A MarkInTexas Made-For-TV Thanksgiving Dinner: The Mouse on the Mayflower (1968)

 In past years, at the Old Country, in addition to reviewing old Christmas specials in December, I also would spend a week or two reviewing specials from another holiday.  Past years, I've looked at Halloween and Easter specials, and this year, I'll be spending November taking a look at the surprising number of animated Thanksgiving specials that have aired over the years.  We'll be starting off with holiday special-maker extraordinaire Rankin-Bass's sole Thanksgiving entry, The Mouse on the Mayflower.

While I don't have the time to research whether or not it was the first animated Thanksgiving special made for TV, if it wasn't it was certainly one of the first.  Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, the first animated holiday special, had only debuted in 1962, and Rankin-Bass had only produced two Christmas specials themselves at this point (their third, The Little Drummer Boy, would debut about a month after this first aired).  As the screencap shows, this was produced in traditional cell animation instead of the stop motion style of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Like most R-B specials, this is "told and sung" by a famous celebrity, in this case country music star Tennessee Ernie Ford.  He voices William Mouse, Esq., the Pilgrim's official churchmouse, who accompanies them on their voyage across the Atlantic.  Other voices included Eddie Albert, who voiced Captain Myles Standish, and voice artists Paul Frees and June Forey, who voiced several roles between them.

This is one of those specials that probably should be about half the length, as, honestly, not too much happens, at least not enough to justify the 45-minute running time.  The Pilgrims sail across the ocean, run into awful storms, and William thwarts a scheme by a couple of evil sailors from stealing the box full of gold on board and figures out how to save the ship when the main beam threatens to break (a real incident, though I doubt a mouse was the one who figured out the solution).

That's all rather dull, but at least it's not racist.  That part comes during the second half, when the Pilgrims land and encounter the local Native American tribe, who were colored bright red and shown shirtless and wearing war paint, even though they were presented as friendly and it was supposed to be the middle of November in Massachusetts. William meets a Native mouse, who, despite being able to speak a common mouse language, still speaks for us to hear in stilted English.  There's also a comically evil tribe member who inexplicitly has a vest-wearing bear.  The special makes a big deal as to how mean the bear is, but he seems to act like a loyal dog.  It's weird.  The only other major subplot involves maybe the most boring love story in history between Stanish's assistant and a young Pilgrim maiden.

The Mouse on the Mayflower is interesting as a historical curio, but unlike many of Rankin-Bass's Christmas specials, this one deserves to have slipped into obscurity.  Hopefully, future specials will be better.

Next time: The most prolific maker of TV cartoons tries to play the Rankin-Bass game.