Oliver & Company

On Fifth Avenue, an orphaned kitten named Oliver is left abandoned after his fellow orphaned kittens are adopted by passersby. Wandering the streets by himself in search of someone to adopt him, Oliver meets a laid-back mongrel named Dodger who assists the kitten in stealing food from a hot dog vendor. Dodger then flees the scene without sharing his bounty with Oliver. Oliver follows Dodger all throughout the streets until they eventually arrive at a barge, where Dodger shares his meal with a gang of fellow strays: Tito the chihuahua, Einstein the Great Dane, Rita the Saluki, and Francis the bulldog. Oliver sneaks inside and is discovered by the dogs. After a moment of confusion, he is received with a warm welcome. The barge's owner, a pickpocket named Fagin, is indebted to Sykes, a nefarious shipyard agent and loan shark accompanied by his Dobermans Roscoe and DeSoto. Sykes gives Fagin an ultimatum of repaying the money he had borrowed within three days under the threat of imminent violence.

Fagin and the gang, now including Oliver, hit the streets the next morning to carry out petty theft so that Fagin may pawn the stolen goods for money. Through a theatrical ruse, the dogs manage to stop a luxurious limousine owned by the wealthy Foxworth family. The attempt to pillage the limousine fails and Oliver finds himself in the embrace of the Foxworth daughter Jenny, who adopts Oliver to assuage the loneliness brought about by the absence of her vacationing parents. Oliver makes himself at home in Jenny's house, much to the disgust of Georgette, the Foxworth family's pompous and pampered purebred poodle. Dodger and the others manage to steal Oliver from the Foxworth household and return him to the barge. Fagin recognizes from Oliver's new collar that he had been adopted by a wealthy family and desperately decides to hold Oliver for ransom. His anonymously written ransom note reaches Jenny, who sets out to get Oliver back at the pier.

Jenny meets with Fagin, who is shocked that he had been dealing with a little girl. Bothered by his conscience after seeing Jenny distraught over losing Oliver, Fagin gives Oliver back freely. Sykes, whom Fagin had informed of the deal beforehand and was watching from the shadows, drives by and kidnaps Jenny, intending to ransom her and declaring Fagin's debt paid. Dodger rallies Oliver and the other dogs to rescue Jenny from Sykes, but the animals are confronted by Sykes and his Dobermans after they free her. Fagin saves the group with his scooter and a chase ensues throughout the streets and into the subway tunnels. Oliver and Dodger attempt a rescue and struggle with Roscoe and DeSoto, who fall off the car and are electrocuted on the subway's third rail. Sykes is killed when his car drives straight into the path of an oncoming train. Later, Jenny celebrates her birthday with the animals, Fagin and the family butler Winston, who receives a phone call from Jenny's parents saying that they will be returning from Rome the next day. Oliver opts to stay with Jenny, but he promises to remain in contact with Dodger and the gang.

• Joey Lawrence as Oliver: an orange orphaned kitten who is looking for a home. He joins Fagin's gang of dogs before being taken in by Jenny.
• Billy Joel as Dodger, a carefree, charismatic mongrel with a mix of terrier in him. He claims to have considerable "street savoir-faire." He is the leader of Fagin's gang of dogs, and is Oliver's first acquaintance, as well as his eventual best friend and bodyguard.
• Cheech Marin as Tito, a tiny yet passionate Chihuahua in Fagin's gang. He has a fiery temper for his size, and rapidly develops a crush on Georgette (although she is initially repulsed by him). His full name is Ignacio Alonso Julio Federico de Tito.
• Richard Mulligan as Einstein, a gray Great Dane and a member of Fagin's gang. He is named ironically as he is not particularly bright, representing the stereotype that Great Danes are friendly but dim-witted.
• Roscoe Lee Browne as Francis, a bulldog with a British accent in Fagin's gang. He appreciates art and theatre, particularly Shakespeare. He also detests anyone abbreviating his name as "Frank" or "Frankie" (which Tito frequently does). Originally, Patrick Stewart was considered to voice Francis, but he was busy acting as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Sheryl Lee Ralph (Ruth Pointer, singing) as Rita, a Saluki[2] and the only female dog in Fagin's gang. She is street-wise and takes Oliver under her wing.
• Dom DeLuise as Fagin, a lowly thief who lives on a barge with his dogs. He desperately needs money to repay his debt with Sykes. Because of his economic situation, he is forced to perform criminal acts such as pick-pocketing and petty theft, but in truth he is well-meaning and genial most of the time.
• Taurean Blacque and Carl Weintraub as Roscoe and DeSoto, respectively: Sykes's vicious Doberman Pinschers who have a hostile history with Dodger and his friends. Roscoe is the apparent leader, while his brother DeSoto seems to be the more savage of the two.
• Robert Loggia as Sykes, a cold-hearted, immoral loan shark and shipyard agent who lent a considerable sum of money to Fagin and expects it paid back. Originally Marlon Brando was offered the role of Sykes by the head of the Walt Disney Company Michael Eisner himself. Brando, however, turned it down, fearing the movie would bomb.
• Natalie Gregory (Myhanh Tran, singing) as Jennifer "Jenny" Foxworth, a kind-hearted, rich girl who adopts Oliver.
• William Glover as Winston, the Foxworth family's bumbling but loyal butler.
• Bette Midler as Georgette, the Foxworth family's prize-winning poodle. Vain and spoiled, she becomes jealous of Oliver but eventually accepts him and Fagin's gang.
• Frank Welker as Old Louie, an aggressive, bad-tempered hot dog vendor who appears early in the film when Oliver and Dodger steal his hot dogs. He is described by Dodger as "a well-known enemy of the four-legged world," meaning that he hates both cats and dogs.

Oliver & Company was the twenty-seventh animated film developed by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and the first one to begin production under the supervision of Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner and Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg; the duo, who had previously worked at Paramount Pictures as chairman and head of production, respectively, joined the company in 1984.[3] After the release of The Black Cauldron in 1985, Eisner and Katzenberg invited the animators to pitch potential ideas for upcoming animated features, infamously called the "Gong Show." After Ron Clements and John Musker suggested The Little Mermaid and Treasure Island in Space, story artist Pete Young suggested, "Oliver Twist with dogs." Katzenberg, who had previously planned on producing a live-action adaptation of the musical Oliver! at Paramount,[3] approved the pitch.[4] Under the working title of Oliver and the Dodger,[5][6] the film was originally much darker and grittier with the film opening with Sykes's two Dobermans murdering Oliver's parents, setting the story to focus on Oliver exacting his revenge as detailed in a draft dated on March 30, 1987.[7] George Scribner and Richard Rich were announced as the directors of the project, while Pete Young was appointed as story supervisor,[8] though Rich was fired from Disney about six months into production, leaving Scribner as the sole director.[9] In this adaptation, Scribner turned Oliver into a naïve kitten, Dodger and the gang into dogs, and Fagin into a human with Jenny Foxworth inspired by the characters of Mr. Brownlow (Oliver's adoptive father) and Penny from The Rescuers, and encouraged the film to be more street smart.[7] Furthermore, Scribner borrowed a technique from Lady and the Tramp by blocking out the scenes on real streets, and then photographing them with cameras mounted eighteen inches off the ground. In this way, the animators would use the photos as templates to provide a real dog's-eye view of the action.[10] As work continued on Oliver, Roy E. Disney came up with an idea that Fagin would attempt to steal a rare panda from the city zoo. However, the writers would have problems with the idea,[5] and the panda sub-plot was eventually dropped when Scribner suggested to have Fagin hold Oliver for ransom because he was a valuable, rare Asian cat.[11][12]

For the film, Disney invested $15 million into a long-term computer system called Computer Animation Production System, otherwise known as CAPS. Unlike The Black Cauldron and The Great Mouse Detective, which used computer imagery for special sequences, eleven minutes of Oliver & Company were computer-generated such as the skyscrapers, the taxi cabs, trains, Fagin's scooter-cart, and the climactic subway chase.[3] Meanwhile, the traditional animation was handled by the next generation of Disney animators, including supervising animators Glen Keane, Ruben A. Aquino, Mike Gabriel, Hendel Butoy, and Mark Henn, as the "Nine Old Men" had retired in the early 1980s.[3] Throughout two and a half years of production, six supervising animators and a team of over 300 artists and technicians worked on the film.[13] Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was the database for the New York City skyline, which was recreated for the film.

Oliver & Company
CD cover for the 1996 re-release of the Oliver & Company soundtrack. An alternative cover was used in the United Kingdom.
Soundtrack album by Various artists
Released	1988
Genre	Pop rock, blues rock, film score
Label	Walt Disney

The soundtrack of Oliver & Company contains an instrumental score by J. A. C. Redford under the supervision of Carole Childs, while Jeffrey Katzenberg had the idea to bring in big-name singer/songwriters, each of whom would contribute a song into the film including Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, and Huey Lewis. At his suggestion of his friend David Geffen, Katzenberg brought in lyricist Howard Ashman, who composed the song "Once Upon a Time in New York City."[16] Musical composer J.A.C. Redford was brought to compose the score who had a working relationship with Disney music executive Chris Montan on the series St. Elsewhere.[17] Ashman, who, with Alan Menken, would write the songs for the next three Disney films. Billy Joel, in addition to voicing Dodger, performed the character's song ("Why Should I Worry?") in the film.[18]

The track list below represents the 1996 re-release of the Oliver & Company soundtrack. The original 1988 release featured the same songs, but with the instrumental cues placed in between the songs in the order in which they appeared in the film. Using the numbering system in the list below, the order the tracks on the 1988 release would be: 1, 2, 6, 7, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11. The reprise of "Why Should I Worry?", performed by the entire cast, remains unreleased on CD.

Track listing

1. "Once Upon a Time in New York City" - Huey Lewis; written by Barry Mann and Howard Ashman
2. "Why Should I Worry?" - Billy Joel; written by Dan Hartman and Charlie Midnight
3. "Streets of Gold" - Ruth Pointer ; written by Dean Pitchford and Tom Snow
4. "Perfect Isn't Easy" - Bette Midler ; written by Barry Manilow, Jack Feldman, and Bruce Sussman
5. "Good Company" - Myhanh Tran ; written by Ron Rocha and Robert Minkoff
6. "Sykes" (score)
7. "Bedtime Story" (score)
8. "The Rescue" (score)
9. "Pursuit Through the Subway" (score)
10. "Buscando Guayaba" - Rubén Blades
11. "End Title" (instrumental)

Oliver & Company premiered theatrically in North America on November 18, 1988―the same day on which Disney celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Mickey Mouse short, Steamboat Willie.[19] It was also the first to be released as a part of a brand new schedule requested by Katzenberg, which called for a new animated Disney film to be released every single year, similar to Walt Disney's intentions for his animated features during the 1940s.[3]

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• Official website
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• Oliver & Company at The Big Cartoon DataBase
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• Oliver & Company at Rotten Tomatoes