Teetering on the edge between adult fiction and youthful fantasy, Russell Hoban’s 1967 novel, The Mouse and His Child, seemed an odd choice to adapt into an animated kids film. But although the book had a fair share of violence and themes geared towards grown-ups, it also had a pair of talking mice – and what kid wouldn’t love a cartoon about talking mice, right?

Released by Sanrio America in 1977, the story follows the adventures of two conjoined toy wind-up mice, one an adult and the other a child. The two become disenchanted with their life at the toy store once the younger mouse sees what the outside world can offer and soon they are both on a quest to find freedom through the ability to become self-winding. But a number of perils stand in the way of the duo, dangerous and odd critters like a group of inebriated rats and an enlightened frog. To make matters worse, they soon find themselves entrapped by a slave-owning rodent named Manny Rat who lives in the sewers. He has the power to grant them their self-winding wish but it is going to take some serious convincing.

A number of celebrities lent their voices to the animated adaptation of The Mouse and His Child. Peter Ustinov played the role of Manny, Sally Kellerman played The Seal and Cloris Leachman played the role of Euterpe. But even with these big names, and even though the film was much lighter in tone than the original book, it still was unsuccessful in winning the hearts of younger audiences. Even with cute talking mice, kids just didn’t quite know what to make of the surreal animation and adult themes.