Oliver & Company

Oliver & Company is a 1988 American animated musical comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and inspired by the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. It was directed by George Scribner and written by Jim Cox, Tim Disney, and James Mangold. In the film, Oliver is a homeless kitten who joins a gang of dogs to survive in the streets. Among other changes, the setting of the film was relocated from 19th-century London to early 1990s New York City, Fagin's gang is made up of dogs (one of which is Dodger), and Sykes is a loan shark.

In late 1984 or 1985, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg held a pitch meeting with the animation staff. After story artist Pete Young pitched the idea to adapt Oliver Twist with dogs, the pitch was quickly approved, and the film quickly went into production under the working title Oliver and the Dodger. Pre-production started with the crew reading Oliver Twist and watching the musical Oliver!, developing the film for six to nine months. After production began in 1986, 300 artists and technicians worked on the film within two and a half years of production.