I don't really remember much about The Last Unicorn.

I remember that the guy from TRON was a fair haired prince, and Alan Arkin was a dorky wizard, and Robert Klein was a smartassed butterfly. I remember the orange-hued, wood-paneled soft-rock theme song by the band America; more accurately, I remember the part I put in the title of this post.

But mostly, I remember the movie as being kinda sad. The concept of melancholy wasn't all that well-formed in my 8 year-old brain. I knew this cartoon kinda looked like The Hobbit (both were Rankin-Bass productions), but was kinda confused when no slapstick comedy or goofy showtunes from ugly orcs occurred; I spent most of my cartoon-time pretending to knock alien robot airplanes off the couch into imaginary lava for the glory of the Autobots, so something working on an emotional level slightly deeper than "Yaaaa (fart)" was bound to slide right off me.

I remember my mom crying at it, though. I'd never seen mom pay any attention to my dumb cartoons, much less be affected enough to shed tears. So I knew there was some sort of power at work, just beyond my grasp. As I got older, I learned that both the movie and the book (by Peter S. Beagle) had a fervent fanbase. It might have bounced right off my dumb ass, but it landed like a ton of bricks on a whole bunch of other kids. It's easy to see how, in hindsight; It's a story about loss and transformation, with a cast of actors that was better than most live-action films of its time, with Mia Farrow, Christopher Lee, Keenan Wynn, and Angela Lansbury.

Lucky for those kids, and the kids those kids might have had in the meantime, Beagle is personally touring the country with a brand new 2K digital print of The Last Unicorn, and that tour stops at the Hollywood Theatre in November. Seems like a perfect opportunity for old fans to rediscover the film, and for new viewers to get their best possible first viewing. Details can be found here.

Here's the film's intro featuring that theme song, just in case you need to brush up on the lyrics before November.