Background (short version):
If you have seen the film by this name on video, you might be
surprised to know that it's far from the version that the
Director (Richard Williams) intended. Much of his original film
was cut out and replaced with other segments. His film sufferd a
similar fate as those by Orson
Welles such as The
Magnificent Ambersons or the unfinished Don Quoxite.
Richard williams started this ambitious animated film way back in
1968. Working with him were some of the original Disney animators
such as Art Babbit and Grim Natwick as well as Ken Harris and
Emery Hawkins from Warners. The film was originally self financed
by Williams with money coming in from his animated commercials.
After winning an academy award for Roger Rabbit he got the film
financed externally so it could be completed. This turned
out to be a bad decision because after going over budget the
investors got nervous and pulled the film from him, having it
completed by someone else. The film had about 10 to 15 min left
to complete when it was taken out of Williams hands. Instead of
just completing the film, the person in charge of the completion
decided to re-work the film to make it more
"mainstream". He replaced much of the original scenes with song segments and
farmed out the animation . The resulting film was released in a few different
edits. On called "The Princess and the Cobbler" in
Australia and one called "Arabian Knight" in the US by
Miramax. The Miramax version is much worse because they added
constant narration and voices to characters who were intended to
be silent. After Disney purchased Miramax, it's version ended up
on home video under the original title "The Thief and the
Cobbler".
Richard Williams "Work Print" which is the work in
progress version is the only way we can tell what this film could
have been. It has not been released, but can be found as a
bootleg.