Trivia / Banjo the Woodpile Cat

• Descended Creator: Don Bluth, a reasonably skilled piano player, wrote the songs.
• Doing It for the Art: The entire film was made in a garage, over a period of six years, with the animators literally learning as they went along, working long hours into the night, only stopping for lunch breaks and this was while most of the animators still had day jobs at Disney.
• Stillborn Franchise: A sequel was conceived titled Banjo Meets the King of the Goblins, but Don Bluth has said repeatedly that he wants to leave the character in the past.
• Troubled Production: In his "Art Of Animation" book, Don Bluth related how some of the equipment used to make the film was got on the cheap because it was literally about to fall apart (because Disney was union, they couldn't use any of their equipment). In particular, the movieola used to do pencil tests never ran the footage at the intended speed, only too fast or too slow, eventually pissing off Don to the point where he kicked it, causing the machine to eat the film! At that point, they just sprung for a new one.
• What Could Have Been: It was originally going to be a full length movie, but was cut short because of budget restraints.
  • It also was going to have a villain named Rocko who eventually showed up in nearly the same form as Warren T. Rat in An American Tail. In fact, had the film been completed it might have been a bit like An American Tail with cat protagonists instead of mice.
  • The creators tried to make it a holiday special, first a Christmas special and then Halloween, thinking that it'd help sell the special, but they couldn't make the holiday aspect fit.
  • Merchandising was actually considered for Banjo; storybooks and even a syndicated comic strip were proposed but nothing ever made it to market.

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