Why hello there, and welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophe. Sorry we’re late, but where the Jon of 2 years ago remembered the rule “if you’re going to be drinking Wednesday night, you have to write your post earlier”. That smartass ALSO remembered the rule that “never make your 5th drink of the night an AMF if you want to remember the evening”, so if it’s any consolation, know that I have spent most of the day hung-over, and mocked by my family for my indiscretions. I didn’t even clean ONE plate of food at dinner; my stomach was so on edge. ON THANKSGIVING. As such, defeated and broken, I’m writing this in the hopes that at least we can have some laughs.

So, last year’s Thanksgiving Special was a strangely-holocaust-like take of adorable animals, and the year before was a surprising culinarily accurate Garfield special. This year, we’re doing things a little different. We’re covering the Holiday special I remember most: The Mouse on the Mayflower.  

Absolutely RANKin

The Mouse on the Mayflower was produced in 1968 by Rankin/Bass and animated by Toei. And if you’re a huge nerd, those words may have caused you an involuntary erection. For those unaware, those are HUGE names in animation. The best equivalent I can think of is “A film made by Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick”, “an album made by John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix” or “a play written by Oscar Wilde and William Shakespeare”. Here’s a list of things Toei has made: Dragon Ball (all of it. Z, GT,  Kai, the original), The Transformers Cartoons in the 80’s (including the movie, so THEY WORKED ON A MOVIE WITH ORSON WELLES), Sailor Moon, The Original G.I. Joe cartoon,  One Piece, and the equally treasured anime, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo.

His greatest weapons are his nosehairs. His greatest Treasure is his afro.
You don’t know if those are jokes, unless you saw the show.
Where you know they AREN’T.

Rankin/Bass, on the other hand, is known for their work as the creators of the animated Hobbit and Return of the King movies, as well as the stop-motion Rudolph movies, the stop-motion Santa Stories, The Last Unicorn, The Flight of Dragons, and their show ThunderCats.

Like I said, HUGE names.

So the two collaborated on a Thanksgiving special in 1968. IS it good? Let’s find out.

Setting Sail

I’m watching this straight off of Youtube, where MULTIPLE copies of the film in full exist, presumably because Rankin Bass went defunct in 1987, and formally dissolved as a company sometime around 2002, after producing Santa Baby, so there’s no one out there hunting the rights for the smaller works. There MIGHT be some missing material, but it appears to be correct, and you can check out yourselves. 

The film opens with a ship tossing in stormy seas, because this thing is 45 minutes long, and is mostly about land rights and weather, so you gotta get the kids INTERESTED before all the boring stuff.

Also, starting with an almost-drowned mouse is always a good opener.

We meet our main character, Willum Churchmouse. Who is, as the name implies, a Churchmouse. Then we have a clear day and a short song about the Mayflower that is surprisingly catchy. We then jump WAY ahead in time to another Mouse, WILLIAM Churchmouse, our narrator, who agrees to tell us the story of his great-great-great-great-great…I’ve forgotten how many greats. He shows us the guy’s paw prints on the Mayflower Compact, which he claims is “the basis of all the laws that govern our great nation” and “while just 100 words or so, each one means freedom!” And first off, the Mayflower compact is 197 words, so 100 was a weird rounding choice. Second, the Mayflower compact starts off stating that “We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King Games” and THAT is not a very freedom-sounding phrase. But sure, I get it, it set up the group as a pseudo democracy. Pretty important.

He also establishes he has his ancestor’s personal journal, which he’d let us read, but it’s written in Mouse, so he’ll translate. He then pulls out a book much bigger than himself, which is slightly weird, since we know he and his ancestor have clothes, and he himself wears glasses, so I guess Mice have tailors and optometrists, but no book-binders. He also immediately laughs, and says “A lot of personal stuff in here” before starting the story, so we have to assume his ancestor was writing about his lustful thoughts.

“Here’s where he lusts after a human woman, because we never show a female mouse in this movie”

I also want to note that the narrator, who also voices Willum, is voiced by a man named TENNESEE Ernie Ford which is a hell of a name. Guy was a singer back in the day, did a lot of covers.

We cut to the Pilgrim church, which, because of the timeline, I GUESS is in Leiden, Holland, where the Pilgrims stayed after leaving England and before going to America (Then came BACK to England, to get on the Mayflower. It was a whole mess). The Preacher, who legitimately sounds like someone trying to do a Kennedy impression while on severe downers, pitches that they’re going to leave the Old World for the New, to find peace in the Virginia colonies. Every dude in the joint gets immediately sexually aroused, and proclaims it a perfect plan.  The group goes to the Mayflower, loading it with TONS of stuff, including a book press, which the camera tracks for like, 30 solid seconds, so you KNOW that’s going to be important later.

The movie then establishes that there is only one hot chick among the Pilgrims, named Priscilla Mullins. (There was also a Priscilla in the turkey movie. Are there more Priscillas than I think there are?)

Look at those bags.
And the pink dress.
This is like, almost offensive stereotyping.

We see the ship is very crowded, with opposing viewpoints. Miles Standish, the Military commander, gets bossed around, and, in disgust, turns to his militia of pilgrim men wearing Buckle-hats and white collars and laments ever getting involved with Pilgrims. Which, weird thing to say to those Pilgrims dude.

The film also immediately sets up the ship’s captain as a douche. He’s dressed basically like a Red Captain Crunch, in a bright red British naval uniform while almost every other character is in muted browns or pastels, talks with a sneering whine, and calls the pilgrims “Riff-raff” and complains he hasn’t been paid yet. They also note they’re paying the captain in Guineas AND Guilden, which are English and Dutch coins, meaning the show is surprisingly nailing that bit of history without ever actually saying it. (Also, and bonus points for this: the Dutch coin of choice had been the guildER for centuries at the time of the show’s making, but that word WASN’T yet popular at the time of the Mayflower’s launch, with Guilden or gulden being preferred. This special for children nailed the CORRECT NAME for the Dutch coins.)

Then we meet the ACTUAL villains of the show: two crewmen of the ship who follow what I call the “Ox and Fox” rule of henchmen. Think about it. Whenever you have two evil henchmen, it’s almost ALWAYS one big/fat guy, and one small/thin guy. The smaller one is typically the planner, and the other one the muscle.

You can already guess how these two sound, just by looking at them.

These guys are named QUIZLER and SCAV, and the big one (Quizler) actually proves to be surprisingly the brighter of the two. He starts with what I HAVE to assume is a Shakespeare reference “What errant fools these pilgrims be”, and hatches the plan: if the ship hits bad weather and “flounders” (a weird fuck up of “founder”, meaning sink), they’ll use the confusion to grab the coins and get their own lifeboat. And then they get back to England (Which they don’t SAY as if this is England, but they’re on thin ice) and live a life of luxury.

We also learn that Willum the mouse, who has NOT appeared in the last 4 minutes of movie, wasn’t on board for any of this, as he had overslept and had to row out to the sailing ship in a shoe. God only knows how WE know any of this, since we’re reading HIS DIARY, and he wasn’t here, but whatever. They briefly reprise the opening song, and then end the reprise to, 30 seconds later, START A NEW SONG about how the ship is too crowded, with a bunch of people bumping into each other, and Oh, yeah, that named character dressed all in blue, and the one dressed all in pink? The two young, “attractive” pilgrims? After the span of one and a half conversations, they’re apparently an item now.

How unpredictable.

Time gets weird here, where right after an up-tempo song about how crowded things were, they just go “Anyway, things were like that for weeks, until WHAT WE FEARED MOST HAPPENED!” STORMS! We see some of the scenes from the intro, and we cut to the two villainous crew men announcing the ship’s sure to founder, and Willum overhearing them. Then we cut to commercial, come back to a reprise of the title song and a woodcut showing what a pilgrim ship looks like on the inside (gotta give your audience time to remember what’s happening, I guess), before learning that “Oh, and these storms also went on for several weeks” Which kind of sucked all the air out of that “OH NO, THE STORM” bit we had just before commercial. We learn that the Pilgrims still prayed at least once a day, and then jump to ANOTHER meeting of the villains, who repeat their plan just as a main beam in the hold breaks, causing them to believe this is the perfect moment to start their plan. (Also, they run out from under it with a slightly annoying ‘ka-chhi” effect that happens ANY TIME someone runs for the rest of the show, so hope you don’t find THAT noise annoying.

Anywho, the solve the main beam problem by using that printing press from earlier as a make-shift jack, which is another real bit of history: there was a cracked main beam that had to be held with a “great iron screw”. What probably ISN’T true to life is Standish openly acknowledging the mouse’s contributions in finding the press, and leading them to the problem, and offering him a position as “Major General” if he joins the army.

Just a man laughing with his friend, a mouse.

Having solved that problem,the storm doesn’t matter anymore, and we do another “Here’s like, 15 seconds of a song before a short scene where we do an ACTUAL song”, this one sung by Priscilla about her crush on John Alden (the guy in blue). This section is…forgettable, but was probably a bombshell in the day, because the voice of Priscilla is a woman named Joanie Summers, who was also called “the Voice of the 60’s”, and sang Johnny Get Angry.

Right after the song, we spot land, and there’s festivities, cut somewhat short by the captain explaining this actually isn’t Virigina, but New England, as they were blown off course. They take this with remarkable good cheer, with everyone just agreeing “sure, I guess we’ll live here”, find a place, and make the Mayflower Compact to create new and fair laws. Which skips over the fact that they made the Mayflower Compact because half the group was considering mutiny and anarchy, but sure.

Another love song from the two pretty boys, and then the mouse runs off into the woods, noting that ‘the blood of Columbus, Ponce De Leon, and John Smith ran in my veins”, which A: weird, those are humans and you’re a mouse. B: In order, that is an Italian, a Spaniard, and a STILL LIVING Englishman. For his blood to be in your veins, you would literally have to be HIS SON. He then meets an Indian mouse, who greets him, and offers him food, after he ATTEMPTS TO SHOOT THEM.

Willum in 20 seconds: “Oh, my tribe are the FRIENDLIEST people”.
Willum right now: “Peace was never an option, Red Man.”

Luckily, Mouse is a universal language, so the two can totally speak, which makes it weird that neither of them did so in their first scene together. Turns out the Indian tribe is totally peaceful, and wants to help the Pilgrims, except for one “bad apple” named Smiling Buzzard, who has a pet Grizzly. But it’s cool, he’s kicked out of the tribe literally right after we meet him. But oh no, he’s teamed up with the bad guys from the boat!  (It appears that villainy is also a universal language. Literally, the two groups don’t speak the same language, but understand each other out of pure dickery.)

They try to frame the Indian tribe for murder to drive the groups apart, but get stopped by the mice, and are driven out.

This is easily the worst capture I have on this. But for a 50 year old cartoon snipped off Youtube, the fact I only have ONE trash picture is a testament.

We are literally told they’re never seen again. We have ANOTHER THIRD OF THIS SHOW, and the VILLAINS just LEFT. The two groups meet up, and the natives offer up a bounty of…Is that a fucking pineapple?

I will accept that they somehow have grapes in November, but seriously, what is that?

That is either a pineapple, or a pine cone, and EITHER WAY, it should NOT be in that wooden bowl. Anyway, with the bad guys gone, they build a colony in like, 3 weeks, just in time for winter to hit and things to SUCK for several straight months. They even openly acknowledge that a lot of them didn’t survive. Then they fast-forward through the next year, with the natives teaching the pilgrims how to farm the land, and they decide to have Thanksgiving when the harvest’s in.

Also, I guess the new villain of this is the FUCKING SONG NUMBERS. I swear there have been 4 distinct songs in the last 15 minutes. There was ONE song in the first 10 minutes. The last 4 minutes of the thing are ONE song, with a small break for a Bible verse.

Weighing Anchor

 So, all told, how was it? Weird. This is a weird fucking movie. Like, holy crap. It’s got a lot of historical accuracy, with only a little bit of whitewashing of the stickier parts of history. (Did the Pokekots Wampanoags want to be friends with the Pilgrims? Yes, because they had just suffered the equivalent of the Black Death, and wanted allies against a rival tribe.) The weirdest thing is how nothing really HAPPENS. The pay-off to the two love-birds story is that they SIT TOGETHER at Thanksgiving. That pic I put of them almost kissing? That’s the most romantic position they’re in outside of a fantasy sequence, and it’s the SECOND TIME WE SEE THEM. The villains do nothing that works for more than a minute before being undone by a MOUSE, and we introduce two new villains who are in the film for FIVE MINUTES, then bail. We get to Thanksgiving, and the movie’s like “Cool, that was your money shot, time for a 5 minute song about November set to all the great landmarks of America.” We never go back to the narrator mouse, nothing has been resolved, they quote Psalms 100 as their closer, but why not like, the MAYFLOWER COMPACT? THAT THING THEY SET UP AT THE START?  

It felt super slow until it stopped caring about anything like a plot, and then it became a series of musical numbers where it felt meaningless but at least had a solid clip.  I don’t know. I remembered liking it as a kid, and I’m sure it works for that group. But as an adult, holy crap, get a bit more resolution.

MONDAY: MORE FRIED MEATS, I THINK.

NEXT THURSDAY: IT IS A HOLIDAY, AND I AM HUNGOVER. LET ME REST.