The Adventures of Mark Twain (1986 film)

The Adventures of Mark Twain
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Will Vinton
Produced by	Will Vinton
Written by	Mark Twain Susan Shadburne
Starring	James Whitmore Gary Krug Chris Ritchie Carol Edelman John Morrison Will Vinton Gary Thompson Dallas McKennon
Music by	Billy Scream
Editing by	Kelley Baker Michael Gall Ed Geis Skeets McGrew Will Vinton
Studio	Will Vinton Productions Harbour Town Films
Distributed by	Clubhouse Pictures
Release date(s)	January 17, 1986 (1986-01-17)
Running time	86 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Adventures of Mark Twain, released in the UK as Comet Quest, is a 1986 American stop-motion animation film directed by Will Vinton (best known for "The California Raisins" animation). It received a wider theatrical release, still limited to seven major cities, in January 1986. It was released on DVD in January 2006. The film features a series of vignettes extracted from several of Mark Twain's works, built around a plot that features Twain's attempts to keep his "appointment" with Halley's Comet. Twain and three children, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Becky Thatcher, travel on an airship between various adventures. The concept was inspired by a famous quote by the author:

"I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'" (Twain died one day after Halley's Comet reached perihelion in 1910.)^{[citation needed]}

Included are sketches taken from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Mysterious Stranger, "The Diaries of Adam and Eve (Letters from the Earth)", "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" and a rendering of Twain's first story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". References are made to his other works, including "The Damned Human Race".

Cast

• James Whitmore as Mark Twain
• Michele Mariana as Becky Thatcher
• Gary Krug as Huck Finn
• Chris Ritchie as Tom Sawyer
• John Morrison as Adam
• Carol Edelman as Eve
• Dallas McKennon as Jim Smiley and Newspaper Boy
• Herb Smith as The Stranger
• Marley Stone as Aunt Polly
• Michele Mariana & Wilbur Vincent as The Mysterious Stranger
• Wally Newman as Captain Stormfield
• Tim Conner as Three-Headed Alien
• Todd Tolces as Saint Peter
• Will Vinton as Dan'l Webster
• Billy Victor as God
• Gary Thompson as Baby Cain

See also

• List of stop-motion films
• List of animated feature films

References

External links

• Link to a five minute HD video clip (The Mysterious Stranger)
• The Adventures of Mark Twain at the Internet Movie Database
• The Adventures of Mark Twain at AllRovi