The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a 1976 animated adventure film produced by Walt Disney Productions. Directed by John Lounsberry (in his directorial debut) and Wolfgang Reitherman, and produced by Reitherman from a screenplay he wrote, the film is based on the 1876 Mark Twain novel of the same name.

Walt Disney bought the rights to Twain's novel in April 1952, and immediately thereafter brought on his team to produce a film based on the novel. After a few test screenings, Walt Disney's employees were dissatisfied with how the original story draft looked. The film suffered from several rewrites, forcing Disney to put the project in limbo.

Reception
United States President Gerald Ford spoke about his first thoughts on the movie, "I've only read the book while I was in middle school, but seeing Tom Sawyer as a cartoon is something like I've never seen before."