Oliver and Company (20th Anniversary Edition)

Product Description

Experience a magical adventure, filled with friendship, fun and “paws-itively” cool music in the new 20th Anniversary Edition DVD of Walt Disney’s OLIVER AND COMPANY — featuring tail-wagging bonus and new digital mastering! Oliver, a feisty young cat, explores New York in this thrilling animated classic cleverly based on Charles Dickens’ timeless story, OLIVER TWIST — featuring unforgettable songs performed by musical greats Billy Joel, Huey Lewis and Bette Midler! Joined by a pack of hilarious characters — dogs Dodger, Tito and their pals — Oliver knows he’s found a lifelong friend and a real home. The new 20th Anniversary Edition includes the all-new Oliver’s Big City Challenge Game, the Academy Award(R)-winning animated short “Lend A Paw” (1941, Short Subject, Cartoon) and much more! Hightail it to your home theater for a fun and exciting movie-watching experience your family will enjoy again and again!|Disney presents an animated version of the the Oliver Twist story with a twist -– the setting is New York, Oliver is a kitten, and Fagin is the human master of a pack of pickpocket dogs.|Six supervising animators and a team of more than 300 artists and technicians worked for more than two and a half years to create this hand-drawn feature film. More than a million story sketches and drawings were required to produce the 119,275 hand-painted cels that comprise the finished film.|Designers went to New York and photographed street scenes from a dog’s perspective –- 18 inches off the ground -– getting stares from passersby but providing excellent reference material for the layout artists.|To give the backgrounds a contemporary and hard-edged look, animators used Xerox overlays for the first time since 101 DALMATIANS.|Many of the inanimate objects in the film were created and animated on the computer –- cars, cabs, buses, Sykes’ limousine, Fagin’s trike (part scooter and part shopping cart), a cement mixer, a sewer pipe, a spiral staircase, a piano, subway tunnels and trains, cityscapes, and even the Brooklyn Bridge. This was the first film to have its own department set up expressly for the purpose of generating computer animation.

Based on Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist,” Disney’s Oliver and Company was one of the first animated features to incorporate computer images with traditional hand-drawn animation and features the music and voice talents of pop-music giants like Billy Joel, Huey Lewis, and Bette Midler. A traditional story set in the modern world, Oliver and Company is the story of a stray kitten who wanders the streets of New York in search of a loving family. When Oliver encounters a street-wise dog named Dodger, the dog begins to teach him about life in the big city and takes him home to his family of street dogs and their master Fagan. Fagan and his dogs Dodger, Tito, Einstein, Francis, and Rita must often resort to thievery just to survive and during a particularly daring caper, Oliver gets separated from the other dogs and winds up meeting Jenny, a young rich girl with a big heart. As Oliver revels in Jenny’s affection and begins to feel like part of her family, the dogs set out to rescue Oliver thinking he’s been kidnapped. Eventually both Oliver and Jenny end up in grave danger and the only way Fagan and his dogs can save them is by doing what’s right. As fresh on its 20th anniversary as it was when it premiered in 1988, this time-tested film appeals to children and adults of all ages. Bonus features include the Mickey Mouse and Pluto shorts “Lend a Paw” and “Puss Café” as well as a 5-1/2-minute making of featurette in which director George Scribner and animator Glen Kean describe the then brand new technique of blending computer and hand-drawn animation. Also included are sing-along versions of “Why Should I Worry? and “Streets of Gold,” an interactive game, fun film facts, and an Oliver and Company scrapbook featuring concept art, storyboards, and publicity materials. –Tami Horiuchi

Actors: Billy Joel, Joey Lawrence, Robert Loggia, Cheech Marin, Dom DeLuise Directors: Dan Hansen, George Scribner Format: NTSC, Color, Multiple Formats, Dolby, Dubbed, Special Edition, Animated, Widescreen, AC-3 Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Unknown), Spanish (Unknown) Dubbed: French, Spanish Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.) Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Number of discs: 1 Rated: G General Audience Studio: WALT DISNEY ANIMATION DVD Release Date: February 3, 2009 Run Time: 74 minutes Customer Reviews: 4.8 out of 5 stars 2,554 customer ratings Best Sellers Rank: #12 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV) #4 in Kids & Family DVDs