The Thief and the Cobbler/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Creator Backlash: The amount of meddling the film received just before it was completed devastated Richard Williams so much, that to this day he absolutely refuses to talk about the film to anyone, and he never once brings it up in his book "The Animator's Survival Kit.” He also flat out refused to take part of the fan restoration of the film, since he just wants to move on from the film at this point.
    • However, he does mention that he worked with Vincent Price at one point in that book. What movie he worked with him on is what he leaves up in the air, however.
    • He also uses animation of the old witch from the film at one point in the book, although that may have been because that was a caricature of Grim Natwick, one of his major inspirations and also one of the animators for the film. And obviously, he doesn't mention where the animation came from...
  • Deleted Scene: Taken to ridiculous lengths. When Fred Calvert took over, about half of Williams' painstakingly made animation was deleted. A small amount of these were fortunately displayed during the end credits of Calvert's version. Then Miramax bought the film and axed even more scenes, including the end credit ones.
  • Development Hell: One of the longest and most difficult ones in cinematic history. Richard williams spent about three decades on this film, using money earned from various short films and advertisements. At one point a Saudi-Arabian prince became interested and funded ten minutes (the warmachine scene) as a test. The results were awesome. Sadly the prince was scared away by missed deadlines and budget overruns. The project returned to its slow pace, until Williams gained funding from Warner Bros after his success on Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. About half of the completed scenes were made during this period. Unfortunately, when Warner Bros saw the almost-finished film (only fifteen minutes were left to be animated), they changed their mind and decided to back out. With the funding gone, the film was taken over by a completion bond, which fired Williams and put cheapskate Fred Calvert in his place. Under Calvert's direction, the film went under a great amount of Off-Model animation and Disneyfication.
  • Doing It for the Art: Oh yeah. You don't spend decades on a run-on-the-mill film: Williams fully intented this to be his masterpiece and a blockbuster.
  • Executive Meddling: A double victim. First, Williams had the film taken away from him and finished under lesser hands. Then the Weinsteins got their hands on it and almost Macekred it to death.
    • There are sequences in the original film which took the better part of a decade to animate, and which the studios nonchalantly cut out.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Vincent Price is the voice of the Vizier.
    • Sean Connery is the voice of Tack at the end of the Recobbled cut.
    • And in the Miramax cut, Matthew Broderick is Tack sounding a lot like a certain "King.”
    • The Majestic Films cut uses Mona Marshall for some of the nanny's lines.
    • When the Thief gets a voice in the Miramax dub, all of his thoughts are voiced ala Garfield by Jonathan Winters.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Fans of this film have done this to VHS copies of the original workprint for years. The workprint was made by Williams just before he lost rights, and was the only way to see the true version of the film. Now you can just download the Recobbled Cut, or watch it on YouTube.
  • Magnum Opus: Richard Williams referred to this as such repeatedly during its production. Unfortunately, what followed led to it being an Old Shame for him instead. As such, he refuses to discuss the film.
  • Missing Episode: The rights were bought out by The Completion Bond Company with 15 mins. of the film incomplete after Williams' bond-holder demanded a halt to production. Disney had a competing production, Aladdin in the works, so the remains of the film were farmed out to an overseas animation sweatshop and released in a handful of theaters.
  • No Export for You: The film has officially been released only in North America and Australia.
    • There have been some instances of the film being released in theaters in places like Poland.
  • Non-Singing Voice: Steve Lively was Tack's singing voice in the Miramax Films cut (though he performed both singing and speaking for the Calvert cut).
  • Old Shame: The ultimate fate of the film caused it to go from Richard's Magnum Opus to his greatest failure. As such, he refuses to ever discuss the film with anyone to this day.
  • The Other Darrin: Tack is voiced by Steve Lively in the Majestic Films cut, and Matthew Broderick in the Miramax one (but only for speaking).
  • Screwed by the Network: One of the ultimate examples.
  • What Could Have Been: Considering the years of Development Hell, and what Richard Williams set out to do, the whole movie practically reeks of this trope...
    • Early on, in the sixties, the film was supposed to be about Mullah Nasruddin. The idea had to be dropped because of disagreements of the rights to the character. Many of the supporting characters were taken from the Nasruddin film.
    • At some point princess Yumyum had an identical sister, princess Meemee, who had fallen in love with a man who had been turned into an ogre. The witch's original purose was to provide a cure for his beastliness.
  • Working Title: Before becoming The Thief And The Cobbler, the film had such titles as "The Thief Who Never Gave up", "Once...", simply "The Thief", or the wildly different and creative "The Cobbler And The Thief". The film was released after Executive Meddling under two names, "The Princess And The Cobbler" and the punny "Arabian Knight", before being released on VHS as "The Thief And The Cobbler".
    • Not to mention the early period when it was about Mulla Nasruddin, and has names such as "Nasruddin!", "The Majestic Fool" or "The Amazing Nasruddin".
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