The Secret of NIMH - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Secret of NIMH or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Secret of NIMH

[bryan]

The small dragonfly Mr. Ages chases away near the beginning of the movie is Evinrude from Disney's The Rescuers (1977), one of the last movies Don Bluth worked on at Disney before leaving the company.

[frances]

During production, Don Bluth agreed to the first profit sharing contract in the animation industry. This means that the animators were offered a cut of the film's profits, a practice common for producers, directors and stars of live action films, but never before offered to artists on an animated feature.

[caroline]

Originally, Mr. Brisby was to encounter a female rat named Isabella who he was to meet in a library, she was to explain the origins of the rats of N.I.M.H. She also served as the nurse and was Justin's girlfriend, she was ultimately cut from the movie.

[lonnie]

Techniques used on this movie which had not been used extensively in other animated features included split exposures to create shadows and translucency, diffusion in conjunction with split exposures to create reflections, color Xerography for the creation of cels and painstaking color orchestration. Newer techniques included the use of video animation for testing and backlight. The use of multiple exposure techniques was probably the best indication of the time and effort taken with the movie.

[francisco]

Six months were devoted to developing the design specifications for the cameras Bluth and his crew needed for the newly founded Don Bluth Productions and their upcoming movie, and then another fourteen months were spent building and testing the cameras. Two identical camera stands were built by Mechanical Concepts especially for Bluth because there were no animation cameras available commercially that could do everything necessary to shoot the movie, according to Fred Craig, Director of Special Processes for the movie. One of the features which the cameras built for Bluth had that was not found on conventional animation stands was the capability of shooting backlit art in an anamorphic format.

[jessie]

Producer Gary Goldman recalled working 110-hour weeks during the final six months of production.

[melinda]

Arthur Malet's first time voice acting in a theatrical film, later he'd onto voice King Eidilleg the fairy in The Black Cauldron (1985) and both the majordomo and the traveling man in Anastasia (1997), the future of which would also eventually be directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.

[frederick]

According to the Farmer's Wife, "N.I.M.H." is an acronym for "National Institute of Mental Health".

[darrell]

In late August 1982, Disney barred several theaters from booking this movie as a double-feature with TRON (1982). Disney claimed that the studio wanted their movie to be paired with another Disney movie. A Los Angeles Times article said that the action was due to bitter feelings over Don Bluth's exit from the company.

[cameron]

Despite being rated G, Justin uses the word "damn" after Mr. Brisby gets caught by the farm boy inside the house. Later on, the word "damn" would be used in the third book sequel "R.T. Margret and the Rats of N.I.M.H." by Jane Leslie Conly published in 1990. The school bully would swear at Margaret when he questions her about Thorn Valley.

[edgar]

A bottle at the entrance of Mr. Ages' lab reads "Finn's Hair and Whisker Dye", a reference to animator Will Finn.

[wallace]

Shannen Doherty recorded all her lines wearing a bow similar to her character's in the movie.

[kyle]

This movie was originally budgeted at six and a half million dollars, but was reduced by the studio after production was underway. Gary Goldman and the producers resorted to mortgaging their houses in order to raise the extra seven hundred thousand dollars needed to complete the movie. In spite of these difficulties, the movie still cost under seven million dollars, roughly half of what Disney had been spending at the time on each of their animated features, even with their cost-cutting methods in animation.

[dustin]

DIRECTOR TRADEMARK (Don Bluth (important object): Mrs. Brisby carries the red stone with her throughout most of the movie.

[norma]

The movie also heralds a return to using the multiplane camera for scenes requiring depth, especially Nicodemus' magic hologram and in the opening sequence where with the aid of backlit animation, the wise old rat beckons magic vapors from an inkwell to grace the pages of an ancient book with fiery gold lettering.

[christina]

Members of the crew did some of the crowd voices for the rats of N.I.M.H. Even Norbert Auerbach, then Chairman of United Artists Europe, and Charles Champlin, a leading critic at The Los Angeles Times, recorded some incidental voices. Regrettably, when this movie was released, Champlin said he couldn't review it due to a conflict of interest.

[scarlett]

This movie greatly deviates from the original novel in which there are no supernatural elements, and Nicodemus is neither magical nor elderly, but merely an intellectual. Jenner is not a villainous character, but the leader of defectors from The Plan, and who is believed killed during an unsuccessful raid of a hardware store (that is how N.I.M.H. discovers the location of the rats). The move of Mrs. Bisby's home is accomplished by the rats without incident (or magic).