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A butchered version of what was intended to be Richard Williams' masterpiece.
For the real version, see The Thief and the Cobbler, Recobbled Cut.
Saturday morning cartoon producer and notorious cheapskate Fred Calvert was given Williams' unfinished masterpiece to finish as he saw fit.
Calvert essentially did what he was asked, and completed the film as cheaply and pretty much as badly as humanly imaginable ... In the process he changed the film so much that it is almost unrecognizable. Calvert added some quite bad songs, gave the Cobbler a voice, and cut out a huge amount of amazing animation from master animator Richard Williams and his team, in favor of some of the worst bargain-basement animation this side of slave labor.
It's not all bad news- quite a lot of unfinished Wiliams animation is finished and colored in, and some of it looks pretty good. Certainly this material was very handy in assembling the Recobbled Cut, which attempts to restore Williams' unfinished masterpiece, instead of this direct-to-video disaster.
This version is not on DVD currently. It was released as a cropped pan & scan DVD in Australia. This widescreen version is a timecoded VHS screener tape that was never publicly released.
Calvert and Williams were essentially complete opposites - Williams being a temperamental artist who wanted everything to be the very best - Nothing was ever good enough, and deadlines and budget were always the enemy, with art being the goal. Calvert was a practical businessman who saw Williams as a reckless money-waster who couldn't be controlled. He felt that he was improving Williams' film and making it more palatable for a general audience. He was wrong, of course.
These days, Richard Williams, for all his excesses, is revered as one of the great teachers of animation, who has helped train three generations of animators at Disney and elsewhere. His Animator's Survival Kit, book and DVD, is a Bible for anyone trying to study animation. Although Richard no longer discusses The Thief and the Cobbler, animation students have discovered the original version of his intended masterpiece through bootlegs of The Recobbled Cut and the workprint, and it can now be seen and appreciated as an overlooked animated classic.
For the real version, see The Thief and the Cobbler, Recobbled Cut.
Saturday morning cartoon producer and notorious cheapskate Fred Calvert was given Williams' unfinished masterpiece to finish as he saw fit.
Calvert essentially did what he was asked, and completed the film as cheaply and pretty much as badly as humanly imaginable ... In the process he changed the film so much that it is almost unrecognizable. Calvert added some quite bad songs, gave the Cobbler a voice, and cut out a huge amount of amazing animation from master animator Richard Williams and his team, in favor of some of the worst bargain-basement animation this side of slave labor.
It's not all bad news- quite a lot of unfinished Wiliams animation is finished and colored in, and some of it looks pretty good. Certainly this material was very handy in assembling the Recobbled Cut, which attempts to restore Williams' unfinished masterpiece, instead of this direct-to-video disaster.
This version is not on DVD currently. It was released as a cropped pan & scan DVD in Australia. This widescreen version is a timecoded VHS screener tape that was never publicly released.
Calvert and Williams were essentially complete opposites - Williams being a temperamental artist who wanted everything to be the very best - Nothing was ever good enough, and deadlines and budget were always the enemy, with art being the goal. Calvert was a practical businessman who saw Williams as a reckless money-waster who couldn't be controlled. He felt that he was improving Williams' film and making it more palatable for a general audience. He was wrong, of course.
These days, Richard Williams, for all his excesses, is revered as one of the great teachers of animation, who has helped train three generations of animators at Disney and elsewhere. His Animator's Survival Kit, book and DVD, is a Bible for anyone trying to study animation. Although Richard no longer discusses The Thief and the Cobbler, animation students have discovered the original version of his intended masterpiece through bootlegs of The Recobbled Cut and the workprint, and it can now be seen and appreciated as an overlooked animated classic.