The Rescuers - Production

Production

The Rescuers was four years in the making with the combined talents of 250 people, including 40 animators who produced approximately 330,000 drawings; there were 14 sequences with 1,039 separate scenes and 750 backgrounds.

Contrary to popular belief, Walt Disney was involved in early development of the film. Though actual production did not begin until about 1973, the suggestion of considering Margery Sharp's "Miss Bianca" novels was made in 1962 (at this time, only the first two had been published). However, Walt Disney disliked the idea of a faithful adaptation of Sharp's The Rescuers (1959), in which Miss Bianca, Bernard, and a third mouse named Nils rescued a Norwegian poet from imprisonment, and suggested that the subject of rescue be changed to a polar bear named Willie held captive in a zoo. Following his death in 1966, Sharp's second novel in the series was selected as the primary source for adaptation.

The Rescuers was the first Disney film that combined the talents of Walt Disney's original crew of story writers and animators (including his "Nine Old Men") with a newer, less experienced crew that Walt Disney Productions had recruited in the mid-1970s.

The Rescuers marked the last joint effort by veterans Milt Kahl, Ollie Johnston, and Frank Thomas, and the first Disney film worked on by Don Bluth as an animator, instead of an assistant animator. Other animators who stepped up during production were Glen Keane, Ron Clements, and Andy Gaskill, who would all play an important role in the Disney Renaissance of the 1980s and 90s.

The Rescuers was also the company's first major animated success since The Jungle Book (1967) and the last until The Little Mermaid (1989). The Rescuers marked the end of the silver age of Disney animation that had begun with Cinderella (1950). It also marked the first successful animated film that Walt Disney himself had not worked on.

During the 1960s and early 70s Disney films took on the trend of comedy, rather than story, heart, and drama. The Rescuers marked the return of the animated drama films the studio had previously been known for, such as Bambi and Dumbo. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston stated in their website that The Rescuers had been their return to a film with heart and also considered it their best film without Walt Disney. Also unique to the animation was the opening credits: this film marked the first time that practiced camera movements over still photographs were used to make the opening credits. Prior to this, the studio had used the cels with the credits motionless over different still backgrounds, sometimes over one single background, as was done in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The Rescuers was also the first Disney animated film to feature a prologue, or part of the story prior to the opening credits sequence, making said sequence part of the storyline.

The Rescuers marked the end of the studio's so-called sketchy animation period of the 1960s and 70s. The new xerographic process restored a softer outline that previously was not possible with the technology, which so far only had been able to produce black outlines. This allowed the use of a medium-gray tone and even a purple tone for outlines, such as that used for Miss Bianca.