Canada's Nelvana Studios made their first inroad in American television with a series of syndicated animated specials in the late 70's. One of their first efforts was The Devil & Daniel Mouse, an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet's The Devil & Daniel Webster, which in turn was adapted from a lesser known tale by Washington Irving.
The story is rather simple. Daniel Mouse is a musician by trade, along with his partner, Jan. After losing a gig because their sound is out of touch with the preferences of the period, Daniel decides to hock his guitar. Jan wanders off and meets a reptile named B. L. Zebubb (Chris Wiggins). Naturally, Zebubb is a personification of the Devil and he tricks Jan into signing a deal that would entail (pardon the pun) Zebubb claiming her soul at a certain point. Success comes easily, but when it's time to collect the prize he wants most, Zebubb runs into some resistance. Jan turns to Daniel for help, and, well........!
Daniel's singing voice is provided by former Lovin' Spoonful frontman John Sebastian, whom most of you probably know better for having composed and sung the theme to Welcome Back, Kotter. Sebastian also narrated a record album version of the special, which, sadly, is lost to the mists of time. The album, that is. A documentary chronicling the making of Devil & Daniel Mouse was included with the DVD release of the studio's feature film, "Rock 'N' Rule", leaving hope that the special, and the rest of Nelvana's pre-80's output here in the US will see a DVD release down the road.
Now, here's The Devil & Daniel Mouse. You'll notice Warner Bros. handled distribution for Nelvana in this case.....
Rating: None. I never saw it, so I can't fairly judge it.
4 comments:
Actually, "The Devil & Daniel Mouse" was released on the "Rock 'n' Rule" DVD on the 2-disc special edition and the new Blu-Ray edition, but not on the single-disc DVD. I don't know if it's an HD transfer on the Blu-Ray, or just standard-def. I would guess it's just standard definition.
Hmmm, I had read that there was a commentary, but the source material was a wee vague on whether or not the show itself was included. It was also on a compilation with other Nelvana specials, such as Rome-0 & Julie-8, unless that's the same thing you're talking about.....
I came into this show about 1/2 way into the action so I wasn't up to speed on what had been going on. By the time I saw the Courtroom scene and the ghastly images of the Devil's minions, I was freaked out!
The animation seems sub par by today's standards and even in '78 could have been better, even thought the story and lesson is solid.
To be honest, anything that had "Devil" in the title I tended to avoid back then----unless it was a Super Friends cartoon.....
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