My brother was of the perfect age for us to head off as a family to see “An American Tail”. And being the musical theater and repetitive movie watching family that we were, we had the soundtrack and later the video tape in heavy rotation. (Although, if I recall, not as badly rotated as some which may have magically disappeared for a time so we could move on to other movies.)
Now, for those who may have missed out, (and seriously, it’s cute and funny and Dom Deluise and Christopher Plummer sing) a family of Russian mice immigrate to America via New York city, but their son Fievel gets separated from the family and has to make his own way. Along the way he runs into Gussie Mausenheimer, who is voiced by Madeline Kahn, and like many Kahn characters has a speech impediment so her r’s and l’s sound like w’s.
This leads to the following exchange (which several members of my family can do with minimal prompting:
Gussie: We should have a rally? (NB: Remember, “Rally” is pronounced “wowee”.)
John: A wowee?
G: You know, a large gathering of mice for a reason.
J:Oh, a rally.
G: That’s what I said, a rally.
So, this Rally to Restore Sanity thing (or Rally for Fear and/or Sanity) - that’s what I keep thinking of. Hopefully it will also turn out to be amusing and memorable.
