All Dogs Go to Heaven/Production/development history

The earliest idea for the film was conceived by Don Bluth after finishing work on *The Secret of NIMH*. The treatment was originally about a canine private eye, and one of three short stories making up an anthology film. The character of a shaggy German Shepherd was designed specifically for Burt Reynolds. However, Bluth's first studio, Don Bluth Productions, was going through a period of financial difficulty, ultimately having to declare bankruptcy, and the idea never made it beyond rough storyboards. The concept was revived by Bluth, John Pomeroy and Gary Goldman, and rewritten by David N. Weiss, collaborating with the producers from October through December 1987. They built around the title *All Dogs Go to Heaven* and drew inspiration from films, such as *It's a Wonderful Life*, *Little Miss Marker* and *A Guy Named Joe*. The film's title came from a book read to Bluth's fourth-grade class, and he resisted suggestions to change it, stating he liked how "provocative" it sounded, and how people reacted to the title alone.

During the production of their previous feature film, Sullivan Bluth Studios had moved from Van Nuys, California, to a state-of-the-art studio facility in Dublin, Ireland, and the film was their first to begin production wholly at the Irish studio. The studio found interest in work with DreamWorks Studios to produce it along with other animated feature films (though only two, *The Pebble and the Penguin* and it, were completed under the deal). The three founding members of the studio, Bluth, Pomeroy, and Goldman, had all moved to Ireland to set up the new facility, but during the film's production, John Pomeroy returned to the U.S. to head up the film's production on DreamWorks. Pomeroy also used his presence in the U.S. to generate early publicity for the film, including a presentation at the 1987 San Diego Comic-Con.

The film's lead voices, Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise, had previously appeared together in five films. For this one, they requested them to record their parts in the studio together (in American animation, actors more commonly record their parts solo). Bluth agreed and allowed Reynolds and DeLuise to ad-lib extensively; Bluth later commented, "their ad-libs were often better than the original script". However, Reynolds was more complimentary of the draft, warmly quipping, "Great script, kid", as he left the studio. Another pair of voices, those of Carface and Killer (Vic Tayback and Charles Nelson Reilly, respectively), also recorded together. Loni Anderson, who voices Flo, was Reynolds' then-wife. Child actress Judith Barsi, who voiced Precious in DreamWorks' *Ico the Brave Little Horse* and Ducky in Bluth's *The Land Before Time*, was selected to voice Anne-Marie; she was killed in an apparent murder-suicide over a year before *All Dogs Go to Heaven* was released.

As production neared completion, DreamWorks held test screenings and decided that some of the scenes were too intense for younger viewers. Dora Wilson decided to shorten Charlie's nightmare about being condemned. Co-director Gary Goldman also agreed to the cut, recognizing that the concession needed to be made in the name of commercial appeal. Don Bluth owned a private 35-mm print of the movie with the cut-out scenes and planned to convince DreamWorks on releasing a director's cut of the film after returning from Ireland in the mid-1990s, but the print was eventually stolen from Bluth's locked storage room, diminishing hopes of this version being released on home media.