In reality, Disney studios were in a bit of an artistic and financial slump by the time this film was in pre-production. Disney hadn't had a hugely successful animated hit film since The Jungle Book (1967) and had become reliant on either real life/animated hybrids like Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), re-issues of classic films or traditional family friendly non-animated films like The Love Bug (1969). Whilst these films met with varying degrees of success, the shift away from Disney's core animation business meant that the studio had downsized their animation workforce as a cost cutting measure. As a result this film did not have some of the lavish budgets of animated feature films made whilst Walt Disney himself was still alive, result in some quite obvious budgetary concessions (such as reusing of rotoscoped scenes from previous films but with new characters overlaid). Some critics also said the quality of the artwork suffered too as the characters looked flat and hurriedly drawn and some were blatantly copied, with slight amendments, from previous Disney films. However the film did solid, if unspectacular box office, earning $33 million from its's $5 million budget and kept the animation studios from being shut down entirely. Their next project would be the financially successful and better received 'The Rescuers' (1977), a film which also had similar accusations of plagiarism from the Disney archives but again, made enough money to justify keeping the animated studios open, with occasional new projects until their spectacular renaissance with 'The Little Mermaid' (1989) changed their fortunes.

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