The Rescuers is the twenty-third film in the Disney animated features canon. It was produced by Walt Disney Productions, and first released on June 22, 1977 by Buena Vista Distribution. The film is about a society of mice, headquartered in New York and shadowing the United Nations, who go about doing good deeds in the world at large. Two of these mice, a hesitant and very New York-sounding Bernard (Bob Newhart) and the elegant, Hungarian-sounding Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor), set about rescuing Penny, a kidnapped girl -- with the help of a comical albatross, they set out despite stormy weather.
The film was inspired by a series of children's novels by Margery Sharp .
The Characters
Bernard: He is a New York-sounding mouse that has one job: janitor. He is the most superstitious of the gang as he suffers from Triskaidekaphobia (13 steps on the ladder, Flight 13, 13 steps on the stairs, Friday the 13th), and hating flying so much that when they fly, he wishes to take the train.
Miss Bianca: She is a Hungarian-sounding mouse that is adventurous. She loves Bernard, and sometimes uses a little humor in problems. She said that one time, Evinrude's carberator got all pooped out.
Penny: She is the hostage in the Devil's Bayou and wishes to go back to New York. She has a teddy bear, that one time, Madame Medusa put The Devil's Eye in it. She is not afraid of anything, and is in 1st grade.
Mr. Snoops: He's the partner of Madame Medusa. He is also greedy and hates Penny. His character is based on animation historian John Culhane, who was constantly snooping around the studio at the time the film was made, hence the character's name.
Madame Medusa: She is the leader of Mr. Snoops and only cares about The Devil's Eye. She is a villaness that has two alligators: Nero and Brutus.
The Sequel
In the sequel, The Rescuers Down Under (1990), set in the Australian Outback in which Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor reprised their roles from the first film. John Candy took the late Jim Jordan 's place in the comical albatross role.
Re-releases
In December of 1983, The Rescuers was re-released with the new Mickey Mouse short, Mickey's A Christmas Carol . It was also re-released in the summer of 1989, due to The Rescuers Down Under being released in 1990. The VHS and LaserDisc versions of The Rescuers weren't released until 1992, when it was released on those formats in the Walt Disney's The Classics collection. It was re-released in 1999, but was recalled due to a photographic image of a topless woman in the background of New York when they are flying on Orville, the albatross.
Topless woman rumor
The movie is famous for an image of a topless woman hidden in the background of one scene. When the mice are flying over the city, a topless woman is seen very quickly in a window, in just two frames. In 1992, however, the movie was released on video, but didn't have the picture of the topless woman because it was made from a different movie cut .
On January 5, 1999, Disney re-released The Rescuers on video, but complete with the photograph of the topless woman. Disney quickly found it, and on January 8, 1999, they recalled the video tape and laserdisc, and on March of 1999, they re-released it with the edited scene. In 2003, they released it on DVD with the edited scene.
See also
List of fictional mice and rats
External links