Oliver & Company

On Fifth Avenue, several kittens are left in a box outside a shop. All but one, an orange tabby, are adopted. Wandering the streets by himself in search of someone to adopt him, the kitten meets a laid-back mongrel named Dodger, who agrees to help him steal food from a hot dog vendor. Dodger then reneges on the deal and flees with the hot dogs.

The kitten pursues Dodger all over New York City. Dodger eventually arrives at a barge, where the kitten watches him share the hot dogs with a gang of poverty-stricken dogs (Tito the chihuahua, Einstein the Great Dane, Rita the Saluki, and Francis the bulldog). The kitten accidentally falls into the barge, startling the dogs; however, while they are annoyed, none of them harm him. Fagin, the bargeman and petty thief who owns the dogs, is indebted to Sykes, a nefarious loan shark and criminal. Sykes arrives and gives Fagin an ultimatum; repay the money in three days, or suffer violence, possibly even death. Sykes's two Dobermans, Roscoe and DeSoto, harass Fagin's dogs and threaten to eat the kitten, until he scratches DeSoto's nose, earning Fagin and the dogs' respect. Roscoe warns that they will try to exact revenge.

The next morning, Fagin goes to pawn some of his stolen goods, while the dogs and the kitten try to steal more money for him. Through a theatrical ruse, the animals stop a limousine belonging to the wealthy Foxworth family, but the attempt to rob the limo fails, and the kitten is taken by the child Jenny Foxworth, who is missing her vacationing parents and desires a companion. She names him Oliver, and becomes very attached to him.

Oliver makes himself at home in Jenny's house, much to the disgust of Georgette, the Foxworth family's spoiled, prize-winning poodle. With her help, Dodger and the dogs manage to steal Oliver back from the Foxworth household, returning him to the barge. Fagin recognizes from Oliver's new collar and gold name tag 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 and Georgette meet with Fagin, who is shocked to be dealing with a little girl whose "ransom money" is a piggy bank. Bothered by his conscience and Jenny's tears, Fagin gives Oliver back freely. Sykes, whom Fagin had informed of the deal beforehand, is watching from the shadows and kidnaps Jenny, intending to ransom her while declaring Fagin's debt paid. Dodger rallies Oliver and the other dogs to free Jenny from Sykes, but Sykes and his Dobermans confront them as they attempt to leave. Fagin saves the group with his motor scooter, and a chase ensues throughout the streets and into the subway tunnels. Jenny falls from the scooter onto Sykes's car; Oliver and Dodger go after her and battle Roscoe and DeSoto, who fall off the car and are electrocuted on the third rail of the subway. Fagin leaves Tito to drive and saves Jenny, while Dodger and Oliver are thrown from Sykes's car onto the pavement of the Brooklyn Bridge just before an oncoming train strikes and kills Sykes. Tito drives the scooter to safety, and Jenny and Oliver are reunited.

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).
• 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 DeSoto seems to be the more savage of the two.
• Robert Loggia as Bill Sykes, a cold-hearted, immoral loan shark and shipyard agent who lent a considerable sum of money to Fagin and expects it paid back.
• 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 then-CEO Michael Eisner and studio 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 (1985), Eisner and Katzenberg invited the animators to pitch potential ideas for upcoming animated features, infamously called the "Gong Show." After Ron Clements had pitched 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] However, 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, and encouraged the film to be more street smart.[7] Furthermore, Scribner borrowed a technique from Lady and the Tramp (1955) 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,[11] 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.[12][13]

Eleven minutes of the film used "computer-assisted imagery" such as the skyscrapers, the taxi cabs, trains, Fagin's scooter-cart, and the climactic subway chase.[3] 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.[14] 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. Redford was hired to compose the score because of his previous collaboration with Disney music executive Chris Montan on the television series St. Elsewhere.[17] Meanwhile, Jeffrey Katzenberg had the idea to bring in popular singer/songwriters, each of whom would contribute a song into the film which included 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."[18] 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.[19]

The song "Why Should I Worry?" received critical acclaim and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

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.

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 (1928).[20] 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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• Oliver & Company at IMDb
• Oliver & Company at The Big Cartoon DataBase
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• Oliver & Company at Box Office Mojo
• Oliver & Company at Rotten Tomatoes