An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster is a 1999 American animated film directed and produced by Larry Latham. It is the second direct-to-video prequel to An American Tail as well as the fourth and final film of the series. The film premiered on December 9, 1999 in Germany, and was released on July 25, 2000 in the United States and Canada. While the actors retain their voices for the original characters (with the exception of Erica Yohn as Jane Singer took over her role for Mama Mousekewitz), this film introduces new characters and voices of Susan Boyd, Robert Hays, John Garry, Candi Milo, John Mariano, Jeff Bennett, and Joe Lala, omitting the characters from An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island while subjecting this film in a different direction. Universal Cartoon Studios ceased production of the series after this sequel's completion.
Like the previous DTV movie, this movie had also been criticized for the animation quality and neglecting storylines given to Fievel Mousekewitz, but the inclusion of new characters were well-received. There are some serious inconsistent issues regarding Tanya Mousekewitz's experience of a young woman’s maturity owing to the use of her 8-year-old appearance from the 1986 film. Thomas Dekker received a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Voice-Over for Fievel.
Plot[]
After the events of the third film, but before the second, Fievel, his sister Tanya, and his friend Tony all get jobs at the local newspaper, where the audience is introduced to Nellie, who wants to be an important reporter, but only gets small assignments, as if she were a secretary to Reed, the newspaper's editor. As in the previous movies, where a mouse installation is directly below its human installation counterpart, the newspaper offices the mice work in is directly underneath the newspaper offices the humans work in.
Nellie gets a chance when she is assigned to report on mice who disappear overnight into holes that open up on their floor all over New York City. Reed makes up a, as Nellie calls it, "so-called monster" that lives under Manhattan and takes mice away during the night to add more excitement to the otherwise unimportant story, intending to sell more papers. The night monster creates fears among the readers, as could be expected. Fievel begins having nightmares that cause him to lose sleep because of his fear of the monster; the film opens up with Fievel having a dream about being chased by what he thinks the monster looks like (a fiery demonic cat with a mouse trap on its tongue). When, through Tanya, he is assigned the job of following Nellie and drawing up interpretations of what the monster looks like based on witness testimony, this makes his insomnia all the worse. A particularly suspicious miniature French poodle named Madame Mousey, who has started living among the mice about this time, appears at every crime scene, claiming to be a fortune teller. The heroes finally decide to investigate her by means of the "dog council" that meets at Central Park. They also search down one of the holes, which leads directly to a group of cats known as the infamous Outlaw Cats hiding in the sewers. All the mice that had disappeared are being held in wood cages there, to be sold off to other cats and eaten.
The night monster itself, a mechanic device with ghastly flashing pictures and a circular saw, is revealed in full when it attacks the mice newspaper office and printing press to prevent them from printing the truth, which they had just discovered. A great chase scene takes place throughout both the mouse and the human newspaper offices. Reed reveals that he was in love with Nellie all along and ended up in a relationship. When all the cats seem to be under control, the "dog council" appears just as they're regaining consciousness and chase them all away, taking Madame Mousey with them. The last scene takes place at the beach, where the audience is told that the "dog council" had chosen for the French poodle (who was the mastermind behind the night monster all along) a punishment worse than prison: returning her to her owner, Mrs. Abernathy. Mama Mousekewitz, Fievel's mother, surmises saying that now that the mystery has been cleared up, Fievel may finally go to sleep, only to turn around and find him with Yasha his sister already asleep on the beach towel, to which Papa smiles and says, "You were saying?" The Mousekewitz family, including Tony and Tiger, share a group hug as Mama says, "Sweet dreams, my little Fievel. Sweet dreams.", ending the film, and the entire series.
Cast[]
- Thomas Dekker as Fievel Mousekewitz
- Lacey Chabert as Tanya Mousekewitz
- Nehemiah Persoff as Papa Mousekewitz
- Jane Singer as Mama Mousekewitz
- Dom DeLuise as Tiger
- Pat Musick as Tony Toponi and Mrs. Abernathy
- Susan Boyd as Nellie Brie
- Robert Hays as Reed Daley
- John Garry as Lone Woof
- Candi Milo as Madame Mousey
- John Mariano as Twitch
- Jeff Bennett as Slug and The Great Dane
- Joe Lala as Bootlick
- Sherman Howard as Haggis
Trivia[]
- This film was originally scheduled to be released in June 1999, but due to the deliberate delay of The Treasure of Manhattan Island for reasons of actor loss, the release date for this film was pushed further to July the following year.
- Erica Yohn did not return to reprise her role for Mama Mousekewitz as she retires from acting after The Treasure of Manhattan Island. Jane Singer was chosen to take the role for character in this film.
- Despite this being the fourth film in the franchise, Germany ironically released The Mystery of the Night Monster before The Treasure of Manhattan Island.
- After production of The Treasure of Manhattan Island, TMS rejected their provision for this film as it was instead produced by TAMA Productions, another Japanese cartoon studio except this was only an outsource animation unit that was since closed down in 2011.
- Not only The Mystery of the Night Monster was subjected to mystery solving and insomnia, but its depictions of Tanya's character experiencing the maturity of a young woman while using her 8-year-old appearance from the 1986 movie is strongly regarded to be the film's victim, including its showcased age disparity exploiting scenes of her attempting to win a relationship with the news chief while being secretive towards others, including her brother, which was notorious for animated films produced in the 1990s and 2000s before the potential censorship for children’s safety in the 2010s. Some channels, like the now-defunct Universal Kids, refused to air this film because of it.