Twitch

Twitch is the secondary antagonist of An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster. He is a short-tempered miniature cat and the leader of the Outlaw Cats, a group of poor cats who lived in the sewers. He teamed up with a miniature French poodle named Madame Mousey to create a robotic machine, the titular Night Monster, to attack and capture all the mice in Manhatten. He is the one who controls Mousey's Night Monster robotic machine alongside his cohorts, Slug and Bootlick, and sometimes Madame Mousey herself. However, their plan was foiled by Nellie Brie, Fievel Mousekewitz and their friends. He is voiced by John Mariano.

Biography

Twitch is a sarcastic and short-tempered green miniature cat who serves as the leader of the group of very poor cats who lived in the sewers. He is also the boss of two dimwitted cats, Bootlick and Slug. Unlike Tiger and the more richer cats in the American Tail franchise, Twitch and his minions don't wear any clothing and walked on all fours instead of two. This is because of the security gate that the mice has built in Manhatten to protect them from any cat attacks. Because of their poor lifestyle and starvation, they have to rely and team up with a miniature French poodle named Madame Mousey and they helped her to create a machine, the titular night monster machine, to attack and kidnap all the mice in Manhattan and take them to the sewers, where they are to be eaten by the cats.

Twitch despises Madame Mousey, mostly because of Mousey abusing him throughout the song "Creature de la Nuit", and teased her about her problems with the other dogs. When they came back after a failed attempt to get rid of Nellie Brie, the reporter for the Daily Nibbler, and her friend Fievel Mousekewitz, Twitch tries to get the cats to betray Mousey because he believed they were better off without her and since they had Mousey's sewer maps, they can use them to get around the security gate. However, Mousey reminds Twitch that the cats still need her because Nellie Brie is on their case and is going to publish it in a newspaper, which will ruin the cats chances of surprise and the mice will retaliate against the cats. Twitch begrudgingly agrees with Madame Mousey, and then guesses correctly that Madame Mousey has a plan to destroy the Daily Nibbler and to get rid of Nellie Brie and her friends.

In the climax of the film, they succeeded in destroying the Daily Nibbler with Mousey's monster machine, but they failed to get rid of Nellie and her friends after Fievel has electrocuted Madame Mousey, saving his friends in the process. Twitch and his minions attack Fievel, Nellie, Reed, and Tanya with Mousey's monster machine. However, it gets destroyed, but Twitch survived and he attacks Reed and Nellie, but Fievel saves them and he tries to catch Fievel. He then gets defeated when Fievel tricks him by activating the printing newspaper machine and he got wrapped up in a newspaper. It is unknown what happened to him after that. He could be sold to an owner, escaped being tied up, or died from suffocation. The second theory however, seems much more plausible as Papa Mousekewitz reads on the news that the Outlaw Cats escaped, so it is likely that Twitch may have escaped as well with his allies.

Trivia

• He could be one of the followers of Warren T. in the first movie, which explains why he lived in the sewers with the other cats.
• Papa reads in the newspaper that the outlaw cats had run away, so it is possible Twitch was one of them.
• Unlike the cats from previous films, who wear clothing and walk on two legs, Twitch and his minions walk on all fours and have no clothing, like Madame Mousey and Dog Council in the film. The reason for this is unknown but it could be possible that they are very poor cats that live in the sewers with no money and no clothing, unlike the much richer cats, such as the Cactus Cat Gang and the Mott Street Maulers. The Maulers gang also lives in the sewers, but they wear clothes and have more stuff such as a piano, a deck of cards and a mirror. This is possibly thanks to Warren T. Rat, who gets money from the mice. Twitch and his gang do not have any of that. However, Mousey helps them build a machine that kidnaps all of the mice in New York. It's possible that this is built from Mousey's own money from the mice.
• Twitch is the second secondary antagonist to attack the main protagonist, Fievel, directly in the climax of the fourth film, after the main antagonist, Madame Mousey, is electrocuted by Fievel and is captured by Tony Taponi and Tiger. The first is Chief McBrusque, one of the secondary antagonists in the previous film.
• Twitch is considered to be one of the most comedic antagonists in the American Tail film series, alongside Digit, Scuttlebutt and T.R. Chula.
• Twitch and his minions are one of the only antagonists in the American Tail film series to sing, the others are Madame Mousey, the Cactus Cat Gang, Mr. Grasping, Toplofty, and O'Bloat. Despite this, he only sang once during Mousey's villain song.
• Twitch and the Outlaw Cats are the only antagonists in direct-to-video sequels to be cats, since the third film does not have any antagonistic cats.