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Hollywood employment can be great fodder for buzzy comedies, from The Larry Sanders Show to 30 Rock. But one sitcom that may have been ahead of its time was The Famous Teddy Z, which debuted on CBS 35 years ago on Sept. 18, 1989.

Created by Hugh Wilson, the series starred Jon Cryer as Teddy Zakalokis, a mailroom worker at a fictional UTA — Unlimited Talent Agency — who punches Hollywood’s top actor shortly after meeting him and is soon picked by the Marlon Brando-esque star to be his rep. The concept was inspired by the real-life story of young McA agent Jay Kanter, who became Brando’s rep after picking him up at a train station.

Cryer had landed a CBS deal off the success of Pretty in Pink, but producer Richard Dubin preferred another on-the-rise actor, Ben Stiller, who also auditioned. “I thought that Jon, while a very able and journeyman actor,...

Stars: Rosanna Arquette, Michelle Pfeiffer, Arsenio Hall, Donald F. Muhich, Monique Gabrielle, Lou Jacobi, Erica Yohn, Phil Hartman, Corey Burton, Peter Horton, Griffin Dunne, Joe Pantoliano, Steve Forrest, Forrest J. Ackerman, Sybil Danning, David Alan Grier, Steve Guttenberg, Henry Silva, Robert Picardo, Rip Taylor, Ed Begley Jr., Dick Miller, Matt Adler, Kelly Preston, Howard Hesseman, Russ Meyer, Andrew Dice Clay, Carrie Fisher, Paul Bartel | Written by Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland | Directed by Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, Robert K. Weiss, John Landis

One of many, many anthologies to have graced the silver screen over the years (another of which, the horror anthology Nightmares is also being released on Blu-ray by 101 Films), Amazon Women on the Moon features madcap sketches and shorts centred around the eponymous film-within-a-film, a satire of low-budget, 1950s-style sci-fi. Featuring appearances from Rosanna Arquette, Carrie Fisher, Steve Guttenberg, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sybil Danning and Ed Begley,...

Full of high and low comedy, virtuosity and good spirits, ''An American Tail: Fievel Goes West'' well deserves the sobriquet ''family film''; there really is something here for everyone in the family.

Directors Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells have, along with a large band of gifted animation talents, produced a feature that emphasizes speed, motion, bright colors, shifts of perspective, and eye-popping computer graphics all served up in a stylish rush. Boxoffice prospects look exceptionally good.

The feature finds the title mouse, Fievel Mousekewitz, still living in the Bronx with his family of Russian-Jewish immigrants. A mass attack by cats drives the family underground (in a super rapids ride through the sewers) where they and a swarm of other, similarly harried mice are persuaded by a ticket-bearing, spiel-speaking mouse to head out west for a new settlement. The assembled mice agree, not knowing that the mouse is a puppet front for the evil feline Cat R. Waul, who together with his spider aide, T.R. Chula, and a gang of cats, plans to use these immigrants as the basis of a regular voluntary food supply.

There is also a subplot featuring Fievel's cat buddy, the tubby Tiger, and that fat cat's girlfriend, the saloon-singing Miss Kitty. They, together with Fievel and a broken-down old western hound named Wylie Burp, triumph over the cats in the climactic showdown.

However, the movie is less about its story than its technique, which is a delightfully relentless, zooming onslaught. Fievel goes from one trouble spot to another, from traps by alley cats to falls from moving trains to capture by a buzzard to being bottled up by the spider. And when Fievel gets a rest, its Tiger's turn for misadventure.

These episodes unwind in the densest concentration of computer graphics effects ever marshalled for a major feature release, and angles and perspectives spin vertiginously and continuously, the dazzle compounded by the flamboyantly bright coloring.

However, the animators have not neglected their character work, and the individuals are portrayed in elastic eloquence, with faces and whole bodies undergoing comically expressive transformations. The bulbous Tiger goes through some particularly circular transformations while the villainous Cat R. Waul (who seems based on the Fox in ''Pinocchio'') is all calculating angles.

The three main songs are bouncy and appropriate, though not as memorable as the original's ''Somewhere Out There, '' which gets a short reprise from Fievel's older sister Tanya, whose singing aspirations form part of the plot's engine. The theme from ''Rawhide'' gets a short and amusing (for grownups) run-through. James Horner's score is a nice western pastiche, from Copeland to hoedown.

The voices are all well-done, with John Cleese doing a drolly supercilious turn as Cat R. Waul and Jon Lovitz a chip-on-the-right-shoulder T.R. Chula. As the voice of Wylie Burp, James Stewart was an extremely effective choice, and his denouement benediction provides a perfect closing sentiment. Dom DeLuise (Tiger), Phillip Glasser (Fievel), Nehemiah Persoff (Poppa Mousekewitz) and Erica Yohn (Mama Mousekewitz) all return from the original, while Amy Irving performs for Miss Kitty and Cathy Cavadini is perfectly on key and off as Tanya.

AN AMERICAN TAIL: FIEVEL GOES WEST

UNIVERSAL

Steven Spielberg Presents

Producers Steven Spielberg, Robert Watts

Directors Phil Nibbelink, Simon Wells

Story Charles Swenson

Screenplay Flint Dille

Created by David Kirschner

Original songs James Horner, Will Jennings

Music James Horner

Casting Nancy Nayor, C.S.A., Valerie McCaffrey

Art director Neil Ross

Supervising animators Nancy Beiman, Kristof Serrand, Rob Stevenhagen

Special effects supervisor Scott Santoro

Supervising editor Nick Fletcher

Color

Voices:

Fievel Phillip Glasser

Cat R. Waul John Cleese

Wylie James Stewart

Tiger Dom DeLuise

Papa Nehemiah Persoff

Chula Jon Lovitz

Miss Kitty Amy Irving

Tanya Cathy Cavadini

Mama Erica Yohn

Running time -- 75 minutes

MPAA Rating: G

(c) The Hollywood Reporter...