An American Tail/Trivia

The entire series:

Dawson Casting: Tanya.
Dueling Movies: An American Tail and The Great Mouse Detective. (Sort of; that movie came out in the summer, while Tail was released for the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday season, though things were tense as Disney watched how well AAT would do in comparison to GMD.) An American Tail won and became the highest grossing animated film in history up to that point, but that isn't to say The Great Mouse Detective wasn't successful. Still, it's been said that this was the movie that gave Disney the kick in the pants it needed to improve its animated films.
- Fievel Goes West with Beauty and the Beast. Sadly, you can already kinda tell how well that went.
  - It beat out Rock-a-Doodle though, which was in theaters at the same time. It's tragically ironic when a sequel to a Bluth movie out-does an actual Bluth movie.
Fake Russian: Fievel's voice actor wasn't even remotely Russian, and neither was Tanya's. And Papa's voice actor, Nehemiah Persoff, was born in Palestine (well, it was Palestine when he was born).
- Fake Nationality: Christopher Plummer plays a French pigeon, as well.
Hey, It's That Voice!:
- An American Tail: Christopher Plummer is Henri the pigeon architect. Who knew a French accent could make a voice so unrecognizable? There's also Dom de Luise as Tiger and Madeline Kahn as Gussie Mausheimer.
  - Digit sounds like Petrie?!
  - Gussie is voiced by Madeline Kahn, reprising her Lili Von Schtupp voice.
- Fievel Goes West: In addition to John Cleese, Cathy Cavadini, Dom De Luise, Amy Irving and Jon Lovitz appearing in Fievel Goes West, Jimmy Stewart, veteran of classic Westerns and avid friend to dogs, lends his voice and his final performance to the Western-genre sequel as Sheriff Wylie Burp, an over the hill, wiser than his years hound.
- Fievel's American Tails: Phillip Glasser, Dom de Luise and Cathy Cavadini reprise the roles of Fievel, Tiger and Tanya respectively.
- The Treasure of Manhattan Island: Interestingly they managed to at least do well in the voice acting department with The Treasure of Manhattan Island. In addition to returning voice actors from previous movies (Dom De Luise and Pat Musick return as Tiger and Tony respectively), it also features the vocal talents of Thomas Dekker, Tony Jay, Ron Perlman, and David Carradine as Cholena's father.
  - Sherman Howard, best known to DCAU fans as the voice of Derek Powers/Blight in Batman Beyond, provides the voice of Chief McBrusque.
- The Mystery of the Night Monster: Includes most of the same voice talents from the previous movie, in addition to Lacey Chabert as Tanya and Candi Milo as Madame Mousey.
- In the Japanese dub:
  - Fievel is Nami (and also overlaps with Relationship Voice Actor with Tony's Japanese VA since both voice actresses reunited years later, except Fievel as a girl and Tony's sidekick and Tony as the main character, and with another crew member named Tony to boot!)
  - Tanya is Beltorchika Irma
  - Yasha is Suzu Fujibayashi
  - Tiger is Raoh
  - Tony is Monkey D. Luffy and Krillin (see Fievel above)

An American Tail

Cross-Dressing Voices: Tony Toponi is actually voiced by a woman, Pat Musick.
The Danza: It's quite possible that Fievel's nickname 'Philly' was chosen because of the name of his voice actor, Phillip Glasser.
Fake Irish: Bridget's voice actress.
Non-Singing Voice: During the song Somewhere Out There, Betsy Cathcart replaces Amy Green as Tanya's voice actress. Averted with Fievel, leading to the Narm Charm noted in the YMMV tab.

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West and Fievel's American Tails

Keep Circulating the Tapes: Fievel's American Tails, which is doubtful to be released on DVD anytime soon. All 13 episodes were released on VHS in the early 90's though.
No Export for You: In an odd and ironic inversion of this trope, the DVD release of Fievel's American Tails and the An American Tail video game for the Playstation2 are available in Europe, but not America.
The Other Darrin: Most of the voice actors from the first movie reprised their roles, but Tanya was voiced instead by Cathy Cavadini.
- In Fievel's American Tails Cat R. Waul is voiced by Gerrit Graham, and Chula is voiced by Dan Castellaneta (and as a consequence sounds like Krusty the Clown).

The direct-to-video sequels

Non-Singing Voice: Cholena's different voice actress sings "Anywhere in Your Dreams", though it's not very obvious.
The Other Darrin: Fievel's voice actor changes to Thomas Dekker in the DTV movies, because Phillip Glasser was too old by then.
- And of course Tanya almost never had the same voice actress twice. Cathy Cavadini returned to voice her in Fievel's American Tails but that was it.
- Luckily averted with Tony, Tiger and Papa though, which is one of the good things these movies have going for them.

Back to An American Tail