The Fearless Four (film)

Four animals face misfortune and each choose to run away to become singers. Buster the bloodhound gets in trouble for refusing to hunt, Fred the donkey gets replaced with a robot, Gwendolyn the Siamese cat is accused of stealing her deceased owner's jewels and nearly killed, and Tortellini the rooster gets thrown out. They plan on going to Paris, but end up going to Bremen instead due to a broken road sign and meet each other along the way.

Upon their arrival however, the four find Bremen has been taken over by Dr. Greed, head of the Mix Max corporation. Even in spite various "no singing" signs posted around town, the four do so anyway. Mix Max official Platini overhears them and intends to punish them, but upon hearing how talented they are, offers them a contract to sing radio jingles for Mix Max. Taking charge, Tortellini immediately signs on everyone's behalf, much to their annoyance, and the animals become known as the Fearless Four. They quickly become famous as Mix Max's sales skyrocket, but the four soon become tired of singing the same song repeatedly. They approach Platini to sing their own songs, but he insists they follow the contract, which he reveals is perpetual. Angered, the four incorporate their own lyrics the next time they sing the jingle, mocking the company, though they are all thrown into a dungeon afterward.

A mouse named Mozart helps them escape, after which they learn Mix Max is luring in animals to turn into sausages. Horrified, the four resolve to stop the corporation. They return to Platini and ask for their jobs back, which he agrees to since Mix Max's sales have dropped and Dr. Greed is running for president, and he believes singing animals will help his campaign. The four are to put on a live concert supporting Dr. Greed with a snake bodyguard to ensure they do not sabotage it. However, Mozart saves them once more, allowing the four to expose Mix Max's activities. The Mix Max officials retreat to their factory, but the four follow, attack, and defeat them before releasing their prisoners. Tortellini destroys the factory and the four return to the countryside, where they have a party to celebrate their freedom and Gwendolyn finds her owner's jewels, which she uses to purchase her old home and convert it into a refuge for the animals they freed.

In North America, the English version was released on Warner Home Video on May 7, 1998, however, the VHS went quickly out of print and remains extremely hard to find. Germany received a DVD release twice; A regular release, and one from Warner Kids (a label for Warner Bros. films that were family-friendly) using the original name, "Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten";[5] neither DVD has any English audio option. A much easier to find PAL VHS was released in the United Kingdom on July 19, 1999. Despite the film being pretty much unknown in the United States and in most of the world, the English dub is currently available on sources such as Vudu,[6] iTunes,[7] Amazon Prime Video[8] and the Microsoft Store.[9] In 2018, South Korea released the film on DVD with an English dub in it. it is unknown if Warner Archive will bring out a Region 1 DVD release in the United States.

Various scenes were deleted from the original version, or shortened, when the film was distributed outside Germany, as follows:[10]

- In the original version there are scenes in which Dr. Greed attempts to hire an assassin to kill the owner of a rival company. Those scenes were removed.

- The scene in which Fred is tortured by the "tickle torture" machine was greatly shortened in some versions outside Germany, and completely removed in others.

- There is a very awkward scene in the original in which Gwendolyn openly seduces Platini while singing a song. The scene was cut from international versions of the film, most likely due to the subject of a cat seducing a human suggesting bestiality.

- A brief shot in which a bee lands on a magazine photo of a woman's breast was eliminated.

- At the end of the film in the original version, the animals are shown drinking wine to celebrate their victory over Dr. Greed and his henchmen. The images of the animals drinking wine were removed from some international versions.

These changes reduced the run time of the film to about 81 minutes.

Stuffed animals,[11] a soundtrack,[12] Bullyland figures,[13] books and other items were produced for the film's release in Germany.

The film went on television in North America on Encore (Encore Wam).[14] It went on to television in France on channels such as AB3,[15] in the United Kingdom on Cartoon Network, YTV in Canada back in 2010, and Treehouse TV in 2013. This film aired on KidScene: HDNet Movies in March 2018, along with Cats Don't Dance and Inside Out.

Production on the film started in March 1995 (also was when Munich Animation was founded), and ended production in December 1996. 150 people from around the world worked on the film, which included animators from the computer animation field working on the backgrounds, The robot centaur (Powertool), and the vehicles. The animation for the hand drawn characters and objects were all colored digitally. The film was produced and recorded for an English audience, and was later dubbed into German for its original release.[16]

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Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Fearless Four (film)

• The Fearless Four at IMDb
• The Fearless Four at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• The Fearless Four at the TCM Movie Database