The Thief and the Cobbler

The Thief and the Cobbler is an unfinished animated fantasy film co-written and directed by Richard Williams. When Tack upsets ZigZag the Vizier, the wizard drags him off to the royal castle, where Princess YumYum falls for the bashful boy and saves him from execution. Unfortunately, ZigZag plans to marry the Princess in order to succeed her father, King Nod. The Thief, meanwhile, is more interested in gold than love and takes off with the protective orbs topping the palace. Together, Tack and YumYum attempt to retrieve them in order to prevent ZigZag and the One-Eye army from conquering the city. Originally devised in the 1960s, the film was in and out of production for nearly three decades due to independent funding and ambitiously complex animation. It was finally placed into full production in 1989 when Warner Bros. agreed to finance and distribute the film. When production went over budget and behind schedule, it was heavily cut and hastily re-edited by producer Fred Calvert without Williams's involvement. It was eventually released by Allied Filmmakers in 1993 with the title The Princess and the Cobbler. Two years later, Miramax Films, which was owned by Disney at the time, released another re-edit titled Arabian Knight. Both versions of the film performed poorly at the box office and received mixed reviews. Over the years, various people and companies, including Roy E. Disney, have discussed restoring the film to its original version. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences archived Williams's own 35 mm workprint. He acknowledged the film's rehabilitated reputation, due to projects like The Recobbled Cut, a restoration by Garrett Gilchrist, and Persistence of Vision, a 2012 documentary by Kevin Schreck detailing the production. The Thief and the Cobbler is one of the films with the longest production times.