transcript excerpt from the audio commentary of Don Hann’s documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty:

Don Hann: Now let’s hear from George Scribner, Who went on to direct Oliver & Company,
here he talks about working at the studio during The Black Cauldron.

George Scribner: There was this level of dissension and the movie that they were working on this was The Black Cauldron
was not universally liked.
You go to screenings and you would be watching sequences that had very little character development.
Or no one was compelling, there was no one of interest. Yet there was– These sequences and these beats and these acts
were celebrated by the directors and the producers above you.

You’re at them, going, are we looking at the same movie? What are you trying to accomplish?
Where’s the charm? Where’s the heart? Where are all the things that made Dumbo?
Which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest movies ever made.
It’s the simplest storyline with this enormous sense of affection and emotion. And it’s this gorgeous little film.
I’m like, do you guys know your legacy?
Do you know the precedents that have established that you can look back to? What are you tryin to do?

It became clear, apparently, that I suppose most of these directors were looking at “Raiders” and some of the work
that Lucas and Spielberg were doing
And how can we make movies like them? Well no,
the object is to make movie that are dear to your heart, that spring within you.

It was a crazy period

https://art-ofprydain.tumblr.com/ 

There is information on the internet, I doubt it’s true,
that Disney wanted Ralph Bakshi to direct the film, and Bakshi turned them down.

Is this legit? what Disney employee sent that info if it was true?

This film has half the crew that worked with Bakshi on Lord of the Rings (1978) including Mike Ploog.

Tried to put a picture of the rare alternate title in this fourm topic (I need help)

The alternate title as I mentioned in the first post of this topic:
Taran and the Magic Cauldron

yeah, Disney did the same thing they did with The Great Mouse Detective (1986) rereleased in1992 under the title The Adventures of The Great Mouse Detective.

more about it here:
http://platypuscomix.com/hollywood/magiccauldron.html?fbclid=IwAR2PjVBhtJXrIwGxMOeCr87SS48ZBB8sB0SjYfqe40amqv_nIFdVjcLAvVM 

Excerpt from Disney Film Behind Schedule August 10 1978
by Aljean Harmetz

Los Angeles - “The Black Cauldron” Walt Disney"s $10 million animated film scheduled for 1980, is four years behind schedule.
It will not be completed until Christmas 1984,
because the new crop of young animators the studio has spent six years acquiring are not yet competent to handle in complexities.
“The Black Cauldron” which is based on Lloyd Alexander’s interpretations of medieval Welsh mythology,
will be replaced in 1980 by a simpler and easier movie about animal freindship, “The Fox and the Hound.”

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19780810&id=9AZFAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6uEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7122,2605529&hl=en 

(what this article is about is the switching of the completion dates)

I have come to the conclusion that the so called planed December 1984 release date was bunk.
the 1984 Date is THE completion date


start video at the 4:01 mark
narration excerpt from Backstage at Disney (1983)

John Culhane: "The Black Cauldron has been in the works for 3 years. scheduled to be released in 1985"

another evidence on the DVD of Don Hann's documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty
Randy Cartwrtight's 1983 Disney Studio's Home Movies. This footage is in the bonus features section

excerpt from Randy Cartwrtight's 1983 Disney Studio's Home Movies.

(Randy Cartwright was going to say farwell to Disney before he went off to Japan.)

Richard Rich : "You're going to Japan?"

Randy: "Yep."

Rosemary Anne Sisson: "Oh, no kidding."

Richard Rich : "Say a few words about your picture for posterity while we're here. It will be out in 1985."

Randy: "Hey, so will Nemo"

Randy is referring to TMS' Litte Nemo (one of the animated features that have long production histories.)

Richard Rich : "Is that right?"

Randy: "Hey!"

Richard Rich : "There we go. Then we'll see, Randy."

Randy: "Yes."

Rosemary Anne Sisson: "The Black Cauldron is gonna be the best picture that Disney ever made."

Randy: " And Little Nemo will be the best picture that Japan ever made."


I asked a youtuber who goes by the name of Filmmaker IQ about movie completion dates and here is what he said:

"Well, I don't think I've ever heard of the term "completion date" - there's an old editor's adage - a film is never done, it's only abandoned.

There's such a thing as a "Picture Lock" which means the picture is locked and moves to a different part of finishing... so I imagine a completion date is when the film is totally all done and finished.
Then the release date is just the date that it first goes on sale at the movie theaters or via streaming/TV"

a fellow member on this site mentions that Chuck Jones' The Phantom Tollbooth was completed in 1968, later released in 1970
and Eddie Murphy's film A Thousand Words had been on the shelf until 2012.


Excerpt from my recording of TCM showing of The Phantom Tollbooth

Robert Osbourne's intro for The Phantom Tollbooth: "MGM at that time was not quiet sure sure how to market the finished film. Turns out they never did figure it out.
When the film finaly was released, the company did not put much mussle behind it Mainly because MGM was struggling financully at that time with no money to promote it properly."


A Thousand Words 2012

I looked on Wikipedia (I think the Wiki author kind of researched well on
the film Thousand Words article that was last edited May 1, 2018. I looked at the source articles as well) There is more info
Finished filming in 2008, was planned to released in 2009.

The film was delayed and had reshoots in 2011,
director said the film will be released in 2011,
delayed to January 2012 (Eddie Murphy was assigned to host for the Oscars,
which murphy later stepped down of), March 2012 and finally April 20th 2012

Now back on topic to The Black Cauldron

I have doubts that Katzenberg had animation crew revise the animation. I think stuff like "Taran swinging his sword Dyrnwyn as he slays his foes" is bunk. While it is true that he cut parts of the cauldron born scene and had the other Disney employees cut the film further. I believe there are other scenes that other cut, but probably not violent.

again I will quote George Scribner:

"You go to screenings and you would be watching sequences that had very little character development.
Or no one was compelling, there was no one of interest. Yet there was– These sequences and these beats and these acts
were celebrated by the directors and the producers above you.

You’re at them, going, are we looking at the same movie? What are you trying to accomplish?
Where’s the charm? Where’s the heart? Where are all the things that made Dumbo?
Which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest movies ever made.

It’s the simplest storyline with this enormous sense of affection and emotion. And it’s this gorgeous little film.
I’m like, do you guys know your legacy?
Do you know the precedents that have established that you can look back to? What are you tryin to do?

It became clear, apparently, that I suppose most of these directors were looking at “Raiders” and some of the work
that Lucas and Spielberg were doing

And how can we make movies like them? Well no,
the object is to make movie that are dear to your heart, that spring within you.

It was a crazy period"

Disney Legend Floyd Norman has this to say:
http://floydnormancom.squarespace.com/blog/2015/4/1/the-black-cauldron 

"Being back in the Disney family meant I could attend screenings of the ill fated animated feature and each new screening grew successively worse.

The directors began shifting the order of sequences as if that would garner a more compelling narrative.
Sadly, nothing appeared to help and the arrival of new Disney management in 1984 only drove the nail deeper."


I saw pencil tests and storyboards of the characters that have different costumes, in other shots, the characters wearing costumes that is close to the final film)
and also rejected character designs ( King Eiddileg and Doli. and also Jonathan Winters voiced Eiddileg, later replaced by Arthur Mallet although Winters voice in WDHV's reconstructed alternate Fairfolk scene is not on there. the whole deleted alternate scene was redubbed. the work in progress audio does not exist anymore?)

The fair folk scene in the final film, I think that was revised before Jeffrey Katzenberg edited the film.

If Jeffrey should get screen credit in the film, he should get credited as Post Production Editor

When John Huston (Gandalf from Rankin/Bass’ The Hobbit 1977 and The Return of the King 1980) came to Disney
to record the narration for The Black Cauldron

excerpt from Jeremiah Good’s Laughing Place article The Black Cauldron at the El Capitan Theatre:
https://www.laughingplace.com/w/articles/2015/10/31/the-black-cauldron-at-the-el-capitan-theatre/ 

“One of those moments where you know you just heard a story that very few have heard came when Hahn asked Hale
how John Huston came about as being the narrator at the opening of the film
and Hale said, “Roy E. Disney suggested using him because he always wanted to meet John Huston.” But, as it turned out,
Roy never got a chance to meet Huston because Hale spent the entire time talking to him about his war footage he had shot.”

another rare behind the scenes look at Disney’s The Black Cauldron.
from YouTube channel ChroniqueDisney
This one comes from France. pencil tests, animators using a live pig as a model for hen wen. and also sound effects for the film.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/06/arts/disney-s-new-management-team-signs-two-top-directors.html 


1984 article about the then new Disney leaders. Frank Wells Michael Eisner, Jeffery Katzenberg.
also in this article Richard Berger who was hired by former Disney CEO Ron Miller had resigned,

here is something interesting: “Disney’s animated feature for 1985, the $25 million medieval fable “The Black Cauldron,” is not one of Mr. Berger’s projects. Planning for “The Black Cauldron,” the most complex and expensive animated film ever made by Disney, began more than six years ago.“

from my fourm topic: Debunking Misinformation about Animated Movie History


The Black Cauldron 1985 Walt Disney Pictures

"The Black Cauldron was the first Disney animated theatrical feature to receive a PG rating.
It even had to be edited twice to avoid being released with a PG-13 or R rating."

nope.

from my Tumblr blog
art-ofprydain

“It even had to be edited twice to avoid being released with a PG-13 or R rating”.

I think they have intended this to be PG rated,

this was in pre production since the 1970′s, and in production since the early 1980′s.

There was no PG 13 rating until after parents criticizing the violence in films like Gremlins (1984)

and Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984)

if you look at what was happening in the late 1970′s and 1980′s Disney was going through a slump,

While outside of Disney, filmmakers like Spielberg and Lucas made some interesting films.

According to Don Hann’s documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty: :”Around that time,

the studio did a survey that teenage movie goers would be caught dead near a Disney movie”

If you look at the Disney feature films
from the late 70′s and early 1980′s range from dark SciFi (The Black Hole 1979)

Thriller (The Watcher In The Woods 1981) Dark Comedy (The Devil and Max Devilin 1981 it’s a stinker)

horror (Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes 1983)

Could it be that with Disney and their Prydain film was aimed at Spielberg or Lucas type crowd?

niche audience? 80′s teen crowd? Obviously the cauldron born scene is very Indiana Jones eqs.

( even resulting a outraged Katzenberg to cut the film in late 1984

Excerpt from The New York Times Article
ANIMATION AGAIN A PRIORITY AT DISNEY
By ALJEAN HARMETZ
August 27, 1984

“The Black Cauldron,” the most complex and expensive animated feature ever produced by Walt Disney Studios,

will be released next summer. This medieval Welsh fable,

based on a series of award-winning children’s books by Lloyd Alexander,

was filmed in 70 millimeter at a cost of $25 million.

The film’s Horned King villain is one of Disney’s most sinister characters.

The boy hero must find the Black Cauldron before the Horned King uses it to bring back dead warriors

from past wars and gather an invincible army. It is conceivable, said Ron Miller,

president and chief executive officer of Walt Disney Productions,

that the movie will be the first Disney cartoon to get a PG rating.”


https://www.nytimes.com/...-priority-at-disney.html 


Conflicting info on what was the Date of Jeffery Kattzenberg's Arrival at Disney or first weeks.

conflicting info, some sources say Katzenberg started at Disney in October 1984

a few sources say 1985: (This eldest article that announces as such, is one of them.)

also the book the Disney Touch by Ron Grover 1991  

and the article from 1987 Disney Gearing Up For More Animation 

on October 1, 1984 in this retro article:

it was announced that Jeffery Katzenberg would leave Paramount in January of 1985

and Join Disney in February of 1985.

Excerpt from DISNEY NAMES MOVIE AND TV HEAD
from The New York Times
October 1, 1984

“Mr. Katzenberg’s contract at Paramount is up in January, and he will join Disney on Feb. 1.

Mr. Katzenberg has been wooed by at least three other movie studios since the resignation of

Paramount’s chairman, Barry Diller, on Sept. 11,

which started a round of musical chairs in Hollywood’s executive suites. In a statement today,

Mr. Katzenberg said that he was moving to Disney rather than staying at Paramount because of

the “opportunity to work in areas beyond motion pictures.”

In an interview last week, Mr. Eisner,

who resigned as president of Paramount Sept. 12 after he was passed over for the company’s chairmanship,

gave warning to the movie industry that he intended to make Disney studios competitive with the biggest

and best of Hollywood’s film companies.

In recent years, Disney’s film division has fallen on hard times.

Disney has been unable to shake the stigma of being considered a moviemaker for children.

The core teen-age audience, critical to a movie-maker today, has stayed away.

Neither “The Black Hole” nor “Tron,” two attempts to appeal to teen-agers, did as well as expected,

and, in 1983, Disney had to take a writedown of $21 million on “Something Wicked This Way Comes,”

a $23 million fantasy film based on a Ray Bradbury novel.

Under Ronald L. Miller, who was forced to resigned as president and chief executive officer on Sept. 7,

Disney recently initiated a non-Disney distribution label, “Touchstone,” for films with more mature themes.

The first Touchstone movie,

“Splash,” was a box-office hit. A romantic comedy about a mermaid that included some nudity,

“Splash” earned Disney more than $35 million in film rentals.

The second Touchstone film, “Country,” a movie starring Jessica Lange

that concerns the plight of present-day farmers, opened the New York Film Festival last Friday.

The average movie studio releases 12 to 15 movies a year. In addition to “Splash” and “Country,”

Disney’s only 1984 movie was a re-issue of its 1967 animated film,

“The Jungle Book.” Because of his extensive relationships with film makers,

Mr. Katzenberg, who started in the movie industry as assistant to the Paramount chairman 10 years ago,
is expected to help Disney win access to projects.”

https://www.nytimes.com/...Fbyline%2Faljean-harmetz 

hmmmmmm so Jeffrey’s first weeks at the studio was in February of 1985. huh

so he and the other Disney employees might have reedited the film at that time.

I doubt that Katzenberg had the animators, painters ,

Xerox people and camera crew reanimate certain parts of the film to make less violent. I have my doubts.

If some of you that worked for Disney in the late 1970′s and early to mid 1980′s have proof that

such a thing happened, please prove me wrong

The film already at that point cost a lot of money to make..

Steve Hulet's Mouse in Trasition Chapter 16

In this article, I’m now not sure what comes first,

Roy’s December 1984 letter to the Animation department to move the next year,

or Jeffrey Katzenberg at the Disney studio Screening of The Black Cauldron, later Jeffrey edits the film. .

hmmmmmmm

https://www.cartoonbrew....g-chapter-16-108210.html 

another conflicting article from 1984

Excerpt from How The Hollywood Studio Shake-Ups Are Shaking Down
October 23, 1984
by Aljean Harmetz

“There is general agreement that Walt Disney Productions, which only released two new movies in 1984,

will become a major player in the Hollywood game of trying to hit home runs at the box office.

“The most important consequence of all this executive shifting will be the new role of Disney,” said Arthur Rockwell,

a former movie industry analyst who is now a vice president at M-G-M/UA.

“Three high-powered executives going to Disney clearly signifies Disney’s intentions of being a major studio.”

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former president of movie production at Paramount who has moved to Disney as president of movies

and television,

said about the current situation: “I’m a buyer, and there’s going to be a sellers’ market for a while.

But in the last 10 years I’ve seen us go through at least three full boom-and-bust cycles.

’‘Historically, the movie industry has an ebb and flow of product. When you get more buyers or the current buyers get more

aggressive, you have a boom,

and inflated prices make it difficult to make deals. Traditionally, the boom is followed by a bust. A boom cycle started a year ago

and now we’re nearing the crest.

Had the managements stayed in place, we would have started a slow descent in the spring of 1985.

Now the bust is going to be delayed.”

https://www.nytimes.com/...Fbyline%2Faljean-harmetz 

hmmmm

Alright,

Which is the date that Katzenberg started at Disney? Is it 1984 or 1985?

and what year was he actually there?

Upadate: Here is my theory (feel free to dislike it.):

He was there in 1984 at Disney altough his contract at Paramount did not expire until 1985, then Jeffrey started to work at Disney in 1985.

Would you like to check out my new blog I've started back in February?
https://prydainonfilm.blogspot.com/ 

from my blog post on Prydain on Film
https://prydainonfilm.blogspot.com/2018/06/debunking-myths-behind-film-part-1-and.html 

an article from
Cinefantastique Vol 08 No.1 (Winter 1978) magazine page 35

Disney Sword & Sorcery by Dan Scapperotti 

"The Black Cauldron is on the drawing boards and Walt Disney Productions
as the cartoon feature to follow in production after completion of the Fox and the Hound, currently in the works. Property is an original Sword and Sorcery fantasy in the tradition of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and is part of an effort at Disney to change the studio's "For Kids Only" image.

Disney's roots are the strongest in the animated cartoon field, but the studio has seen its pool of creative artists dwindle as the pioneering animators, the veterans who created such classics as Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs and Bambi, retire and leave the field. A shortage of Qualified animators as well as the tremendous labor costs involved in their work forced Ralph Bakshi to depend almost entirly on rotoscoping for Lord of the Rings. Disney, however, has reinstitued and training program for young animators, began by Walt Disney in the early thirties, to assure the qualified manpower necesary for their animated film program.

Preproduction art for The Black Cauldron indicates that much of the film will rely on a pervading atmosphere of horror and the mystic arts, with forboding settings reminiscent of the studio's early cartoon work such as The Skeleton Dance and The Old Mill and the Evil Queen's dungeon in Snow White. The cauldron of the title is in the possession of the evil Horned King who emerses his vanquished enemies in it to transform them into invincible, soulless Cauldron Born Warriors. With this army of the dead the Horned King plans to conquer the peaceful land of Prydain. He is opposed buy Dallben, a wise enchanter and Taran, his young ward.

The Black Cauldron will entirely be the work of an new generation of Disney artists and technicians. The Studio's previous cartoon feature, the imme4nsely popular The Rescuers, was the last to depend on the talents of the veteran animators. Eric Larson, a 45 year Disney veteran, is in charge of the studio's training program for new animators. From thousands of applications received for their training program, less than 100 were selected for Disney apprenticeship, and only 45 completed the full course. The first effort to feature solely the work of the new animators is The Small One, a 25 minute featurette to be released this December with Pinocchio. It's Christmas story tells of a young boy in ancient Nazareth who is force to sell his beloved donkey.

The Fox and The Hound won't be released until 1980. The lengthy production schedule reflects the pains taken for fuller, more fluid animation and an attention to detail for which Disney is famous. The work begins on the animation of The Black Cauldron, which won't see release until 1984."

Both The Fox and The Hound and The Black Cauldron's productions were affected when Don Bluth and his crew left Disney in 1979.


I repeat these again here:

Excerpt from Disney Film Behind Schedule August 10 1978
by Aljean Harmetz
Los Angeles - "The Black Cauldron" Walt Disney"s $10 million animated film scheduled for 1980, is four years behind schedule.
It will not be completed until Christmas 1984,
because the new crop of young animators the studio has spent six years acquiring are not yet competent to handle in complexities.
"The Black Cauldron" which is based on Lloyd Alexander's interpretations of medieval Welsh mythology,
will be replaced in 1980 by a simpler and easier movie about animal friendship, "The Fox and the Hound."https://news.google.com/...g=7122,2605529&hl=en
https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/27/archives/disney-incubating-new-artists-mickey-mouse-turning-50-pompousness.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Faljean-harmetz 

and what Cinefantastique  says:
Disney Sword & Sorcery by Dan Scapperotti
Cinefantastique Vol 08 No.1 (Winter 1978) magazine page 35
"The Fox and The Hound won't be released until 1980. The lengthy production schedule reflects the pains taken for fuller,
more fluid animation and an attention to detail for which Disney is famous.
The work begins on the animation of The Black Cauldron, which won't see release until 1984."

or how about this theory?
as mentioned in the New York Times articles
the production completion dates were switched for The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron.

If we are going by what both Dan Scapperotti said in his article for Cinefantastique and the New York Times, it may be like this:

The Fox and the Hound was planned to be completed in 1984,
then revised to be completed in 1980 soposed to be released that year then bumped up the next year due to Don Bluth and his crew leaving.
The Fox and the Hound was released to theaters in 1981

The Black Cauldron in 1978 was "four years behind schedule. 1980 was revised to the 1984 date
soposed to be released that year instead they moved the release date to 1985 due to (like with The Fox and the Hound) Don Bluth leaving Disney.


The Black Cauldron's planned 1985 release date was not changed by Katzenberg
(and it does not make sense for a 1984 Christmas release. as the book Disney War claims.)


or maybe the Cinefantastique magazine author was misinformed, and the magazine conflects with the other articles?

If so, why? any help?

And it was mentioned in Walt Disney Productions' 1982 annual report that The Black Cauldron was aiming for a 1985 release.

Thank You. after I read your post, tried looking for it online. sadly I couldn't.

after that, I looked up some articles on DIX - A Disney resource index:

Wielding the Two-Edged Enchanted Sword
https://www.dix-project.net/item/3149/starlog-magazine-issue-101-wielding-the-two-edged-enchanted-sword 
Rare article with Prydain book author Lloyd Alexander.

Computers in the 'Cauldron'
https://www.dix-project.net/item/2926/enter-magazine-issue-2-5-computers-in-the-cauldron 
rare article on the computer animation made for the Disney’s The Black Cauldron

Animating "The Black Cauldron"
https://www.dix-project.net/item/3061/starlog-magazine-issue-97-animating-the-black-cauldron 
Rare article with The Black Cauldron (1985) producer Joe Hale

cinefatasique 48 The Black Cauldron
https://www.dix-project.net/item/2007/cinefantastique-issue-48-13-5-the-black-cauldron 
Rare article from 1983

Interesting, Don Bluth and his crew did affect the productions of The Fox and The Hound (1981) and The Black Cauldron (1985) when they left.

Excerpt from: 11 Animators Quit Disney, Form Studio
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/20/archives/11-animators-quit-disney-form-studio-loyalty-is-cited.html 

"LOS ANGELES, Sept. 19— A severe blow was struck at Walt Disney Productions’ animation department last weekend when 11 members — over 15 percent of the department — resigned to form a rival company.

As a result, the animated feature on which they were working, “The Fox and the Hound,” may be delayed nearly six months beyond its anticipated Christmas 1980 release."

The Fox and The Hound was released on July 10, 1981

Milt Kahl at CAL Arts

Dennis' videos of The Black Cauldron Deleted Scenes Investigation

According to Sogturtle, Filmation's first animated feature, Journey Back To Oz, was completed in 1971 but wasn't released until December 1974.

(It had a long production history. Liza Minnelli recorded her lines in the early 1960's, when she was roughly the same age her mother was when she played Dorothy. Otherwise production on Journey Back To Oz didn't start until 1964, and it was finished in 1971.)


Notes on some of the other posts in this thread. (I'm not going to bother quoting them.)

Elmer Bernstein: One of his first music scores was for a really terrible low budget movie, Robot Monster. (The title character is a man wearing a gorilla suit and a diver's helmet with antennas attached to it.) The entire movie is posted on YouTube.

Kathy Zielinski: I saw The Black Cauldron when it was in theaters. I was mortified by the bit she animated of one of the characters being turned into a frog and ending up wedged in the cleavage of one of the witches. I imagined Walt Disney turning over in his grave.

P.S. The Black Cauldron was preceded by "Chips Ahoy", probably because The Black Cauldron was the first Disney animated feature filmed in a widescreen process since Sleeping Beauty and "Chips Ahoy" was filmed in CinemaScope.

"Kathy Zielinski: I saw The Black Cauldron when it was in theaters. I was mortified by the bit she animated of one of the characters being turned into a frog and ending up wedged in the cleavage of one of the witches. I imagined Walt Disney turning over in his grave."

She did mention in a recent interview on Skull Rock Podcast that it was director Ted Berman's gag.