* July 18, 1992 (Japan)
* November 6, 1992 (Hungary)
* June 23, 1993 (Turkey)
* July 13, 1994 (Canada)
* May 3, 1995 (Russia)
* September 28, 2005 (Sweden) (DVD premiere)

### Home Media Release Dates

* June 29, 1992 (UK) (VHS)
* October 25, 1993 (UK) (VHS) (VHS re-release)
* March 3, 2003 (UK) (VHS) (VHS re-release)

## Production

### Development

A sequel to Steven Spielberg's *An American Tail* (1986) under the working title *An American Tail II* was put into pre-production by David Kirschner in April 1988 after he finished producing *Child's Play* (1988); when announcing the project that same month, he summarized that Fievel will "fight the cat-tle barons. It's like a John Ford western with Jewish mice". Kirschner started pre-production as Spielberg was setting up filming for *Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade* (1989) in Europe. He was not involved in the production and post-production, and admitted in 1993 that he disliked *Fievel Goes West* as "entertainment without character". The screenplay was written by Flint Dille, who was led to the position by writing for Spielberg's *Tiny Toon Adventures* (1990–92).

Spielberg produced the live-action animated film *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* (1988), which was the top grossing motion picture of 1988. As a way to keep the movie's animators working, due to the closure of Richard Williams Animation, Spielberg formed Amblimation, a collaboration of Universal City Studios and Amblin Entertainment, whose offices were located in London. *Fievel Goes West* was its first production and over 250 crew members from 15 different nations worked on the project starting May 1989. At the time, Amblimation was also developing *We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story* (1993), *Balto* (1995), and a screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's *Cats* which never saw completion. In December 1988, Universal announced that they would release an animated film every eighteen months and begin production on *An American Tail II* in early 1989.

Don Bluth, who had partnered with Spielberg on both the original film and *The Land Before Time* (1988), was set to direct and have Sullivan Bluth Studios provide the animation; owing to creative differences, however, they parted ways. As Bluth explained, "the business deal wasn't such that it helped our company". With no Bluth in sight for the sequel, Spielberg instead relied on ex-Disney animator Phil Nibbelink and ex-Richard Williams storyboard artist Simon Wells, the great-grandson of science-fiction author H. G. Wells, to direct the project. Nibbelink and Wells had both previously worked with Spielberg as supervising animators on *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*. Bluth said in April 1992 that he regretted his decision, admitting that he disliked the final product of *Fievel Goes West* and "maybe we could've helped that film a little more".

### Animation

Don Bluth's departure from the project resulted in the animation of *Fievel Goes West* lacking the Disney-isms of the first film's animation. Instead, its animation is faster-paced and contains more elements of Warner Bros. cartoons. Spielberg instructed his animators to take on a "live-action" method to animating the film, where the characters are affected by parts of the environment such as lighting. Spielberg also directed for the camera to constantly move in sequences such as the sewer ride sequence and a 360-degree pan shot of the film's desert vista. These types of crane and dolly shots replicated certain shots in Spielberg's *Jaws* (1975) and *Raiders of the Lost Ark* (1981) and were considered groundbreaking for the time.

Apart from one computer-generated shot of the valley's ground, all of the film was hand-drawn animated; the process was so intensive that it took at least one week to complete a minute of animation, around sixty artists to paint approximately 230,000 cels, and a week for a single animator to finish three seconds of animation. As *Fievel Goes West* was a parody of Western films, the animators heavily studied the works of John Ford and Sergio Leone.

## Marketing and release

*Fievel Goes West* was initially planned for a fall 1990 release, but was delayed to a late 1991 date. In 1989, the date was moved again to Christmas 1992 before reverting 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 third instance of two animated films being released on the same day, after *The Land Before Time* and *Oliver & Company* in 1988, and *The Little Mermaid* and *All Dogs Go to Heaven* in 1989. *Boston Herald* noted the clash as "a testimony to the revival of interest in feature-length animation". 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 an illustrated book version of the film written by Cathy East Dubowski and Beverly Lazor-Bahr.

## Reception

### Box office

Amblin Entertainment previously competed with Disney twice: in 1986 when the first *American Tail* competed with a re-issue of *Lady and the Tramp* (1955) and in 1988 when it released *The Land Before Time* around the same time as *Oliver & Company*. Amblin won both races; Fred Mound, Universal distribution president, said: "We've proven in the past that there's room for two animated features". Tom Pollock, a Universal chairman, also had faith that *Fievel Goes West* would perform well. Spielberg and Disney's Dick Cook suggested both films would be hits, although Spielberg predicted *Beauty and the Beast* to make more profits due to having more of an adult appeal than *Fievel Goes West*. Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg stated in regards to the competition: "We've competed with Amblin before and learned that there's enough room for both. These movies aren't mutually exclusive. There's a big market out there. The success of one doesn't depend on the failure of the other".

Opening to 1,400 theaters in the United States, *Fievel Goes West* has, as of November 2019, the 110th widest G-rated release of all time and the 96th widest G-rated film opening in the United States. It also has the 124th all-time biggest opening weekend for a G-rated film, opening in fourth place with $3,435,625; and has 60th smallest weekend drop for a film in 600-plus theaters thanks to its second week grossing $3,782,080. However, it also holds the record of the 119th post-thanksgiving weekend drops. *Fievel Goes West* eventually made just over $22 million domestically, and $18 million overseas, for a total of $40,766,041, making it the 60th highest-grossing film of 1991 in the United States and the 37th highest grosser of the year worldwide. As of December 2019, it is the 141st highest domestic-grossing G-rated film of all time and 123rd worldwide. By contrast, the original film made $47.4 million in the U.S. in 1986, a record at the time for a non-Disney animated one, and a further $36 million overseas, for a total of $84 million.

According to *The Washington Post*, *Fievel Goes West* tied with *For the Boys* (1991) for "the dubious if unofficial distinction of the fastest failure of a big-budget holiday movie". Some journalists and film executives attributed the film's weak box office to the intense competition it faced with *Beauty and the Beast*. However, it wasn't competing with the Disney production in Canada, and it failed there too according to a Universal executive, who also blamed Spielberg's lack of involvement in the marketing due to being too busy on *Hook*. Another official of the company explained that he had little faith in the project, describing it as "charmless" and its animation "pedestrian". Other writers blamed it on the content. Dennis Hunt suggested that "the complex story line and the scary villains didn't quite click with the kiddies", and Bernard Weinraub wrote that "even children were not especially interested in an old-fashioned animated movie". Steven Hulett of the union Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists opined that the low performances of both *Fievel Goes West* and *We're Back!: A Dinosaur Story* (1993) resulted from the poor quality of their stories, "and animation is a story-driven art form". He attributed this to Spielberg's busy schedule, meaning he didn't have enough time to focus on animation.

### Critical response

This film has a 6.5 rating on IMDb and a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

## Company Credits

### Production Companies

* Universal Pictures
* Amblimation
* Amblin Entertainment

### Distributors

* Universal Pictures (1991) (USA) (theatrical)
* Filmes Lusomundo (1991) (Portugal) (theatrical)
* United International Pictures (UIP) (1991) (Finland) (theatrical)
* United International Pictures (UIP) (1991) (France) (theatrical)
* United International Pictures (UIP) (1991) (UK) (theatrical)
* United International Pictures (UIP) (1991) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
* United International Pictures (UIP) (1991) (Norway) (theatrical)
* MCA Home Video (1991) (USA) (VHS)
* United International Pictures (UIP) (1992) (Argentina) (theatrical)
* United International Pictures (UIP) (1992) (Spain) (theatrical)
* Argentina Video Home (1992) (Argentina) (VHS)
* CIC Video (1992) (Germany) (VHS)
* CIC Video (1992) (Finland) (VHS)
* CIC Video (1992) (UK) (VHS)
* CIC Video (1992) (Norway) (VHS)
* CIC-Taft Home Video (1992) (Australia) (VHS)
* MCA Home Video (1992) (Canada) (VHS)
* CIC Video (Brazil) (VHS)
* CIC-Taft Home Video (Australia) (VHS)
* McDonald's (1994) (VHS) (through MCA/Universal Home Video, VHS)
* Universal Studios Home Video (1998) (USA) (VHS)
* Universal Studios Home Video (2001) (USA) (VHS)
* Universal Studios Home Video (2003) (USA) (VHS)
* Universal Home Video (2005) (Brazil) (DVD)
* Universal Pictures Video (2005) (Germany) (DVD)
* Universal Pictures Video (2005) (Norway) (DVD)
* Universal Studios Home Video (2005) (USA) (DVD)
* Universal Pictures Home Video (2007) (Australia) (DVD)
* Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (UPHE) (2008) (USA) (DVD)
* Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2012) (Australia) (DVD)
* Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (UPHE) (2014) (USA) (Blu-ray, DVD)
* Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (UPHE) (2014) (Australia) (Blu-ray, DVD)
* Fabulous Films (2016) (UK) (DVD)
* Universal Pictures Finland (Finland) (DVD)
* Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (2005) (Mexico) (DVD)
* Universal Pictures Home Video (2000) (Mexico) (VHS)
* Universal Pictures Video (Netherlands) (DVD, VHS)

## Technical Specs

### Aspect Ratio

* 1.85:1 (intended ratio)
* 1.78:1
* 1:66:1 (negative ratio)
* 1.14:1 (35mm uncropped film scan prints, along with the film itself in open matte)

## Trivia

* *An American Tail* is Universal's first animated film to become a franchise, followed by *The Land Before Time*, *Balto*, *Curious George*, *Despicable Me*, *The Secret Life of Pets*, and *Sing*.
* Tanya Mousekewitz's model in this movie became her trademark look, despite the events in the movie possibly being retconned in the third installment. She even appeared this way on the DVD cover of the first *An American Tail* film for many years, despite looking nothing like this in the actual film.
* The film was never edited for network television broadcasts throughout the years until November 24, 2017 when its Universal Kids airing edited out some scenes (the shooting bit in the beginning and brief suggestive humor partaking Cat R. Waul's first interaction with the human who takes him in the end). The film was also edited on January 23, 2019 when its Freeform airing and streaming edited out several scenes (including most scenes involving a tribe of Native American mice) for both time constrictions and racial controversy. That airing even sourced the film from the remastered Blu-ray printing, which removed the controversial drawing from Tanya's version of *Dreams to Dream*.
* On the 1998 VHS release, there is a free An American Tail Animated Movie book CD ROM on top of the cover.
* This is the only film in the series that uses the "The End" text at the end (used before the end credits).
* James Stewart's final film.
* This film was released on the same day (November 22, 1991) as the Walt Disney animated film *Beauty and the Beast* (1991).
* "Dreams To Dream" was originally recorded by Céline Dion, but the producers favored Linda Ronstadt, who sang the theme song, "Somewhere Out There", in *An American Tail* (1986).
* Don Bluth and his animation studio, Sullivan Bluth Studios, were originally going to make the film, as they had done with *An American Tail* (1986). Steven Spielberg and his film company, Amblin Entertainment, agreed, under the condition that it would cost no more than $9.6 million, similar to the budget of the first film, but $3 million less than *The Land Before Time* (1988), which Bluth was already directing for them. Faced with the prospect of having to lay off employees at his studio, Bluth declined the job, and called off his partnership with Spielberg after finishing their commitment with *An American Tail* (1986). Ironically, the film was made for roughly $25 million, twice as much as "Land" had cost to make.
* This film marks the voice acting debut of John Cleese. From this movie onwards, he would later go on voice act in other films, of which are *The Swan Princess* (1994) as Jean-Bob, Disney's *George of the Jungle* (1997) as Ape, the Shrek sequels as King Harold, *Valiant* (2005) as Mercury, *Charlotte's Web* (2006) as one of the Sheep, *Planet 51* (2009) as Professor Kipple, *Winnie the Pooh* (2011) as the Narrator, *Planes* (2013) as Bulldog, *Trolls* (2016) as the Bergen King at the start of the film, *Charming* (2018) as the Fairy Godfather and the Executioner, and *Polar Squad* (2019) as Otto von Walrus.
* During the song "Dreams to Dream", a book is shown with a scene from the Beauty and the Beast fairytale. Disney released their animated version of *Beauty and the Beast* (1991) on the same day as *An American Tail: Fievel Goes West* (1991).
* The only animated sequel distributed by Universal to release theatrically up until Illumination's *Despicable Me 2* (2013) 22 years later.
* This is the only Amblimation film to be animated using xerography (aside from one CGI pick-up shot of the valley's ground). After this film, Amblimation switched to digital ink-and-paint for their final two films.
* This is the first film from Amblimation.
* This is the first Universal's animated film to become a franchise.
* With a runtime of 75 minutes, this film, along with *An American Tail: Mystery of the Night Monster*, are the shortest in the franchise.
* John Cleese and Jon Lovitz later co-starred in *Rat Race* (2001).
* Jennifer Crystal Foley's debut.

## Connections

### Followed by

* *Fievel's Adventures in the West* (TV Series 1992)
* *An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island* (Video 1998)
* *An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster* (Video 1999)

### Edited from

* *An American Tail* (1986) - Right after the final battle, all of the mice claim victory, there is some recycled animation from the first movie in the background.

### References

* *Casablanca* (1942) - Miss Kitty utters lines that parody "We'll always have Paris" and "Here's lookin' at you, kid."
* *Cinderella* (1950) - When Tanya looks into the mirror and imagines herself a beautiful star, we see her reflection surrounded by sparkles of light, transforming her dress; this is a visual homage to Disney's 1950 film version of "Cinderella."
* *High Noon* (1952)
* *Gunsmoke* (TV Series 1955–1975) - Miss Kitty, the saloon-girl cat, seems to be named after saloon girl Miss Kitty from "Gunsmoke," even though "kitty" also refers to her being a feline.
* *Rawhide* (TV Series 1959–1965) - The theme song plays, while Fievel is traveling across the desert on a tumbleweed. But it's The Blues Brother's version.
* *The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance* (1962) - In at least one scene, Fievel talks tough to a cat by referring to him as "pilgrim."
* *Young Frankenstein* (1974) - Before Tiger is captured by the mouse tribe, the bovine skeleton dances a jig of Puttin' On the Ritz.
* *The Blues Brothers* (1980) - The Blues Brothers version of the song "Rawhide" is used in the scene where Fievel is traveling across the desert in a tumbleweed.
* *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* (1988)

### Referenced in

* *Blue* (2002) - Fievel and company can be seen in a shop window.
* *Jersey Girl* (2004) - Video case shown in a video store.
* *Shotgun Stories* (2007) - Boy Hayes incorrectly thinks Charles Barkley was in this movie

### Spoofs

* *Cheyenne Autumn* (1964) - Wylie Burp is a parody of Wyatt Earp and is voiced by actor Jimmy Stewart, who played Wyatt Earp in this Western.