Oliver & Company

This loose animated musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic Oliver Twist recasts the story with stray animals in modern-day New York, with Oliver an orphaned kitten and Dodger a streetwise dog. Released the year before The Little Mermaid heralded the start of Disney’s animation “renaissance,” Oliver is a charming Disney entertainment in its own right, with Billy Joel voicing Dodger and Bette Midler as a spoiled poodle who sings "Perfect Isn’t Easy." 

DIRECTED BY: George Scribner. WRITTEN BY: Jim Cox, Timothy J. Disney, James Mangold. WITH: Joey Lawrence, Billy Joel, Cheech Marin, Bette Midler. 1988. 73 min. USA. Color. English. Rated G; suitable for ages 5+. 35mm. 
Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.