The Land Before Time (1988)

Title: The Land Before Time

Year: 1988

Rated: G

Run Time: 1 hour, 9 minutes

Starring

Gabriel Damon as Littlefoot

Candace Hutson as Cera

Judith Barsi as Ducky

Will Ryan as Petrie

Helen Shaver as Littlefoot's Mother

Pat Hingle as The Narrator/Rooter

Plot: Five orphan dinosaurs travel the ruins of their world, while grieving the loss of their families and banding together to face the odds of survival.

Based on: Unofficially the "Rite of Spring" segment of Fantasia...and Bambi. (According to Jordyn). But officially, an original screenplay.

Setting: 65 million years ago...in a galaxy far, far away...

Tagline: A new adventure is born.

Andrew's First Viewing: Early 90's.

Jordyn's First Viewing: Technically: Early 90's at daycare. Then...Drunk: February 2010 on VHS. Sober: August 27, 2010 on DVD.

Andrew's Comments

And welcome back to Bluthanized! You may have noticed our extended leave of absence (or, judging by our number of followers, maybe you didn’t…) and are fervently demanding an explanation. All I can say to that is, “It’s a good story, but this isn’t that sort of blog.”

Anyways, what movie are we on now? Right, The Land Before Time. Jordyn and I actually attempted to do a write-up on this one several months ago, but we made the mistake of watching it right after our Heavy Metal drinking game (we took a shot whenever a new set of breasts showed up; we were pretty tanked), and we never made it through. But I digress.

Sure to souse you up!

So yeah, back to Land. This one was HEAVY on my rotation list as a kid; I think I still have the VHS somewhere at my parents’ house, complete with dog-eared cover and cheesy early-90’s commercial for Pizza Hut. Of all of Don Bluth’s movies, I feel that this is the one that has aged best for me. Yes, Ducky and Petrie can be a bit grating, and Cera is still a total douche, but as far as tone, story, and animation, this one still holds up pretty well for me.

Universal truth: boys like dinosaurs.

The Land Before Time takes place during the twilight years of the dinosaurs, right when the climate is starting to change, and edible plant-life is becoming increasingly more difficult to find. The plot concerns Little Foot (an apatosaurus), Cera (a triceratops), Ducky (a duck-billed dinosaur), Petrie (a pterodactyl; see what they’re doing with the names so far?), and Spike (a stegosaurus) making their way to The Great Valley, a mythical Zion-esque land stuffed to the gills with green food (“tree stars”), clean water, and absolutely no carnivores whatsoever (the streets are also filled with cheese, no doubt).

What makes this movie still work for me is its tonal balancing. Unlike NIMH and Tail, this movie manages to successfully walk the line between comedy and peril without straying too far into either territory; the thrilling parts never get too overbearing and the silly stuff never gets too Jeremy Crow-esque. The movie’s pacing also feels pretty good for the most part; apart from the section in between Littlefoot’s birth and the Sharptooth attack, the film goes along at a steady clip, moving from plot point to plot point and occasionally taking a break for character interaction.

A bit too much interaction sometimes...

One thing I can say about The Land Before Time that I hadn’t noticed before is how little actual movie there is. Remember that plot from two paragraphs ago? Doesn’t fully kick in until about halfway through. This movie is short; notwithstanding Dumbo (which is a scant five minutes longer than this one), this is one of the briefest full-length animated features I think I’ve seen. It takes the movie almost half of its 69-minute running time before everyone is finally together and traveling (even then, there’s still some padding).

Yet the movie does feel about as long as it needs to be, neither too long or too short (a bit off-balance, perhaps, but 69 minutes still is about right). Wikipedia tells me that 10 minutes of Sharptooth-kid-harassment footage were shaved off of the movie because Steven Spielberg and George Lucas deemed them too intense for small children, and while it would have been interesting to watch Bluth’s full creative vision of this story, I’m not sure if the movie would have played out better with the footage reinserted. There’s already a healthy dose of action here compared to the moments of levity (including two especially climactic scenes near the beginning and end of the movie), and the last thing this movie needs is the same problem that dragged down An American Tail.

Another thing I noticed during my rewatching is how over-eager the movie is to spell itself out. I certainly don’t mind the intro and closing narration segments (especially since the narrator himself is so pleasant to listen to), but the guy just chips in periodically in places that, even for kids, should be pretty self-explanatory. There’s a scene later in the film when Cera leaves the party because she had deliberately taken off down the wrong path and had to be rescued. She’s walking away, looking dejected and hurt, with a tear in her eye, and the narrator pipes up to inform us that she “was too proud to admit that she’d gone the wrong way.” What?! When did this movie all of a sudden turn into "Caillou"?! Moments like this happen throughout the entire picture.

The voicework in The Land Before Time is pretty solid. The all-child portion of the cast manages to avoid the cutsieness trap of Bluth’s previous films, ie, they’re not pants-on-head annoying (here that, Mrs. Brisby’s kids?!); even the characters that play up the cuteness still seem at least partially sincere about it, which helps soften the blow (though Petrie is still this movie’s Jar Jar). The rest of the cast does a good job helping support the action, with Helen Shaver giving a soothing, placid performance as Littlefoot’s mother, and Frank Welker (aka, every animal noise you’ve ever heard in any animated feature EVER) gnashing his teeth and roaring Godzilla-style as the Sharptooth.

The music is… well it’s… you know, after 17+ years of watching and rewatching this movie, I don’t think I could even tell you what it sounds like. I’m seriously drawing a blank on any melodies or themes; whenever I try, I keep coming back with the “Rite of Spring” parts from Fantasia. What is appealing on this movie’s soundtrack, though, is the Diana Ross song that plays over the credits, “If We Hold On Together.” It sounds exactly like a late-80’s adult contemporary ballad, but it’s rather pleasant, and lacking the awful keyboard from the ballad versions of “A Whole New World” and “Beauty And The Beast.”

By now, I’ve done my share of ranting about my distaste for some of Don Bluth’s stylistic flairs in his animation (if I haven’t yet, wait till we get to Rock-A-Doodle…), and I’m pleased to say that this movie is very conservative with them. There is pleasantly little flouncing that goes on in this movie (Bluth often tends to animate characters as though they’re in some sort of floaty, low-gravity environment), and lots of the effects animations that generally drives me nuts from his movies (sparks, smoke clouds, and foamy, sloppy-looking waves) are absent from this one.

The Bluth legacy issue that DOES appear in this movie, however, is arbitrary color-change. I think I understand how this works in principle; if you’re going to have your characters in different light, color them similar to how the background is lit. That said, there are several time throughout the picture where Ducky or Spike would, without warning or context, switch from green to tan to basically every color in the Gears Of War spectrum. Perhaps I’m spoiled by my CAPS-assisted lighting and shadows of the 90’s, but seriously, drink every time a character randomly changes color in the same scene and tell me how drunk you are by the end of this movie.

Um, why the @#%* is Ducky yellow?

On the whole, though, I think I enjoy The Land Before Time the most out of the Bluth canon (though we still have seven movies to go, four of which I haven’t seen yet). It looks good, the story is reasonably entertaining, and it’s lacking many of the cringe-worthy moments that turn me away from the last two movies we’ve done. We’ll see how this whole thing goes now that my alleged favorite is done.

Jordyn's Comments

Let me preface with this sexist statement: I am a girl who likes princesses and doesn't like dinosaurs. I didn't have older brothers to force me to watch The Land Before Time. In my house, I watched whatever child-friendly tripe I damn well pleased. My only exposure to Don Bluth's dinosaur flick was at my daycare where I had little to no control over what we watched, so that's where I first saw it. I was pretty vocal about what movies I liked and if I had really, really liked TLBT, I would have asked my mom to rent it for me. But, like I said, I like princesses, not dinosaurs, so this was not a childhood staple of mine.

One movie I did watch a lot was Fantasia, which I didn't particularly care for (still don't) and part of that has to do with the twenty minute "Rite of Spring" segment which shows the rise and fall of the dinosaurs. It was boring. Excuse me, is boring. The opening scenes of TLBT are far too reminiscent of "Rite of Spring". Deliberately so, because according to Andrew, producer Steven Spielberg wanted to make a Serious Movie about dinosaurs that made their journey sans dialogue, sans humor, and sans conscious viewers, apparently. But somewhere along the way, the characters were named and given voices and "personalities".

So since ripping off Fantasia didn't work out, the writers moved on to Bambi. Our main protagonist, a "long-neck" (gotta get that terminology right!) named Littlefoot is born to his single mother. He frolics around and is admired by bystanders. His mother teaches him about the food shortage and explains that everyone is migrating to the Great Valley, where the streets are paved with chee-eese, no doubt. But before they set out, Littlefoot's mom is killed by the "sharp-tooth" and is orphaned.

Do you think it was deliberate?

The scene is WAY TOO SIMILAR to Bambi. The dialogue is practically identical. Seriously. If you have the luxury of owning both these films, I urge you to play them back to back and see for yourself. I was half expecting to see someone jump out and say "Your mother can't be with you anymore." That doesn't quite happen, but Rooter (also the narrator) pops in and offers some sage advice on the circle of life. (TLBT was made before The Lion King, so this one is Disney's bad).

Also separated from her family is the "three-horn" bitch, Cera. Seriously, what the hell is her problem? She's like an over compensating doucher who insults everyone around him in order to prove how small his dick isn't. But she's a chick! And a child! Was this a deliberate decision to throw a spoke in the gender stereotype wheel? To have a female character embody such overtly masculine traits? Or did the producers go "Oh shit! We want girls to like our movie! Make the triceratops--" (Get it? TriCERAtops?) "--a girl!"

Whether it was deliberate or not, female asshole protagonists are pretty rare. Especially in children's programming. (Helga from "Hey Arnold!" is the only other one that comes to mind). But unlike Helga, Cera lacks an excuse for her behavior. She has a pretty good relationship with her parents, it seems, so why the need to swing her metaphorical dick around?

Granted, some people are just assholes and maybe Cera is one of them. Assholes need friends, too. And if you really think about it, you are probably friends with an asshole in spite of their assholism. But, it's an oddity when said asshole is female in a group of fictional co-ed companions.

There's one in every group.

Speaking of companions, along with Littlefoot and Cera, there is Ducky a "big-mouth". She is pretty much androgynous. Kind of like Blanky from The Brave Little Toaster. In fact, the only inclination of Ducky's femininity is that her voice actor is a little girl. Then there's nerdy Petrie, the "flyer" too afraid to fly. And to round out the group, there's Spike, the silent, gluttonous "spike-tail". Each is picked up along the way on the journey to the Great Valley.

I'll take this time to mention that this film in 69 minutes long. That's it. An hour and nine minutes. And it's approximately 30 minutes before the five main characters are introduced. The movie is literally half over. This brings me to my main issue with The Land Before Time: it's too short and nothing happens. With a road movie, the possibilities of events and one shot characters are endless, but this movie completely ignores that. It's even counter intuitive since the film is padded with superflous scenes of baby dinosaurs fighting over a cherry and a minute long flashback at the end (a.k.a. reused footage).

It's perfectly acceptable for a movie to be more character driven than plot driven, but TLBT is pretty much lacking in character development. Cera is the most interesting character by default because of her nastiness and prejudice against all the other species of dinosaurs, as per the teachings of her father. ("Three-horns do not play with long-necks!") And, through her little adventure, she discovers teamwork is important and she overcomes her bigotry.

A child psychologist's dream.

The Land Before Time teaches a lesson about working together with those who are different from you to complete a shared goal and that prejudice and segregation are based in ignorance and are perpetuated by our parents. An important and useful lesson, indeed. But isn't there a more interesting way of showing that?

With this movie, I've discovered the most bothersome aspect of Don Bluth's animation style is the changing of character scale. The characters' sizes in comparison to each other change like Alice with her magic mushrooms. I've never noticed this problem in other animated movies, only Bluth's.

As you can tell, I don't really like The Land Before Time. It was boring and there was nothing about it to particularly entertain me. The viewing experience reminded me of when I first watched The Secret of NIMH, with me being bored through most of it. Again, that could hearken back to my utter boredom with dinosaurs. This is definitely the manliest of the Bluth flicks. Of course, girls are perfectly capable of liking dinosaurs (Laura Dern in Jurassic Park, for example) otherwise, The Land Before Time franchise wouldn't have twelve sequels and a TV series to its name. I'm just saying, if I had a dick, then I probably would have liked this movie. Alas, I do not on both counts.

Songs

"If We Hold On Together" - Diana Ross

We're Not Dead!!!

As of right this second, Andrew and I (Jordyn) are preparing to watch two more films in the Don Bluth canon. Last night, we succeeded in viewing The Land Before Time entirely sober, while following up with All Dogs Go to Heaven. Someday, in the not-so-distant future, we will publish a few more posts when I get internet in my apartment!

So, my dear readers, continuation of Bluthanized will be coming to a computer near you. Just remember, patience is a virtue. But we'll give you this to tie you over.

Click me for fun!

Your welcome.

An American Tail (1986)

Title: An American Tail
Year: 1986
Rated: G
Run Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Starring
Phillip Glasser as Fievel Mousekewitz
Nehemiah Persoff as Papa Mousekewitz
Amy Green as Tanya Mousekewitz
Dom DeLuise as Tiger
Christopher Plummer as Henri

John Finnegan as Warren T. Rat
Erica Yohn as Mama Mousekewitz

Pat Musick as Tony Toponi
Cathianne Blore as Bridget

Plot: While emigrating to the United States, a young Russian mouse gets separated from his family and must relocate them while trying to survive in a new country.
Based on: Apparently an original story.
Setting: Shotska, Russia/Hamburg, Germany/New York City, 1885

Tagline: Meet Fievel. In his search to find his family, he discovered America.

Andrew's First Viewing: Some time in 1993.

Jordyn's First Viewing: Some time in the mid 90's at my daycare.

Andrew's Comments
I remember this movie. I remember watching it all the time when I was a kid. Specifically, I remember watching the sequel, Fievel Goes West, more. I also remember enjoying that one more. But since this is a retrospective on the works of Don Bluth (and Bluth didn't do West), I will be covering this one instead. If it seems like I'm putting this on the B-team, it's partially because, well, An American Tail always WAS on my B-team; I watched it many times as a kid (and enjoyed it), but never to the extent to which I enjoyed the sequel. Part of it has to do with the cleaner animation in the sequel (which was, I think, done with the aid of computers, à la the CAPS system), but the sequel also enjoyed the simpler plot and more likable characters compared to Tail.

These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along.

I talk of Tail having a more complicated plot than West. Oh does it ever. There are so many points visited and so many missed encounters with his family and so many throwaway characters introduced that, I won't lie, it was all I could do to follow this movie when I was younger. All I knew is that Fievel gets lost on his boatride to America ("There are breadcrumbs on every floor!") and tried to find his family.

I've always enjoyed the animation on this one more than in other Bluth projects, mainly because it seems a little cleaner than in some of his others. There is a lot less flailing, and the characters seem to have control over their mouths this time around. Bluth also seems to use better colors in Tail, and there are some really cool lighting effects too, such as during the opening sequence.

My one gripe with the character designs is the cats. They do NOT look like cats. They look like doggone WOLVERINES. And they roar like friggin' Mufasa from The Lion King. Maybe Bluth is making them seem tougher than they are because cats are the enemies of mice, but it makes no sense why these things would be kept as pets, and less sense why they all of a sudden turn into gambling, incompetent jokers in the second half of the movie.

Seriously, what is that thing?

One thing I appreciated this time around that I missed as a kid was all of the historical stuff that it was paralleling. The movie takes place in 1885 when there was a ton of immigration to America, and that's basically a movie of what this movie is about: a Jewish experience of immigrating to America (which makes sense, considering the movie was produced by Stephen Spielberg, the most famous Jew in Hollywood).


What is surprising to me is the specificity of events, like how the movie starts out with the family celebrating Hannukah (a fact that was lost on me as a kid) and how it's quickly followed by a Russian pogrom (for those who were asleep in history class, pogroms were state-sponsored Jew-killings). The family also goes through Ellis Island, and there are small children mice who are put to work in sweatshops.


There's a pretty defined split between the characters that are memorable and the ones that aren't. For every main player that has stuck with me, like Papa, Tiger, and Warren T. Ratt, there are secondary characters that I totally spaced, like Bridget, Honest John (which sounds like they figured any minor character name that was good enough for Disney was good enough for them), and Henri, the pigeon who seems suspiciously like another flamboyant, singing pigeon in Thumbelina.

I kinda sorta remember her, but she really doesn't have much to do in this movie.

The voice talent pretty average, too. Tanya's is good (a non-annoying, but very youthful, character; a refreshing change of pace from the kids in the last movie), Papa's is great (the guy is absolutely huge with his character, and his filmography is pretty impressive too), Tiger is a large improvement over Dom DeLuise's previous role in The Secret of NIMH, but the rest is, by and large, pretty annoying. Tony's Bronx tough-guy accent and personality is obnoxious, Bridget's brogue isn't very convincing (I didn't even know she had one until I rewatched it), and Fievel is one of those "aw, isn't he cute because he's inept and little" kids that I find exceptionally aggravating.

The songs are also pretty "eh;" the only one that I really appreciated was "Somewhere Out There," and the in-movie production of it is GOSH-AWFUL. "Never Say Never" and "We're A Duo" are not so bad (perfectly serviceable, but nothing to write home about, though judging by what little I've seen of Thumbelina, I might have to not be so picky...), but "There Are No Cats in America" has literally haunted me for years, and that chorus is just as annoying as ever. I must say, though, that the verses are much better executed than I remember; the first two verses definitely peter out at the very end, despite their strong beginnings, but I really dug the Irish Catholic tenor mouse in the third verse. Of course, that was before the stupid chorus came back in and spoiled the effect.

Do yourself a favor and check out Linda Ronstadt's (much better) version instead of this one. Unless you really like listening to little kids trying to force a note.

And for all of the events and random crap that happens during this movie (an believe me, this movie is jam-PACKED with characters to meet and plot points to check off), the major conflict is a total anti-climax: the mice build a giant murderous-looking mouse to frighten off the cats so that they can take the slow boat to China. The cats aren't even a problem (the American cats, anyways) until like halfway through the movie. Why this is treated like a huge plot point is beyond me.


Overall, though, I found it fairly entertaining, but I think nostalgia carried me a good portion of the way. The historical parallels were fun to make now that I'm all grow'd up, the score is pretty good, the animation is a step-up from The Secret of NIMH, and the overall story is pretty heartwarming (the basic story of a boy finding his family is a good one, and the resolution for that story is a satisfying one) but for the most part, it just isn't terribly itch-scratching on an I'm-Watching-This-For-The-Whole-Of-Its-Parts-level. Most of the non-family-finding storylines are superfluous, the songs aren't very memorable (at least, in the right sort of way), and the I'm not sure it has the age boundary-crossing appeal of some of the best in animation.


That said, I would still recommend An American Tail to those who haven't seen it. Fievel is an icon for kids like me who grew up in the 90's, and the overall experience is one worth having, especially to those who are interested in Ellis Island.

Jordyn's Comments

Okay…An American Tail. This is the one I remember everyone LOVING. This is the one I remember being the cream of the crop, the crème de la crème, the best of the best, the crème of the best. I, like with all these movies, was rather quite impartial to it as a child. I liked Fievel Goes West a whole lot more. A whole hell of a lot more. I couldn’t exactly remember why until a few nights ago when Andrew and I sat down to watch the first movie centering on Fievel and the Mousekewitz clan.

First off, Fievel is about four years old mentally, whereas in the sequel, he’s probably about eight or so. I don’t hate children, mind you, but my tolerance of them as of late is as thin as butter scraped across too much bread. :-) So, I don’t mind Tanya, she’s okay. But fucking Fievel, man! Oooh, his hat is too big and he has Dopey sleeves and a high pitched, horrendously off key singing voice, I’m supposed to love him, right? Right!?

In movies/TV/books, I usually hate the character that everyone is supposed to find funny/cute…other examples include Gurgi from The Black Cauldron, B.E.N. from Treasure Planet, Stitch from Lilo and Stitch...some Don Bluth examples include Jeremy from The Secret of NIMH, Bartok from Anastasia and EVERYONE in A Troll in Central Park. Oh, and let’s not forget Jar Jar Binks.

Oh, I get it! He's supposed to be adorable!

All right, so I know they differ from Fievel, because he is the main character and those others are sidekicks…and all of these little shits have irritating speech impediments and fuck things up for the hero(es) on numerous occasions. But doesn’t this kind of apply to Fievel? Let’s think about it….

Okay, so we start in Shostka, Russia in 1885 during Hanukkah when Papa Mousekewitz gives little Fievel his grandfather’s…(uh, great grandfather’s?) hat. It’s too damn big for him and he obviously lacks the maturity to own such a treasure, but it’s Hanukkah, so what the hell? Then there’s some kind of uprising where all the Jew mice (or maybe just mice mice) get chased by Cossack cats (which look more like wolverines) and the family decides to head to America, because everyone knows…THERE ARE NO CATS IN AMERICA AND THE STREETS ARE PAVED WITH CHEE-EESE!

So the Mousekewitzes travel from Shostka to Hamburg, Germany to hitch a ride to the states. (Which is a long fucking trip). During a storm in which Poseidon is bitch slapping the shit out of the ship, stupid little Fievel wants to see some fish, so he PURPOSELY tosses his hat up the stairs to chase after it. This causes a chain of events that separates Fievel from his family and propels us into the plot of the movie.

1,200 miles.

Okay. I get it. We need a goddamn conflict, and having a simpering, baby mouse in a foreign country is pretty good. But why, why, couldn’t his hat just fly off his damn head? It’s a storm! It’s entirely plausible! But now I can’t respect or pity this stupid rodent. He did it to himself. It’s his own damn fault.

So, then the plot is underway and Fievel goes on his own little odyssey meeting a myriad of characters, including Henri, the pigeon who single-handedly built the statue of Liberty. He is suspiciously similar to Jacquimo, a character we will soon meet in 1994’s Thumbelina. I’ll wait until that blog to get into that, but I must say, Don Bluth sure loves his homosexual French avian friends.

What you see here is a total waste of having Captain Von Trapp in your movie.

Fievel meets some people and some shit happens with cats, because it turns out, there ARE cats in America. I don’t want to get into all that, because frankly, I found it boring. In fact, what really gets my blood boiling about this movie (other than Fievel fucking himself over) is that poor excuse for a romance this movie has.

On his little adventure, Fievel meets Tony Toponi, a character which must be an inspiration for Newsies. He is wise cracking, street smart, and decidedly Bronxian. Within 1 minute and 18 seconds, (No, I am not fucking kidding you. I went back and timed it), he sees an Irish girl mouse (who, just in case you were confused about her heritage, has red hair, a green dress, and a brogue), becomes infatuated with her, gets her to reciprocate, and they kiss. ALL IN 1 MINUTE AND 18 SECONDS.

TOO. SOON.

What is this? The love at first sight Olympics? At least save the first kiss for the end! What’s wrong with a little sexual tension? What’s wrong with making them work for it a little bit? Fuck! If I didn’t know that Anastasia was coming, I would claim that Don Bluth has the worst understanding of fictional romance of anyone. EVER. Plus, there’s also the fact that Tony looks to be about 12 or 13 and Bridget is 15 or 16. Ick!

Moving on…dear God, please! How about the songs? I liked the songs. “Never Say Never” is still stuck in my head, although it’s also quite suspiciously similar to a certain gay song sung by a certain gay bird in another Don Bluth movie. I liked “There Are No Cats in America” too, replete with its pre-90’s, pre-politically correct ethnic stereotypes. It’s cheery! Yay! And, after my years of listening to soft rock stations, how could I not love the Oscar nominated “Somewhere Out There”? I do. Very much. But the Linda Ronstadt version, because that little kid version might be “sweetly cute” but it makes my ears bleed.

As for animation, you know I’m not picky. Maybe it was our Netflix viewing streamed from Andrew’s Xbox, but it looked less detailed than NIMH. And there was some weird scale issues. Tiger looked HUGE compared to the other cats. And the villain, Warren T. Rat, who poses as a rat, but is really a cat…what the hell? That must be the smallest fucking cat ever. The song sequence of “A Duo” was a pretty big mind screw.

Um, yeah, what's even going on in this clip?

Overall, I enjoyed most of An American Tail. It was quicker paced than NIMH. I liked how “historically accurate” it was. I put historically accurate in quotes, because it seems more like the myth of immigration in America than fact. They stuck in some stuff like the changing of hard-to-pronounce names to simple ones at Ellis Island. There’s also some comparison of Warren T. Rat to Bill the Bucher, but obviously, it’s still kid friendly. Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg do a good job of putting some adult themes into a kids’ movie with out making it too complex or like a history lesson.

But again, this movie suffers from trying to find its tone. It’s supposed to be a family friendly flick, but it’s far too immature in some places for adults, and not mature enough in others to keep me from rolling my eyes. It is really hard to please everyone, but some how, Disney and Pixar manage(d) just fine, and I can’t fathom why Don Bluth struggles so much.

Songs

"There Are No Cats in America" - Nehemiah Persoff, Johnny Guarnieri, and Warren Hays
"Never Say Never" - Christopher Plummer (Henri) and Phillip Glasser (Fievel)
"Somewhere Out There" - Phillip Glasser and Betsy Cathcart (Tanya)
"A Duo" - Dom DeLuise (Tiger) and Phillip Glasser
"Somewhere Out There" (End Credits) - Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram