Long before “Barbenheimer,” (this summer movie season’s phenomenon where the disparate movies Barbie and Oppenheimer opened in theaters on the same day, igniting the box office), there was a similar occurrence in the late 80s.
It’s never officially been given a name, but maybe “OliTime” or “Land and Company” would work. On November 18, 1988, two major animated features from two competing studios opened on the same day.
One of them was Oliver & Company, a brand-new Disney release heralded to be the first in a one-new-animated-feature-a-year schedule that the leadership team at the studio was promising.
The other was The Land Before Time, another brand-new animated feature. However, this one was from a team and a studio (Universal) that had challenged Disney two years earlier with An American Tail and won.
That film made $47 million domestically, had a hit song connected with it, “Somewhere Out There” (nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar), and out-grossed Disney’s animated release from 1986, The Great Mouse Detective. An American Tail was the highest-grossing non-Disney animated film at the time.
An American Tail was directed by Don Bluth, who had led a walkout of animators from Disney in 1979, which garnered a lot of attention. The executive producer was Steven Spielberg, one of Hollywood’s biggest names and synonymous with blockbusters.
For The Land Before Time, which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year, both Bluth and Spielberg were back in their respective roles, joined by George Lucas, who was also on board as an executive producer.
The film told a Bambi-esque tale set in the prehistoric world, where an orphaned Apatosaurus named Littlefoot befriends four other young dinosaurs: Cera, a, quite literally, hard-headed Triceratops; Ducky, an upbeat Saurolophus; Petrie, a Pteranodon with a fear of flying and Spike, a quiet Stegosaurus. They all set off to find the Great Valley, a place they’ve heard of where dinosaurs can live in peace.
With The Land Before Time, Bluth and his team of artists crafted a purposefully paced and peaceful film. It opens with beautiful underwater images, rising into the prehistoric world, recreated here in beautiful backgrounds by Sunny Apinchapong, Barry Atkinson, and Mannix Bennett, as well as work by layout artists Rick Bentham and Elizabeth Byrne, with Bluth overseeing production design.
This sets the stage for scenes in The Land Before Time that run the gamut of emotions. There is a touching connection between Littlefoot and his mother (particularly in one heartbreaking sequence), and several well-choreographed action scenes where the young dinosaurs attempt to outrun the T-Rex, Sharptooth. These moments are made even more exciting through some dynamic camera angles.
The young actors providing the leads’ voices give nice, believable performances, including Gabriel Damon as Littlefoot, Candace Hutson as Cera, and Judith Barsi as Ducky.
Veteran voice actor and legend Will Ryan provides a solid comedic role as the nervous Petrie.
Additionally, actress Helen Shaver is appropriately warm as Littlefoot’s mother, and actor Pat Hingle brings his gruff voice to the role of the narrator and as a supporting character, Rooter, a wise dinosaur that Littlefoot encounters on his journey.
It’s all tied together by a lovely, soothing score by James Horner, including the theme song, “If We Hold on Together,” sung by Diana Ross over the ending credits.
The Land Before Time did very well at the box office, opening at number one, and would instantly connect with audiences, especially children of a particular generation, who still hold the memories of the film close to their hearts (as evidenced in several reviews on IMDb).
Critics embraced the film, with Candice Russel stating, at the time, in the Sun-Sentinel, “The Land Before Time works by evoking the simple virtues of this art aimed at children, as it was in the beginning when Disney animated Mickey Mouse.”
From its success at the box office, The Land Before Time spawned no less than 13 direct-to-video sequels, as well as an animated TV series that debuted in 2007.
When the dust settled on the “Barbenheimer”-like collision that occurred thirty-five years ago when The Land Before Time and Oliver & Company bowed on the same day, both films found an audience. The Land Before Time’s popularity and connection with filmgoers was, in many ways, a harbinger of things to come, as these little dinosaurs found themselves not on the precipice of extinction but of an animation renaissance that boosted all studios in the 1990s.
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
Is it truly THIS impossible to have the extended cut released? I mean, everyone would like that.
P.S. Thank you George, for making Cera a girl. Made the movie less of a sausage festival.
I believe it is impossible insofar as if the excised footage is still in existence, nobody knows where it is.
Also, I find it funny how the reviewer in 1988 put it as “evoking the simple virtues of this art aimed at children, as it was in the beginning when Disney animated Mickey Mouse”. As if the earliest animators made their cartoons for children, instead of themselves and their friends, even before animated shorts would play between live action films FOR ALL AUDIENCES. Animation illiteracy, perhaps? Animated ignorance?
I have always loved The Land Before Time and Oliver and Company equally. I think The Land Before Time came up as a more top tier film because it had all the ingredients that one would come to expect in a Disney film more than Oliver and Company did. Nonetheless, they both have their merits. Also of all of Don Bluth’s movies, I find it was his strongest.
I can’t believe it’s been 35 years old already! That’s Amazing. I remember watching the movie when I was a kid.
I watched part of it as a kid at school, but watched the full movie at home on my 15th birthday with my sibling watching, too.
I’m so glad I grew up watching The Land Before Time as a kid. I always knew it and An American Tail were very special films the moment I first saw them, and when I first learned how hugely successful they were when they first came out and helped convince Disney to improve their animated features, I felt very touched. To this day, Don Bluth’s animation wizardry, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas producing, James Horner’s magnificent score and the story and characters keep me coming back to it again and again. Hard to believe it’s 35 years old this year.
Also, as hit or miss the 13 direct-to-video sequels are, I think a lot of them are actually pretty good.
Today is November 18, 2023, and that means it’s been 35 Years since the release of the very 1st Land Before Time Movie!
Are we having a movie 14 for the Land before time? And we, viewers, have a lot of questions in our heads, just like how did Chomper and Ruby got into the Great Valley (I know there’s a short background at the tv series) but we need a more concrete background, just like how did Chomper and Ruby meets, how did Chomper got into the Mysterious Beyond after the land that connects mysterious island collapses at Movie 5. I hope we can get more movies, tv series, and answers to that (I don’t know if I just missed the answers to my questions but I’ve watched all the movies and tv series and I’m looking forward for more since it’s part of my childhood).