‘Oliver & Company’ Is a Banger of a Movie and Deserves to Be a Disney Classic

The story of Disney is almost as well-known as a Disney fairytale. There’s the groundbreaking start in the late ’30s, the lean World War II years, the artistic peak of the 1950s followed by a few decades of ever-so-incremental box office decline, and finally the comeback of the late ’80s that led to the company’s most profitable, impactful, and creative decade in the company’s century of existence. That era, known as the Disney Renaissance, kicked off in 1989 with the lightning-in-a-bottle success of The Little Mermaid, which was the studio’s first foray into fairy tale territory since the super expensive Sleeping Beauty underperformed 30 years prior. No one can fully measure the enormous impact that The Little Mermaid has had on the world in the 31 years since its release. It was a smash hit financially and critically, turned Disney into a merchandising empire, kicked off Disney’s Oscar streak, and it reinvented Disney movies as animated Broadway musicals. The entire Disney formula, one that still exists today, was concocted by the animators and songwriters that gave us The Little Mermaid.

But.

In the retelling of this legend in book after book and doc after doc, we have as a society largely forgotten the smash hit blast-and-a-half that came out a year before The Little Mermaid. There’s no room for this film in the tale of the Disney Renaissance as it has been carved in stone, and I’m here to chisel it into the margins. Now that the entire Disney library is available to binge on Disney+, it is finally time for Oliver & Company to get the respect that it deserves as the immediate precursor to the Disney Renaissance, if not as the true start of the era!

I’m not joking. Oliver & Company was Disney’s biggest hit in over a decade, outgrossing The Great Mouse Detective, The Black Cauldron, and The Fox and the Hound when adjusted for inflation. It also turned the Disney animated adventure into a musical romp with original songs performed by Ruth Pointer (of the Pointer Sisters), Huey Lewis (of the News), Billy Joel (of Long Island), and Bette Midler (of Broadway). These songs, from the effortless bop that is “Why Should I Worry?” to the show-stopping “Perfect Isn’t Easy,” were integral to the plot to a degree that hadn’t been seen since The Aristocats in 1970. One of the songs, movie-opener “Once Upon a Time in New York City,” was even co-written by Howard Ashman, the icon that wrote songs for Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. By giving Disney a hit and a bunch of catchy tunes, Oliver & Company did exactly what The Little Mermaid did a year earlier—just not on as spectacular of a scale.

So why did Oliver & Company, a moneymaker with straight bangers, settle into the Disney animation B-leagues? There are three reasons, as far as I can tell:

1. It came out immediately before The Little Mermaid, which grossed a full 50% more than Oliver did and won Oscars.
2. It opened on the exact same day as The Land Before Time… and came in 4th at the box office that weekend. Oliver had more staying power and ultimately outgrossed Land Before Time domestically, but the first impression was a bad one.
3. Disney, for some truly enraging reason, did not release Oliver & Company on VHS until Fall 1996, almost eight years after its theatrical release!

It’s that last one that really killed Oliver & Company’s chances of hitting Disney Masterpiece status, recognition that it absolutely deserves. This will not surprise you, but yeah, Oliver & Company was the first movie I remember seeing in theaters (well, it or Land Before Time; I did see both but I’m not certain which opening weekend my family contributed to). I had an Oliver & Company poster on my bedroom wall and I slept with a plush toy of Cheech Marin’s thirsty chihuahua Tito. I listened to its companion storybook cassette tape every night for a long stretch. I loved this movie, but I saw it once when I was 4 and I wasn’t able to watch it again until I was 12. I have no doubt that a lot of the kids that contributed to that solid box office haul can tell this exact same story. Oliver & Company wasn’t an integral part of our childhoods the way Mermaid and even Rescuers Down Under were, and that is fully Disney’s fault.

Now it’s 30 years later and we have Disney+. It’s time to reevaluate that reputation, because Oliver & Company is a total triumph. I say this with full confidence, too, because I’ve spent the last few months watching the Walt Disney Animation Studios filmography in order, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs up to Hercules, where I’m currently parked on my journey before heading into the 21st century. I’ve seen the highs (Beauty and the Beast), the lows (dear God, WTF is Dumbo) and the lean years (the 1940s were all over the place, even geographically). Oliver & Company stands apart as one of the most fun movies in the entire canon, especially when viewed in the context of Disney’s ’80s output.

To put it bluntly, that decade was bleak. The Fox and the Hound goes too hard, The Black Cauldron doesn’t go hard enough, and even the fun Great Mouse Detective feels more like a long episode of Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers than a feature. All three of those films are bound together by a dreariness and/or darkness, either because of the subject matter (I can’t even think about Copper chasing down Tod, it’s too much) or the setting (Great Mouse Detective sure was gloomy). That’s why Oliver & Company really pops. It takes another 19th century classic of British literature and instead dresses it up in New York City cool, cranking up the boombox and letting the vibrant new setting permeate every single aspect of the film. Oliver & Company is absolutely the first Disney film that can be described as “a vibe.”

That’s why Oliver & Company has aged so well. New York City in 1988 may have seemed like a boring setting at the time, especially following adventures in the mythical Middle Ages and Victorian England, but the distance afforded by the passing decades has made Oliver & Company and its New York—a phalanx of cabs, grouchy hot dog vendors, breakdancers, and hustlers thriving under a mountain range of corporate billboards—come alive with affectionate nostalgia. The movie is one big love song to New York, and that song is “Why Should I Worry?”

How New York is Oliver & Company? It includes Billy Joel’s lone lead actor credit (he totally crushes it as the scruffy Dodger). How New York is Oliver & Company? It has a diverse cast, both on the animated streets of NYC and the recording booth (Dreamgirls‘ Sheryl Lee Ralph as Rita, master thespian Roscoe Lee Browne as Francis, comedy legend Cheech Marin as Tito). How New York is Oliver & Company? It gives Bette Midler the room to stunt as the glamorous poodle Georgette, whose intro number “Perfect Isn’t Easy” should be a staple of gay bar karaoke and drag shows across the country. And come on, name a more iconic moment than Georgette doing leisurely leg lifts while sprawled in the remains of a heart-shaped box of chocolates.

(Do not feed chocolate to your dog, BTW)

The story’s also thoroughly Disney, striking all the right chords that constitute a classic. The opening montage of Oliver begging for someone to scoop him out of that box of kittens, his playfulness withering away with each passing day, is pure Disney heartstring-tuggery. You’re rooting for Oliver, the cutest kitten in Disney history, from minute one. And like the best Disney movies, the company that backs Oliver up (feisty Tito, cool Rita, dimwitted Einstein, fastidious Francis) are a powerful pack of players. Their chemistry is undeniable and I’m retroactively livid that we didn’t get a Saturday morning spinoff of Dodger and his gang running different cons and heists every week!

And I can’t forget Oliver’s super sweet human pal Jenny, one of Disney’s all-time best moppets—if a moppet can also be the painfully neglected daughter of one of New York’s wealthiest couples. Seriously, she lives across the street from Central Park.

Oliver & Company is also a real visual treat, from the sunset watercolor vibes of the New York skylines, to the playful and scrappy leads. History alert: Oliver was Disney’s biggest foray into computer-generated animation to date, after test runs in Black Cauldron and Great Mouse Detective. The melding of hand-drawn and computer-generated was seamless, and resulted in some truly eye-catching moments, like Georgette’s Tony-worthy saunter down a spiral staircase.

And just look at this epic shot of the gang going reverse down a bridge cable with the skyline in the background. The framing!

The movie looks good, is what I’m saying!

Oliver & Company is, from start to finish, a joyride that’s up there with the best Disney movies of all time (movies that, to the detriment of Oliver’s rep, all came out immediately after it). But Oliver & Company is no longer a gem hidden in a dark corner of the Disney Vault. It’s right there on Disney+, waiting for my generation to rediscover it and new generations to get down with this cool cat and daring dogs. And just like the abandoned kitty who moved into an Upper East Side palace, Oliver & Company deserves to move from off the B-list and into the Disney Renaissance.

Stream Oliver and Company on Disney+