THE  PIRATES   OF  PENZANCE
                             (1983: Rated G)
Released in 1983, this version of the famous play by Gilbert and Sullivan contains most of the original players from the Broadway show … with the exception of the wonderful Angela Lansbury. What harmed the film at the boxoffice, wasn’t critics (they loved it!), but that Universal Pictures tried it out with a pay-per-view type channel in L.A. called SelecTV at the exact same time that it was hitting screens, angering theater owners at the time, who mostly refused to show it. Released on February 13 (a perfect Valentines movie), the entire gross of the film’s short run came to just over half a million dollars.

                          ENDLESS  LOVE
                            (1981 Rated 'R') 
        I never saw 1981’s much talked about Endless Love until I was well into my 20s in the mid 1990s when I was researching all kinds of 80s films that I had NEVER SEEN in order to see what kinds of censorship waters were being tested with the YOUTH in the 1980s. I was getting really into the groove of writing Signature Place during this time, and Harry Potter had not yet been published. And I needed to know how far certain dark films aimed at youth were able to be … without being given that R-rating. (I was trying to keep Signature Place within the PG-13 bracket.) I was gripped by the movie from start to finish, and I was extremely gripped by Brooke Shields as “Jade” in this film, in perhaps her most compelling film ever made.

        Notoriously talked about at the time, due to its candid portrayal of two young teenagers having an intense sexual relationship under the guidance of Jade’s happy-go-lucky liberal hippie parents … until the boy, after being informed that Jade's father has grounded her from seeing him for a little while, starts to take things a little too far by setting fire to his beloved girlfriend’s house … in hopes that he can then act like the “heroic fireman who puts it out” which would get him in goods with her worrying parents … in which he can’t put the fire out, as the fire grew into much more of a blaze than what he was ever prepared for. Thus instead, he gets blamed for it, and sent off to rehabilitation as a convicted arsonist … only to get out years later to search endlessly for his high school lover … and discovers that she just might’ve actually gotten over him until … well … even her mother begins to fall in love with him and ... well ... I won’t ruin the movie.

                                       JEM
     (1985-1988 Unrated, but suitable for ALL ages.)

        No, it’s not a movie (it never was in the U.S.A. that is), it’s a beloved cartoon series that was perhaps animated children’s fare’s biggest triumph of the 20^th century. The story about a young woman who loses a music-mogul tycoon father, then inherits a mysterious computer named “Synergy” that has the power to project any hologram that the daughter chooses, including one of HER OWN named “JEM” ( a punked-out pop-singer rock-queen who aims to revive her father’s music business by selling out concerts around the world with her all-girl group “The Holograms”) was created, like many other cult-fave cartoon shows in the 1980s for young ThrillerBabies; simply to market a line of action-figures or dolls. But the show was no ordinary kiddie fluff, and has since gone on to become perhaps the biggest bootlegged show next to Disney’s “The Song Of The South” with Uncle Remus.

        With wonderful real-life looking animation that was beyond your average animated show at the time (even by today’s standards, the animation looks phenomenally modern!) , Jem and her band the Holograms spent an entire 65 episodes from the years 1985 to 1988. And although it was highly popular at the time, what makes it so popular now … is that after Rhino Records/Entertainment released about 75 percent of the entire series on DVD shortly after the turn of the 21st century, thrillerbaby parents who had grown up with the show, were now watching it and introducing it to their children, and found the show just as involving and entertaining (if not MORE so!) as an ADULT, in addition to the way they viewed the show as children. Jem perhaps remains the one true deliciously 1980s misfire ever NOT INTENDED. It was aimed at young girls, who didn’t have much cartoon fare in the 80s other than She-Ra Princess of Power and My Little Pony, to compete with all the G.I. Joe/Transformers/Superhero stuff that so many of their brothers were embracing on daily syndicated television. But the show was so well written, and so well animated, that even BOYS rushed home early from school to watch Jem; those dresses she wore, afterall, were just short enough to make her a bit sexier than Barbie.

        One of the first, if not THEEEE first animated show, to almost have every episode end with a “TO BE CONTINUED ….” cliff-hanger, the show was revolutionary in its time, both then and today, for adding such dimension to not just the Jem character who by day is the average book-wormy “JERRICA”, but by the time she steps on stage, she twists one of her computer-programmed star earrings which signals the “Synergy” synthesizer computer that her father spent his life building to either turn her in to JEM the ROCK QUEEN, or merely create another hologram, so that Jem and/or Jerrica, can be in two places at once! All this goes on of course, while a greedy record tycoon who feels Jerrica’s father should’ve left his legacy to HIM, seeks to avenge his loss by continually funding another all-girl pop group called “The Misfits” who stand for everything bad, greedy, and selfish (3 Gordon Geckos if you will!); continually always trying to upstage Jem and her Holograms, by stealing their spotlight, or going to astronomical lengths to merely stop Jem’s much awaited performances in front of sometimes, entire countries and legions of lost children.

        And to make things even MORE complicated, Jem’s road-manager name Rio, who has been best friends with Jerrica (who is Jem’s so-called MANAGER) since birth and is now her prime love interest as a coming-of-age adult, soon starts to fall in love with JEM … who he doesn’t know IS REALLY JERRICA! So a unique love-triangle, was merely one of the almost DYNASTY /DALLAS like qualities that the show had in its over-the-top attempts to dominate the world, all while corporate-takeovers are continually changing sides back home in Jem’s world of the dark side of the music industry (which is very much the case in the music industry even in today world!), is the true reason Jem is still as popular today, if not more so, than when it first aired. And it was the FIRST CARTOON ever to take the idea of MTV (which was extremely popular and freshly new when JEM first came onto the scene in the mid-80s), by infusing each Jem episode with a 2-minute rock-video of either JEM and her HOLOGRAMS band … or their opposing enemies, the Misfits … even though Scooby Doo and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters had managed to slip in an occasional video into their own shows a decade earlier; as had Josie And The Pussycats, and their forefathers; The Archies.

        As the opening catchy theme song says, “JEM IS TRULY OUTRAGSOUES, TRULY TRULY TRULY OUTRAGIOUS”, the music-videos IN Jem really are quite good! And the songs, themselves, although they fall short of just 2 minutes and you sometimes wish they were a little longer, are so catchy, even as a grown male, when finally taking time out to sit down and review the beloved series myself in 2008 in order to prep it for the premiere of the ThrillerBaby MOST WANTED page here on the now majorly revamped website, I left the show wishing it would’ve had a soundtrack that I could buy which featured all those great melodic songs that were so catchy, and easy, they truly did stay with you long after hitting the stop button on my DVD-player. And being a musician myself, I know a good song when I hear one, and Jem really does have some of the best for a kids show, aside from just the wonderfully catchy opening and closing JEM theme songs.

        As an adult male, I found JEM more sexier than Barbie ever could’ve been, because she truly tries to speak to people with her music as an instrument to uplift and bring comfort, and when she isn’t on stage as her alter-ego pop-queen, she’s simply back to being good old Jerrica who runs an orphanage for young girls (the Starlight house) and truly will do anything for them; none of them, of course, ever suspecting that their maternal surrogate mother … is secretly really the most famous singer in the world, with the exception of Jerrica’s close group of 2 other friends and 1 sister who serve as the Holograms back-up band and were with Jem when Jem was first given the magical earrings which led her to uncover the SYNERGY computer.

WOW!
What a plot of plots!
Kinda sci-fi/fantasy … mixed with a Thrillerbaby’s love for Mtv.

        Although everyone’s hair is either punky purple, or noir-ish neon white and red (as the 1980s often was!), because of such mature writing in giving merely a cartoon stories such heavy 3-dimensional back-stories, and again, one of the first-ever syndicated cartoon-series to ever have those “TO BE CONTINUED …” cliff-hangers (most kid-shows up till JEM merely had an ending that revealed that a world crisis was solved, everyone laughs, and goes home until tomorrow’s dilemma), JEM has aged very well, and the fact that she’s such a good role-model for young girls (and quite a HOTTIE for young … and even OLD, lol, boys … such as myself ), as a comic book superhero lover, I actually found myself very hooked from the moment I first watched the beginning 5-part “origin” show that launched it all (and was released as a movie overseas). And only wish I had the rest of the series on DVD … but can’t get it, because it was never released. Which has angered legions of fans both old and new, yet inadvertently fueled the show’s popularity in recent years on the underground bootleg DVD market from one thrillerbaby collector to another as an example for their kids to display to them what it was like to grow up in the decade that first revealed a rock-singer’s face by tying in their song with a visual music video of them singing it; thanks to Mtv’s strong influence.

        To know this was all meant to market a Barbie-like doll with 1980s punky hair and anything-went fashion accessories, is almost a joke in itself, considering the nature of the how the show has taken on such a legacy for being an interested “retro-addiction” due to such good writing; much of that writing credited to the very talented Christy Marx, who was given a mission from Hasbro Toys to merely write a little show to help sell the doll. What Christy did, however, was tell many different storylines from many different characters, on many different episodes, over the course of the 3 year run of the series, all while managing to cram in wonderful morals for children about greed and money and how it can destroy your personality.
For example:

        While The Misfits will perform songs about materialism and fame, Jem will perform songs about love and giving. And you truly do start to feel for her (yes, she’s only a cartoon!) when she continually starts to try to tell boyfriend Rio (who’s always so torn between his love for Jem … and his love for Jerrica) that she REALLY IS one in the same person; but someone (usually it’s a Misfit) interrupts the moment, which prevents Jerrica’s true secret from ever being revealed.

        I won’t ruin it for anybody who has never seen the series, but this has to be the most brilliant and intriguing and engaging soap-opera out of all the pieces of Americana cartoon aimed at children that has ever been created!

        The last half of the last season never made it to DVD as Rhino Entertainment had planned, because Hasbro soon started to realize what they had, and bought back the rights, along with the G.I. Joe cartoons that were also peppered with scripts from Christy Marx (perhaps this is why Jem was so good, as Marx took the action-esque writing style she had asserted for a boys show, and then applied it to JEM … and MAN, did it EVER work!). And with G.I. JOE now soon to be the biggest anticipated movie of the 2009 summer season, JEM, herself, might not be too far removed from either hitting the big-screen in a live-action version (which would be so entertaining, they should do a TRILOGY of them!), or an entire re-launch of the original doll and original cartoon itself, because you just can’t create another decade as cool and as Halloween-ish as the 1980s … and why ruin a good thing?

        When I recently showed what few episodes I have of the show to my 4 nieces, whom all range in the age of 12 … all the way down to 2, they were completely magnified; even though I truly thought it might seem boring to them, and a bit surreal, considering not many singers or women in general dress like that anymore. But as each episode left a “TO BE CONTINUED …”, they begged for another, and then another, and were completely drawn into the backstories of all the complex characters that Christy Marx created. And even my two nephews came in from playing ball to marvel at how HOT Jem looked and how cool her songs were. And they enjoyed the action aspects in the show, as well as the fact that it seemed to be a type of mini-series. One question they ALL had, however, was “Did people really dress like that in the 1980s? ” My answer was, “Yeah, they kinda did!” And once I said this, they became even more fascinated with the decade in which their thrillerbaby parents were raised in (the 1980s) and how fun the cartoons of the 80s were then … compared to the very limited universally-appealing-to-all-ages cartoons of today. One of my nieces even said, “This is just like Hannah Montana, except better because of the music and the highly glamorous fashions!” 

       Jem obviously now has the distinct feature of not only being a very unique Barbie doll rockstar that began her life as a doll, but she’s so 80s, that trying to update her, would prevent her believability; as in the 80s, you truly ran into people who had hair and make-up like that, and with ThrillerBabies now being parents to millions of girls throughout the world, Jem is such a good role-model without over-asserting politics, sex, or violence. And the show was truly interesting to watch. SO INTERESTING in fact, that many believe (I know I do!) that a certain show on the Disney Channel about ANOTHER young woman who secretly turns into a rockstar after hours (Hannah Montana), is merely a knock-off of JEM itself! Well I got news for you; 20 years before Montana was ever on the small screen, there was JEM, and she and her all-too-brief groundbreaking music-video-esque show, were truly truly truly ORIGINAL for one thing (beyond what Hasbro ever expected for simply trying to sell a doll!), but she was also truly truly truly entertaining with ahead-of-their time multiple storylines that even adults can enjoy. Which is why perhaps those now out of print few dvds that were released by Rhino … now start at about $100 a piece on eBay and Amazon and have become the hottest bootlegged cartoon series of all time!

        If you can get your hands on a copy, it truly is wonderful life-teaching high-production entertainment value for children that way outdoes most of the crap we allow them to watch today, simply because there’s nothing else on.

        Well, I’m here to tell you, that there IS something else; there’s all those great 80s cartoon shows that defined our entire ThrillerBaby generation and made us the music-loving generation that we are today … and the parents of the next President. There’s Jem. And after about one episode, you truly do forget you’re watching a cartoon. I can’t even say that about some of Pixar’s stuff.

        I put on Jem late one night to try to fall asleep to it because I have trouble turning my mind off for the day, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t end up being so profoundly hooked by its writing and catchy rock-videos within each episode, that I stayed up an entire 2 days and nights, skipping meals in the process, just to finish out the series … in which I couldn’t because Rhino didn’t release that last half of season 3 in time before Hasbro bought the rights to show back from them!

        I truly do hope Hasbro doesn’t make us wait too much longer. I would love to be able to share Jem with more fellow thrilllerbaby friends and their kids. To girls, she’s cool, to boys, the story’s are just so action-packed and involving with multiple storylines that always leave you hanging, that she can be appreciated by anybody. Jem truly truly truly is perhaps the biggest unexpected GEM to have ever come out of the 80s. And if she were placed in any other decade, she just wouldn’t be as much fun.

        Anybody with white/purple hair who, with the twist of a magical star-earring, can generate and summon an alter-ego hologram that can influence entire countries full of children, is just too cool! And the fact that her boyfriend thinks he’s in love with two separate people (always feeling guilty for continually cheating on each of them), when really, it’s one in the same, is so fun to watch unfold. I can truly say that Jem is G-rated enough and safe enough for all ages, and they just don’t make fanfare for kids this safe anymore and with this much fun.

        Keep your fingers crossed, yet uncross them momentarily to write Sony a letter at THIS FOLLOWING EMAIL ADDRESS, and BEG them to put this entire 3-year series out on DVD with commentaries for each episode, and a soundtrack CD that we can all share with our kids. There’s never been a cartoon like Jem before or after, and because of the demise of Mtv, they’re probably never will be.

        Placing a couple of cartoon-rock-videos inside each episode that always contained lyrics that moved the story along more than verbal dialog ever could, was just brilliant.; as that is what I tried to do with my novel Signature Place, just in a different way. If Jem ever did make it to the big-screen as a live-action figure that takes place in the 1980s, I would hope and pray that they don’t oversex it and keep it within a PG rating as well as keep its angle on the good moral lessons Jem truly was able to teach in each episode. The young girls and boys of today have enough sex and violence in front of them. It’s easy to place that in front of them because it’s EVEYWHERE. Finding something as wholesome and self-esteem building as Jem, however, is just a rarity in itself. And her voice sounds so much like Debbie Gibson’s, that you truly start awaiting for Ms. Gibson, herself, to make a surprise cameo appearance in each episode.
Now THAT would be a GREAT MOVIE!

        Here’s where to write Sony and BEG!: spn_questions@sonypictures.com

HOWARD  THE  DUCK
( 1986  Rated 'PG-13' )
REVIEW  and VOTING  COMING  SOON!!!

            THE  MAGIC  OF  LASSIE
                             (1978 Rated G)
            In 1978, I went to see this one at the age of 3 along with my family, and just about fell out of the seat in tears by the time the credits rolled. Never has such a movie aimed at children, been able to force you to yank out the Kleenex so easily. Especially when Lassie gets kidnapped and has to spend the entire duration of the film finding her way through hell and back to get back home to Chris; a young boy who runs away from home, simply to look for the beloved collie and the two keep missing each other; keeping you  on the edge of your seat, glued to every possible time they might ever find one another.

            Aimed at the G-rated market during the decline of the Disney era to cash in the 70s family market, and mixed up with a wonderful soundtrack which features Debby Boone … who had just come off of a huge success with You Light Up My Life … the only Lassie film to be a musical was quite a hit with thriller babies …particularly because they never forgot leaving the theater in tears, overcome with joy that Lassie finally made her way back home. And when I say tears, I mean them. Truly.

            When I was first composing the Signature Place novel, and wanted to immediately blend in lost and forgotten tracks that hadn’t made their way on to CD yet into the pulp of the novel, I ran for my Debby Boone greatest hits CD which is just about the only place where one can find the film’s main theme entitled “When You’re Loved” that was nominated for an Oscar! All the other tracks remain lost on a vinyl soundtrack … as does the film itself.

            The incredible impression that the film had on me on more of personal note, was that it introduced me to Jimmy Stewart long before I ever saw It’s A Wonderful Life. And because Stewart looked so much like my grandfather in real life, I was taken with the actor from the very start, which compelled me to write him in the early 1990s, with him writing back, and the rest is history.

            I hunted down the film in the 1990s after placing When You’re Loved into my book, and was amazed how it still affected me. Once again, as soon as they played one of the film’s more memorable songs that’s lyrics echo, “Lassie … my Lassie … I don’t know why … but Lassie I can’t say goodbye. You and I were gonna be pals till we die … but Lassie I can’t say goodbye. You’re so strong, you’ll get along, but how will I? Oh Lassie I can’t say goodbye!”

For GOD’S SAKE!

            These are CHILDREN who are hearing those lyrics!

            I can’t deny the affect that the lyrics and melody had on my own craft as a singer-songwriter.

            And to know the film is an early glimpse at latchkey life right before the BabyBoomers started filing for overnight divorces, is just ageless; as the boy and his sister are orphaned due to losing their parents, which places them in the hands of their beloved grandfather; James Stewart … who actually SINGS in this film.

            Released onto video twice in the 1980s … the film has long been out of print since the mid 80s and hasn’t aired on television in years. Yet there was such marketing power behind it, that it even had it’s own lunchbox when the film first premiered.

            After contacting the Jimmy Stewart Museum in the 1990s to inquire about what the hold-up was on even re-releasing it back to video (this was right before the invention of the DVD), they too said they were having problems with the studio, despite the fact that it was one of their most requested titles from beloved Stewart fans. And without it, I might not have written a book called Signature Place … or ever named my leading nine-year-old character Chris; something I didn’t even realize that my book and the film had in common, until I was already midway through the novel.

            To this day, I’ll occasionally play a pretty good cover of When You’re Loved on the piano, and the audience I’ll be playing it for, who has never seen the film and has no idea the song was ever featured in the movie, will usually be weeping by the time I’ve reached the end chorus.

            Why oh why this one hasn’t been given the DVD red-carpet treatment, especially when it features Stewart in one of his last major and most beloved roles, is just bizarre. It was released onto a REGION 2 DVD overseas in a LASSIE boxed set, but even that quickly went out of print, and the only way us folks here in American can view it, is if we can get a used VHS copy on eBay; which usually starts at a pretty stiff $30 of $40 dollars.

            The Magic Of Lassie remains buried deep within the vaults of our ThrillerBaby childhoods, yet for a G-rated film aimed at pulling in the kiddies, this one affects grown-ups just as equally, leaving hints of their lost latchkey childhoods in their life by the time the credit’s roll, reminding many of their hidden pain they were feeling when their parents first started to divorce.

            Part of the reason the film continues to be such a tear-jerker, is that it now remains one of the last few cinematic examples of portraying an American family who actually prays at the dinner-table. And without giving away the ending, it’s during one of these heartbreaking prayers by Jimmy Stewart at the tail ending, when all hope is gone and Lassie is believed to be lost and dead, that the prayer is suddenly interrupted by the faint sounds of a barking dog, and the praying children at the dinner table suddenly open their eyes in tears; as if God is answering their prayer before their very eyes; giving the film an extra spiritual tone in all the right places.

I get choked up just writing about it.

            I’m just glad I got to tell Stewart how much I appreciated his role in this film before he died.  And he was very honored I told him so. As he quit taking major roles after this picture, due to the fact that most of the roles that were being offered to him late in life, were that of grouchy grandpas. The grandpa he portrays here, however, remains one that forever gets embedded into your mind, no matter WHAT age you are!

            You can VOTE for The Magic Of Lassie to be released onto DVD at the TCM website by clicking here. (They were the last ones to release a VHS version in the 1980s.) It doesn't exist at Amazon.com, however, nor is there any petition for it created at PetitionsOnline.com

           IRRECONCILABLE  DIFFERENCES
                            (1984 Rated 'PG')
    It’s hard to believe this one remains out of print, since it sports such a well-known cast who turn in phenomenal performances, in addition to the heartbreaking score by famous pianist Richard Clayderman (one of only his few scoring jobs in Hollywood that he’s ever done!)

        I have close personal ties with this one, since I took two Clayderman instrumental tracks from this film (The Way I Loved You & Harmony which can only be found on his 1984 album AMOUR, since no official soundtrack was ever released) and put lyrics to them, turning them into heartbreaking bootlegs that float around out the in the world as part of my bootleg collection; The Price To Fame and The Giving Tree. (Hit me up with an email if you’ve never heard them, I’m very proud of them, and those that have been able to acquire my bootlegs, do seem to like them.)

        With a title taken straight from then California governor Ronald Regan’s endorsement of allowing No Fault Divorce in 1969 by signing the Family Law Act of 69 that we discussed on the DISCECTING THE GENERATION section of this exact website, I saw Irreconcilable Differences air on HBO in 1985, and was completely broken over it for days. As other than Spielberg’s E.T. which had come out 2 years earlier, this is perhaps Hollywood’s first-ever commercial mainstream attempt to show the affects that divorce can have on children, just as it was happening in America for millions of Boomers in the late 70s and early 80s. And having just come from my own parents’ divorce that suffered a brutal custody battle, I was glued to picture from the moment it began, and was crying by the time the credit rolled. As was the rest of the household. I was ten years old at the time, and felt that I finally had a movie that could help speak my mind at the time, because, I wasn’t mature enough yet to know how to. And thinking back now, I imagine that it was Drew Barrymore’s performance in this film, that caused me to send her a copy of Signature Place during the turn of the century. Both she and I are only about 3 months apart in our birthdays, and seeing someone at my exact age upon screen trying to convey to a courtroom what her take on the matter with her warring parents was, really struck a powerful chord in me. In a bit of irony, my father also just happened to buy Clayderman’s Amour album at the time which features the two tracks used in the film, and for years, I played them on the piano long before I would ever visit Spielberg’s office and become a songwriter instead of a filmmaker. And when I played them, I usually played these pieces in private, never knowing of course that I’d one day grow up and write lyrics for them.

        Both Barrymore and Shelly Long were nominated for a Golden Globe for their performances in the picture.

        The story about two struggling behind-the-Hollywood-scenes artists, who start out with nothing, then end up with everything, bare a daughter (Drew Barrymore) and then file for divorce … which leaves Drew traumatized, is almost a Terms Of Endearment for KIDS if you will; remaining a very early glimpse at what was soon to become normal latch-key life for so many millions of thriller babies.

        Both BabyBooming parents, played by Ryan O’Neil and Shelly Long, often “make it big” within the entertainment industry (O’Neil as a motion picture director, Long as a writer), but make it at different times in their life when the other one’s practically living on foodstamps. And often, they fight over their daughter, Casey (played with profound authenticity by Barrymore, fresh off of E.T. and Firestarter), yet when they are around her, sometimes take no notice that she’s even there; often leaving her to the household maid to look after her, while they duke it out as artists who crave the industry spotlight so heavily, that it soon devours their own marriage … and their successes, if not their once bright and wholehearted personalities; including their daughter’s … who after suffering brutal amounts of emotional distress, decides to do something that many millions of thriller babies probably wished they could’ve; she contacts an attorney in order to DIVORCE HER PARENTS!

        Though the very film starts out as a light-hearted comedy, it soon dives into brutal arguments between the parents once Ryan O’Neal has an affair with one of his up-and-coming actresses (played with pure bitchery by a young Sharon Stone before Stone became a household name 8 years later with Basic Instinct). And from there on out, until the final credits roll, it digs deep into the psyche of the overlooked daughter, who finds that in order to see her father after he’s left the house and divorced her mother, she now has to succumb to his mistress, Stone, which makes her feel even more worthless, and the comedy side of the picture, gets placed on the back burner while we watch Barrymore take the stand in the courtroom, and testify on behalf of herself, what all she has been through in just the few short years of her life on earth … with her divorced parents sitting below her near their attorneys. And it’s during this sequence, that the film rises to a whole new level of truly revealing what kind of atmosphere we provide for our children when we continually disrespect the mother and/or father that we were once married to … who is still forever tied to the child by their own birth-right. In doing so, we disrespect the child itself, and instill a worthlessness to their much needed seft-esteem.

        It’s gripping film-making at some of it’s very best, and for all those thrillerbabies like me who first saw this in the mid 80s, when most American families had now become broken homes, or double-incomed with both parents working in order to be able to afford the finer things in life, this one hit a nerve with us and we’ve never forgotten it.

        The scene in which Ryan O’Neil sheds a tear while watching his little girl tell her story to the jury, is compelling enough to get everybody in tears in the courtroom, in addition to the audience who’s watching the film itself!

        A winner, all the way around, and a revealing milestone for thriller-babies across the globe who never could get their divorced and bitter parents to see things from their side of the fence; the one that’s been forgotten.  Much less, invite them both to the same social function or merely have dinner with them.

        The film was based in part on the divorce of collaborators Polly Plat and famous director Peter Bogdanovich over actress Cybill Shepherd of Taxi Driver and Moonlighting fame, whom Bogdanvich had directed in the Oscar winning The Last Picture Show after Plat had discovered Shepherd at a grocery store; making Cybil a household name.
 
        And in an ironic sad twist, many aspects of the film's plot, overlapped into the actual lives of the film's real-life cast and crew. In one scene, Drew Barrymore’s nine year-old character drinks champagne. In real life, Barrymore would battle with alcoholism and drugs and strained family relationships. The husband-wife screenwriting team behind the picture, Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer (who also directed the picture), separated in 2000. In 2005, Shelly Long separated from her husband of twenty-four years. Sharon Stone developed a reputation as a homewrecker, when producer Bill McDonald left his wife Naomi Baca after he and Stone met on 1993’s Sliver. She would later break up with McDonald, just as she does with Ryan O’Neal in the movie after stealing him away from his wife. Nancy Meyers, however, would go on to become a well-respected woman director with What Women Wants in 2000, and The Holiday in 2006. (I, myself, hope to someday work with her!)

        VOTE for this historical landmark of a movie due to its early and gritty portrayal of latchkeyism, by clicking HERE.
               
And again, if you’d like to hear my vocal take on two very memorable Richard Clayderman piano pieces that are interwoven throughout the film, email me and put CRAWFORD BOOTLEGS in the subject-box so that I won’t overlook it.

A historically important thrillerbaby gem that every parent should watch!

             THE  LEGEND  OF  BILLIE  JEAN
                            (1985 Rated PG-13)
        This one is a thrillerbaby cult-classic in the truest and most commercial sense of the word. As it bombed at the box-office (making only about 3 and half million in 1985), despite the fact that the hit song written for the film by rock queen Pat Benatar, Invincible, had carried the tune all the way to the #4 spot on the Billboard top 40. But in the world of the 1980s, strange things can happen, and once the film hit video and TV within a year, it was watched by everybody … who by this time, was already heavily aware of the Invincible song and found it cool to see where the song had originated from! Critically listed just recently (AUGUST 2008: the same month this website got a major revamp!) as one of America's favorite "GUILTY PLEASURES" movies ... you've gotta love Billie Jean!

        Making his film debut, a young Christian Slater plays the baby brother of Billie Jean, played by Helen Slater of Supergirl/Ruthless People/Secret Of My Success fame. (Though they share the same last name, they are not related and this has only helped the film gain viewers over the years because by the 1990s, Christian had obtained far more notoriety within the entertainment industry than Helen had; beginning with his leading role in 1989’s Heathers; another classic ThrillerBaby film that failed miserably at the box-office, but is now listed as #5 on Entertainment Weekly’s list of The 50 Best High School Movies of all time.)

        The story is one of the most absurd stories ever brought to the silver screen: baby-brother gets his new motor-scooter vandalized by local boys who have a crush on his beautiful older sister, and to avenge the local boys, big sister attempts to obtain the scooter’s repair-money from the father of one of the boys who vandalized it. When the father offers Billie Jean the money only AFTER she agrees to earn the money back by sleeping with him, little brother invades the scene to rescue his older sister from being raped, and thinking he has an unloaded gun from man’s cash-register at his place of business (a novelty store), he accidentally SHOOTS the man; which starts a media-frenzy since the two teens live in the trailer-parks, and know that no-one will believe them if they tell the authorities that the gun wasn’t supposed to be loaded.

        Not knowing what to do?, they haul ass and live out of their station-wagon with a group of neighborhood friends amongst the back-drops of Corpus Christi, TX … where they soon learn by reading the newspaper, that the man they shot has indeed lived, and is now selling novelty T-shirts of BIILLE-JEAN-WANTED-POSTERS so that he can make an extra buck off the very problem that he and his bullish son created; blurring the concluded thoughts of the authorities, who always seem just a second away from catching Billie Jean, wondering what exactly it is that she wants?

        The pivotal scene in the entire film, comes when after watching a Joan of Arc film (1957’s Saint Joan) on late-night television at a house that she and her posse have crashed at (hooking up with a rich friend while doing so), the beautiful long-blond-haired Helen Slater as Billie Jean … chops off her hair, puts on some spandex, and makes a video-A.P.B. of herself in her “new look” which she then delivers to the media, in order to combat the misinterpretation of the press that she’s a Bonnie And Clyde of the 80s; simply telling the camera that she just wants the mere $608 dollars to fix up her brother’s scooter, and that “FAIR IS FAIR!”

        Panned at the time by critics, and not doing so well at the box-office, despite strongly marketing itself to the new Mtv crowd of young thriller-babies at the time (who were most likely just a little too young in ‘85 to attend a PG-13 rated film), over the course of the twenty-some-odd years that the film has remained out of print, it has steadily grown wings due to a great soundtrack, the film debut of Christian Slater, and its strong leading anchor of a female character (energetically done to-the-T by Helen Slater in the title role), and the fact that it was somewhat of a cable-hit and good-renter on video; appealing to the teen-angst youth of so many thrillerbabies who love those cheesy 80s movies that weren’t quite John Hughes films, but weren’t quite Disney films either.

        Having personally grown up in Texas, if anything, I’ve noticed something as an adult when I watch the film now that I didn’t really appreciate then: it truly captures the spirit of how Texas culture operates and how socially isolated much of the youth here feel, because it’s such a large state and going from town to town is like traveling to another world in itself because the gaps between towns are so far … so much so, that often, the youth will find their own niche to prevent boredom, despite what the rest of the country is doing to prevent the same thing, and they’ll just run with it, now matter HOW crazy they may appear.

        Perhaps the better title would be “The Rebel Without A Cause for the 1980s,” The Legend of Billie Jean (which bares no resemblance to the famous Michael Jackson song off Thriller), is, if anything, a FUN movie to watch, and a very engaging one at that! Opening with the 1983 underappreciated minor hit-song “Boys In Town” by the Divinyls from the movie Monkey Wrench, which states, “I was always driving home … the boys in town … take this bus and park it … GET ME OUT OF HERE!,” from the moment the picture starts, you’re kinda hooked on this very surreal story of merely $608 dollars (that’s it!, no more, no less) in which is VERY real to all these Texas teens whose biggest thrill of the day, is merely watching wrestling on TV on the porches of all their mobile-homes. But once that scooter gets vandalized, they soon become the talk of the nation, so much so, that they develop their own cult-following of teens across the state, who often help the alleged outlaws hide out from the law itself. Once Billie Jean cuts her hair, so do most of the teenage girls in Texas, and the film, despite its unheard of plot, does have a good strong message of how we can make media sensations out of the misunderstandings of just $608, and that in the end, is it even worth it?

To Billie Jean, it seems to be!

And thrillerbabies have been selling bootlegs of this film for several years now, wondering what is the hold-up with the DVD release?

        Speculation has arisen in recent years that the hold-up could be that the film’s copyright holders, simply want to see the film get appreciated the way they had originally wanted it to when first releasing it in 1985, and often, by withholding something from the public for several years now, but allowing it to occasionally air on TV-networks like Turner Classic Movies and Shotime, the film keeps finding new audiences … all while appealing to older ones who pray they have a blank DVD-R in their players when the film airs or have programmed their Tivo.

        Singer Pat Benatar has been known to introduce her Invincible song at concerts by saying that this film in which it's from, did not live up to even her own expectations and is rather silly, but thriller babies have felt otherwise. And in an odd twist of irony, the film about a small select piece of counter-culture in Texas … has become a part of counter-culture itself by remaining out of print for so long.

        Given that thriller-babies were the first generation to see their songs get told on film visually through Mtv, and Mtv was at its wonderful peak when Invincible came out, it’s one of those songs, that even when played on a flashback-Friday over the radio, all of us drive to work or pick up our kids from their soccer games, envisioning this big and beautiful blond woman who cuts her hair and starts a cult-following, simply to get back $608 dollars. And usually, if no one is watching, we’ll sometimes remove our hands from the steering wheel towards the tail-end of the song when Benatar is singing, “We can’t afford to be innocent, stand up and face the envy, it’s a do or die situation” … and we’ll yell, “FAIR … IS … FAIR!”

        Though it could’ve easily been passed off as just plain stupid, the film works wonderfully on executing suspension of disbelief, and the side-characters who have strong Texas-hickish twains in their tones, are so entertaining in their own right, that quite often, watching THEM watching their friend Billie Jean … is just as entertaining as watching Billie Jean herself! Particularly with the performance of actress Yeardley Smith as “Putter”; Billie Jean’s trailer-trash sidekick who is so bored with her own life, she simply wants to travel with the gang … JUST so she’ll get grounded and have ANOTHER reason to rebel! When after the gang barely escapes a few gunshots at their station-wagon, “Putter” suddenly is revealed to be bleeding in the back seat of the car … and then reveals that she was just ‘getting her period’ … with Christian Slater’s one-word response (“GROSS!”) … you kinda have to laugh at the fact that even in a moment of despair, Smith, is a very funny actress and gives the film ample amounts of memorable material more than probably was ever anticipated, and she truly is an extremely under-appreciated actress. She would later go on to do Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive and As Good As It Gets with Jack Nicholson, in addition to her most famous role to date; playing the voice of Lisa Simpson on The Simpsons.

        The film’s director, writer Matthew Robbins, would later go on to do Spielberg’s Batteries Not Included, having already worked with Steven on several projects. And Keith Gordon, who plays the rich kid (“Lloyd”) in the movie that helps the gang (who has one HELL of a swimming pool in the movie that has a slide leading down to it from the second-story of his house!), was fresh off of Stephen King’s Christine, and is now a film director himself. The production team of Peter Guber/Michael Peters would land a best-picture Oscar for 1988’s Rain Man, and both of them also worked on Adrian Lyne’s Flashdance and many high-production superhero films such as 1989’s Batman, and the 2006 version of Superman (Superman Returns). So there is a ‘look’ to the film that’s perfectly glossed with A-list overtones, despite its portrayal of a small Texas trailer-park town (even though Corpus Christie, TX is a bit downplayed in the film, when in actuality, its population is now roughly 300,000). And Jeffrey L. Kimball, who did the cinematography here, also lit Beverly Hills Cop and Top Gun; so again, it’s probably only a matter of time before thrillerbabies see this beloved film get the DVD treatment. (Again, I’m available for commentary when that happens by the way….)

        Barry Tubb, who plays the annoying “Hubie” who trashes the scooter, also went on to have a brief role in Top Gun as WOLFMAN for those that see a familiar face, and like Gordon, he also became a director.

        Despite the film’s hip spunk of its cast often sleeping in their sleeping bags at old abandoned miniature golf-courses and leaving I..O.U.s for anything they steal (whether it’s a walkie-talkie at the mall … or a CAR!) … where the film is most unique is during the smaller scenes that aim to truly help the youth. A scene in which Billie Jean, so used to getting approached for autographs wherever she goes, instead, gets approached by a group of boys who beg her to come help their abused friend Kenny because, “Kenny’s in TROUBLE!” … in which Billie Jean marches down the block and over to Kenny’s house (all while a legion of other kids are marching right behind her and Benatar’s Invincible is playing of course!) … is just priceless. She truly starts to realize how fame can be used for the betterment of humanity, and merely walks into the house where Kenny’s father is abusing him, grabs Kenny, and once the father realizes that she has half the neighborhood standing behind her, he lets her … and the boy … go!

        An odd mixture of suspense and comedy, and if anything, it’s very unpredictable, The Legend Of Billie Jean ranks as the perfect example of how a film can go from nothing … to everything … all while appealing to the rebellious youth of ANY era (1980s or not!) … and deliver a message to them at the same time. Very few films can do that.

        E.T. actor Peter Coyote as the sheriff who truly is both against Billie Jean, and FOR her by the end of the film, adds a nice prestigious balance to the picture of doing what’s right (like turning yourself in!) … but also doing what’s important (like not allowing the press to believe just anything and everything it airs.)

        VOTE for it to get released onto DVD at TCM’s website by clicking HERE!

        And watch out for those grainy bootlegs. (Did I mention that I’ve got a pristine full frame DIGITAL copy if anyone’s interested?, just shoot me an email and put BILLIE JEAN in the subject box so it’ll stand out.)

Afterall, when you deny thrillerbabies our beloved cult-films,“We’ve got the right to be angry!,
and …
FAIR … IS … FAIR!”

               THE  MOUSE  AND  HIS  CHILD
                               (1977  Rated G)
    The most influential movie of my life. And it’s never seen a DVD release. Such a crime. But I intend to change that one thrillerbaby at a time. For without The Mouse And His Child, there would be no Signature Place; my 2^nd novel about the first majorital generation of latchkey kids who were the offspring of all these divorcing babyboomers in the 1980s that left us alone at the dinner table, and for the most part, self-reliant for the majority of our childhoods; growing us up a tad too early, and causing all us thillerbabies to crave the accompany of family … if we were to ever find one ourselves that is … and knew what it was to look for since we really didn’t have one while coming of age to begin with … other than other thillerbabies themselves; lending more credibility to the term “Latchkey” than ever before. As we often latched on to one another during those long days and nights of the 1980s while whichever single-parent (dad or mom) was off working … and the other single-parent was off … well … being single. The Mouse And His Child could not have been more precursive and ironically prophetic in its depicted plot of ‘keys’ that have to be inserted into toy mice (a father and son), in order to wind them up, and activate them to move in circles … until their winding dies, causing them to need re-winding again. (The poster for the film is tacked on to Toph’s bedroom door; the name of the nine year old latchkey character in my book Signature Place who often looks after another latchkey boy who is only 3 years old named Gabe; serving as Gabe’s surrogate parent.)

        A metaphorical masterpiece of a movie for the very first massive latch-“key” generation if there ever was one. And love it, I do. Like with a jillion other thrillerbabies who have, over the course of several years, blogged their thoughts on this memorable movie amongst the backdoors of the Internet, saying they “only saw it once” but that it ‘affected them for the rest of their lives” … I honestly can say the cult-following continues to rise each year for this film because I too share their opinion. But in all honestly, I think it’s fair, if I may be so bold, to say that no other thrillerbaby was as deeply effected by the film … as Joshua Crawford was. Afterall. Not every thrillerbaby ended up spending 8 years in isolation to write about his generation’s latchkey childhood, and why it was so latchkey to begin with. It took some time, and to this day, no publisher has picked up my book, but “Signature Place” remains one of boldest and most challenging endeavors I’ve ever had the privilege to meet destiny on with. And I hope I live to see the day when it will finally be up there on those bookshelves along with The Mouse And His Child; which began it’s strange cult-following life as just that; a book!

        Though author Russell Hoban was a little disappointed in this film that was based off his highly acclaimed book of the same title from 1967 … one which was marketed as a children’s book … but had adults reading it by the early 1970s … forgive me if I take my time here, but I have to be meticulous in my review for this one, because it’s just so layered with almost everything … though looks as if it has practically nothing upon first glance. But that second, third, fourth, fifth, and even six and seventh glance … is just so sweet. And if any film deserves its cult-following, this one does. I believe I’m the first one online to stay that it does indeed have a cult-following, so if you state somewhere else online that it is now considered a cult-film, at least think of me, and the work and effort I’ve gone through to write such a thorough review of a film most people could care less about, until they view it. Hoban’s book has even become more popular in recent years, due to this film. And the film is often generally regarded as one of the few times that Hollywood didn’t “omit” much in the book during the translation process. And with the book being even MORE layered (and with no visuals to go by!), students often generally feel that the film makes for a far more graspable story than the book ever could! Though it will often lead one to dig up the book and read it, to see just what the author was trying to say in the film; one that was released with the title “The Extraordinary Adventure of The Mouse And His Child” in North America, and was directed by two men:

Charles Swenson (who later went on to be one of the writers for the sequel to the Spielberg/Lucas An American Tail movie; Fivel Goes West in 1991) … and Fred Wolf… who later went on to have a strong upper hand in lending his talents to such 80s thrillerbaby cartoons as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Strawberry Shortcake, DuckTales, The Wuzzles, The California Raisins, and had won an Oscar for his 1968 cartoon short The Box, while also doing some animation for the thrillerbaby cult-fave 1974 special Free To Be You And Me that’s song by The New Seekers is featured on the CONTACT page to this website.

Both men, together, are responsible for the much beloved 1978 animated TV special “Puff The Magic Dragon” and its many sequel shorts, and Wolf himself later went on to direct one of the greatest cold-war animated films of all time that thrillerbabies ate up; 1986’s The Adventures of the American Rabbit … in which he also voiced the character of Fred Red.

        Made at a time when the invention of the V.C.R. was just starting and had not made its way affordable enough to enter homes just yet, I happened to The Mouse And His Child at Roswell, New Mexico’s SUMMER MOVIE CAMP that they held over at the old Park Twin Cinema over on South Union Street at around the age of 3. For those of you who aren’t thrillerbabies, and don’t know what SUMMER MOVIE CAMP is, it was a season in the summertime when your local cinema would run a festival of films for the price of a movie-pass card; a card that featured all the movie-titles that would be ran over the course of usually 3 months, and what day they would be ran on; usually the same day, every week, until the final title was shown (Wednesday or Friday right before lunchtime was most common). This PASS-CARD if you will, would receive its featured movie-title-of-the-week PUCNHED out by the box-office clerk with a hand-held hole-puncher, so that you would know you had seen that film, and the films which remained to be seen, were left unpunched, until the following week, when you came to see the next one. It was very cool, and though a few cinemas still participate in such a festival (as the festival usually consists of older children’s titles from the previous year or two … or dusty and beat-up prints of famous ones like The Wizard of Oz, The Little Prince, etc.), many younger generations that weren’t born prior to 1980, often aren’t even away of such a festival; as it’s usually now done FREE for the public (or for a BUCK a movie), so that children can have some form of cinematic entertainment, all their own, during the course of the summer, with little or no cost. And the festivals aren’t that played-up or commercially marketed anymore. But in the days when thriller babies were babies in the 70s, these yearly festivals and PUNCH-CARDS that admitted one to them, became our most looked-forward-to-event of the season, once school let out. And having a mother who once modeled and like or own mother (my grandmother) loved “the arts”, she always seemed to know when and where these festivals started, and as soon as school was out, she always had our PUNCH-CARDS ready and waiting to give to us as a nice treat for working all year in school. (Jee. Am I plugging SUMMER MOVIE CAMP? Or WHAT! Lol)

        Anyway, I loved it. Because you were exposed to all kinds of old children’s films that you wouldn’t necessarily be exposed to, as these were the days before the V.C.R. entered our living-rooms which allowed what I call “rewatchability”, and seldom did any of these titles I saw … ever appear on Saturday Afternoon television … which one has to remember … consisted of only 3 television networks; as cable had not yet entered everyone’s living-rooms either and most TV-sets still had “dials” (channel-changing KNOBS) on them. The cable explosion wouldn’t happen until the dawn of the 1980s. Some films, such as The Mouse And His Child, were only seen this way, if they never had a great opener to begin with. Which explains why you’ll often see so many blogs and message-boards by thrillerbabies, smeared across the backdoors of the Net, stating that they only saw it ‘once’; because although HBO, The Disney Chanel, and the likes … did occasionally air it in the early 1980s, it has seldom seen the light of day in recent years, and its early 80s video-release has fallen so out of print, that if you can find one, it’s usually worth a good $50 or more, even if it’s an ex-rental.

        (By the way, thank God for those DVD-recorder/VCR-combos! For those of you endlessly searching from here to China and back for a copy on dvd, I do have a rather pristine and clear VHS-to-DVD-R transfer that I’ll share with just about anybody, simply because I know how much this film means to thriller babies! Email me, and we’ll talk it over. As it may be years … if ever … before this one gets an American restored DVD release with bonus features. Yet again, now that it’s here on the site, that might change things, as I hope ThrillerBaby.com will. The Mouse And His Child having always been at the forefront of my mind when I was thinking about designing a web site that I knew did not exist anywhere else on the world wide web.)

        The story appears so simple, but gains enormous complexity within the first 5 minutes:

Here we go:

        The story opens with one of the most haunting songs ever put to animation, entitled “Tell Me My Name” (this song is featured on this site on the DISCTING THE GENERATION page, sung by Colin Chasain Kellaway), while a homeless bum (or “tramp” as they used to call them) scouts the streets with his dog, then stumbles upon a specialty toy-store window deep into the night, where he smiles at what lays before him:

        Two toy wind-up-mice (a father and his child son) whose arms are connected to each other, with each mouse facing the other … awaken in a specialty toy-store to find that they are empty of any memory of how they got there, what they’re there for, and most importantly, WHO ARE THEY?

        When the father mouse notices the key in his back, and the other toys (which includes a wind-up tin-seal that bobs a beach ball on her nose … and a wind-up mama-elephant) inform him that he and his son are wind-up toys that will one done eventually get bought (if they’re lucky), and will then enter “the real world”, the two become perplexed with intrigue as to why they even have to go into this so-called “real world” ?

From the very moment, the son speaks, “WHAT are we Papa?”

To which the father responds, “I don’t know son, we must wait and see.”

You know you’re not getting the average Disney film here. As the reason the book was so appealing to adults, as well as children, was that, depending on who you talk to, it contains some rather profound hidden metaphors. For example, if you were to replace the mice with people, asking those same questions, you get “life” in general as humankind only knows it.

        Now that you might be “reading between the lines” a little bit more on this review of mine, let me do this. I’ll underline things that might make you think twice about the story you’re watching that’s masquerading itself as a cartoon … based off a novel that was marketed at children, but was really meant for deep-thinkers in the likes of Animal Farm and Watership Down.
Let’s continue:

        After a giant hand picks up the two mice and uses the key in the father’s back to wind up the mice, they’re then sat back down, where they move in circles.

        Meanwhile, the toy store owner turns off the lights, and closes up for the night.

        Once a large clock in the store strikes midnight however, every toy that once sat inanimate, now comes to life and begins to operate whatever function they’re meant to: Dolls go “Wha-wha”, a teddy bear with symbols on his paws bangs them together, a toy couple inside a doll-house brag about things that moms and dads do (listen closely, and you’ll hear their quite dark topics masquerade themselves as “newsworthy”; heavily metaphoring the way in which the media often trick the public into thinking they NEED to tune in to such darkness … which usually only empties their optimism.)

        And the homeless bum outside with his dog, smiles as he watches the wind-up mice dance in circles; in which he turns to his friendly dog, and mimics the same dance in a circle.

        But the dogmatic clock forbids the young mouse-child to ask any further questions as to origin of “why he’s here, what’s he here for, and who is he?” (The song TELL ME MY NAME echoes in an instrumental form rather appropriately!) And once the little mouse-child gets so depressed while all the other toys smirk at his optimism in wishing that he’ll never have to leave the toy store and that he merely wants to have a family while living inside the nearby dollhouse to serve as his family’s home, he accidentally drags his father a little too close to the edge of the high shelf in which they’re on while dancing in their wound-up circle, and they fall into the nearby waste-basket bellow … which shortly ends up getting dumped in the outside alley trash-can:
“Is this the world? I’m scared Papa.”

“I hope not,” the father replies.

        The “connected two” then get delivered to the junkyard … where they tossed aside near an old broke-down car in which “the bum” is sleeping in. It is the bum’s dog, who brings his master the two now helpless wind-ups (because no-one can wind them up now), and the bum turns the key, then sets the father-and-son down on the dusty ground, to be on their way out into the so-called ‘world.’
“Be TRAMPS,” he says.

        The two mice, accustomed to always walking in circles, are now walking straight ahead of what’s in front of them.
“So this is the world?” the father-mouse says.

“And we’re out in it and it’s all my fault,” says the mouse-child.

“Son … it had to happen son, sooner or later, though walking straight ahead … does feel strange.”

“I don’t mind walking backwards papa … at least it’s better than going in circles.”

“Not if there’s no one around to wind you,” papa-mouse says.

“I’m not afraid papa. I’m not afraid.”

        Immediately, the two almost get run over by an oncoming train, which scares them in unison.

        Until a nearby rat with big teeth, plucks them out of the track, and saves their lives; gaining their trust as he winds their key. The rat soon asks them what they want, to which the son replies; “I want to go home.”

To which the rat responds, “The very place in which I’m taking you.”

        The master rat sees some sort of potential in the two new mice, and travels by way of an empty sardine-can (used as a boat) across a stream.

        The rat then takes  the two to one of his employees who happens to be a frog working as an alleged oracle psychic … to which the frog (who wears a medallion-coin necklace around his neck which reads, “YOU WILL SUCCEED”) displeases the master, and is soon fired; revealing