Oliver & Company celebrates its 35th Anniversary this year. Technically, this was probably the first movie I ever saw in theaters, although I was a baby, so I have no recollection of that. Contrary to popular belief, Oliver was actually a big hit for Disney, and was their highest grossing animated feature ever at the time. Also contrary to popular belief, Oliver made more money than The Land Before Time, which opened on the same day, because studios were weird back then.

I suspect the reason people wrongly assume the movie flopped is due to the Mouse House not giving it a VHS release initially, as they were afraid that would ruin its financial chances when it came to theatrical re-releases. To make a long story into a short one, they were ultimately proven right about that, as the home video industry killed the company’s strategy of being able to send their animated films back to theaters every eight years (Oliver & Company would finally arrive on the format following a 1996 reissue). Meanwhile, The Land Before Time was allowed to stay in the public consciousness since not only did it go to VHS right away, but it also more or less created the straight-to-video sequel business for children’s media, releasing a new installment almost every year during the 90s (sadly they never did conclude the saga with The Land Before Time: Extinction).

Anyway, Oliver & Company came out during the holiday season, so McDonald’s had a full Christmas promotion for it. This included two tree ornaments which would play music when you squeezed them, which you could get for free with the purchase of a book of gift certificates (do gift certificates still exist? I wanna say that they were replaced by gift cards). I don’t think my family had these, although we would get similar ornaments that McDonald’s had for The Little Mermaid and The Rescuers Down Under in the years that followed.

Not to worry, though, because if you wanted Oliver characters in your Happy Meal, well, you could get those too. These were a series of four finger puppets, which I wanna say didn’t actually fit in your finger very well if I recall correctly. They were made out of a sturdy material which sort of restricted what you could do with them, but they were cute. However, McDonald’s gets a ZERO OUT OF TEN for this collection, because there was no Tito! TITO IS BEST DOG, MCDONALD’S! TITO IS BEST DOG!!!!

Have a merry night, Avocados!