< Oliver & Company (film)

Oliver & Company (film)/YMMV


Fagin: That reminds me, I saw Desoto's nose; who did that?
(Dodger presents Oliver to Fagin)
Fagin: You... you? *Laughs* That took a lot of guts! We have never had a cat in the gang before...we can use all the help we can get.

  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Has its own section.
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Has its own section.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: "Why Should I Worry?" and "Streets Of Gold."
  • Darker and Edgier: Well, for 1980s animation, anyway. One critic noted that Oliver and Company was "the grimiest Disney release ever." [1] (All things considered, it is noteworthy that, while New York City had been portrayed in animated films many times prior to 1988, it had always been depicted as either glamorous or only "nostalgically" gritty, as in An American Tail.)
  • Determinator: Oliver continues to pursue Dodger after getting dipped in cement, sprayed with water, and humiliated in a wide variety of ways.
  • Ear Worm: "Now it's always once upon a time in New York City/ It's a big old, bad old, tough old town, it's true/ But beginnings are contagious there...
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Rita is a surprisingly popular character amongst fans despite being relatively minor compared to the other characters.
    • Georgette also has her share of fans, too, as do Tito and Dodger.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Again, Oliver fighting back against a big dog he was cornered by. See CMOA section for why.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Joey Lawrence played Oliver in this movie. About ten years after this movie was released, his little brother, Andy Lawrence, ended up playing another Disney character, who, while not like Oliver, was a nine-year-old, human version of Dodger.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Sykes kidnapping a 7-year-old girl to try to extort money out of her wealthy parents may qualify as this, although it is somewhat implied that he has done worse things before.
    • His dogs Roscoe and De-Soto definitely cross it BIG time when they put the hurt on poor Dodger who tried to defend Fagin from them.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Almost everything Sykes does and says in this movie. Disney really didn't sugar-coat how loan sharks are in real life.
    • Sykes's dogs getting electrocuted on the subway. Intense
    • Sykes catching the train. Especially since we get a close-up on his reaction as he comprehends what is about to happen.
    • A moment that stands out is his phone call that Fagin walks in on, which is Sykes telling someone how to go about properly murdering a person, and disposing of their body, using the "cement shoes" method.
  • Older Than They Think: It went through the theaters release cycle again in the 90's without any/much indication that it wasn't new, and to be honest, it wasn't that famous, because it's not as popular, nor as fondly remembered, as most Disney films.
  • Retroactive Recognition: A pre-Blossom Joseph Lawrence provided his voice.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: Let's face it: the song "Good Company" is this compared to the other songs in the film.
  • Tear Jerker: The opening scene is actually quite sad since we see that nobody took home Oliver, the box he's in is swept away by the rain, and he is then chased by some dogs.
    • That's quite impressive when the movie gets you choked up literally less than FOUR MINUTES in!
    • And don't forget the fact that Oliver nearly gets washed down the sewer drain when the box collapses. And those little helpless mews...! Aaaaagh
  • The Woobie: Oliver the cat. Nearly getting washed down the drain, actually getting chased by big, vicious dogs, ending up trying to get food from a hot dog vendor and kicked into the wall, and then when he gets help from a dog named Dodger to steal them, Dodger keeps them all for himself and goes back home. Oliver follows Dodger, despite being put through a variety of pranks along the way, and when he gets to Dodger's home, he is surrounded by a gang of dogs who hate him and want him dead. He wins them over by clawing in the face a vicious doberman who is an enemy of said dog gang, and then is expected to take part in said dog gang's criminal activities in service of their owner. So when Oliver is watching over while one dog helps hotwire a car, he slips and falls into a mess of wires. The little girl in the car adopts him, and brings him home to a vain show dog who is jealous of him even having a PORTION of said little girl's attention, and manipulates said dog gang to take him back when they show up. Even this becomes a moot point when said little girl gets kidnapped by a crime boss anyway, and said crime boss chases the dog gang's owner into the rails of the New York subway system. Oliver leaps to Jenny's defense, biting said crime boss in the hand and leaping onto the face of one of said crime lord's attack dogs. While we're not shown exactly what happened next, Oliver is implied from his Disney Death to have been ALMOST killed by it.
    • Jenny as well, to a lesser extent, being a Lonely Rich Kid who gets a cat only for him to be taken away pretty quickly, then getting kidnapped herself.
  1. ↑ Presumably, they meant at the time, because if the darkness of this movie did not get overshadowed by The Lion King, it probably got overshadowed by Hunchback of Notre Dame later on, obviously ignoring The Black Cauldron
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