A timid mouse, an awkward crow and a fierce cat are dancing their ways down shopping malls across the country. The six-foot animals are part of a $4.4 million effort to advertise and merchandise "The Secret of NIMH," which is opening in theaters in regional waves in July. The last wave will take "The Secret of NIMH" into New York late in July.
Created by Don Bluth, who led a walkout of 14 young Disney animators three years ago, "The Secret of NIMH" is an attempt to return to the rich, fully detailed animation thatis known as "classic" Disney animation. In an unusual and possibly singular move, Aurora Productions, producer of "The Secret of NIMH," is putting up $4.4 million for prints, advertising and promotion before the movie opens and during the first two weeks after it opens. "The Secret of NIMH" is being released by M-G-M/U.A., and it is customary for the distributor to pay for making prints and advertising a movie.
"We want control," Rich Irvine, president of Aurora, said. "We want to outdo Disney in marketing a G-rated family film. We needed to be sure enough money was there to compete head-to-head with Disney.
'Ran Away From Home'
Competing with Disney is very much on the mind of all the men who created or financed "The Secret of NIMH." They are all, in one way or another, Disney alumni. Mr. Irvine's father was head of Disney's research and development division and helped design Disneyland. Mr. Irvine was the youngest vice president in Disney's history and the first of the young executives to leave "frustrated" after Walt Disney's death. Mr. Irvine's partner, Jim Stewart, was the director of publicity at Disney who announced Disney's death in 1966.
"We all ran away from home," said Mr. Bluth, who left -- "significantly," he pointed out -- "on my birthday, Sept. 13, 1979. If Walt were still alive," he added, "we might all still be working there. After all, what would the Lucas organization be without George Lucas?"
Popcorn to Ice Cream
"The Secret of NIMH," which is an adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's Newberry Award-winning children's novel, "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," will be competing with two Disney movies this summer -- the reissue of "Bambi" and "Tron."
Ironically, just as Aurora and Mr. Bluth are trying to return to classic Disney animation, Disney, with "Tron," is trying to move far away from gentle family movies. With "Tron," in which the major characters fight a deadly battle inside a computer, Disney is hoping to recapture the teen-age audience that it lost more than a decade ago.
In an unusually large merchandising and promotional campaign, M-G-M/U.A. and Aurora have sent Dragon the Cat, Jeremy the Crow and Mrs. Brisby the Field Mouse, to 35 cities to put on 15-minute stage shows inside such stores as J.C. Penney and Macy's. There will be Slushies, or ice drinks, in NIMH cups at 1,200 Circle K convenience stores; secret NIMH premiums buried in Original Show House Popping Corn, a secret Bressler's ice-cream flavor of the month plus the usual soft-drink cups, T-shirts, lunchboxes, toys and so on.
The name of the book's title character, Mrs. Frisby, was changed to "Brisby" because trademark law is based on sound, not spelling. The similarity of "Mrs. Frisby" to the Frisbee throwing toy would have made it impossible to trademark the main character for licensing.
From 'Titans' Expertise
John Pope of the Western Publishing Company -- which wholesales 15 NIMH items, including puzzles, activity boxes and Little Golden Books -- said NIMH products were seling extremely well to retailers. Mr. Pope characterized sales as better than Disney's "The Fox and the Hound." He thought the sales had less to do with the original book than with the classic animation and the fact that such recognizable actors as John Carradine and Dom DeLuise were advertised as playing the voices of the charcters.
To promote "The Secret of NIMH," M-G-M/U.A. is drawing on the expertise and relationships it aquired during last year's successful promotion of "Clash of the Titans." For Mr. Bluth, successful toys are only peripheral.
"There were 14 other people making animated films when Disney was making them," he said. "Yet, over the last 40 years, I'm hard-put to find another film to compete with Walt Disney. Bambi was a real deer, not a drawing. If an artist is too sulf-indulgent, too evident on the screen -- like Ralph Bakshi and "The Yellow Submarine" -- the audience can't identify.
"Has somebody else finally competed with Disney? I hope so. But it's up to the audience to decide."