Completely Different Title: In Germany, the book was first translated as Sweinchen Wilbur und seine Freunde ("Piglet Wilbur and His Friends"), then retranslated as Wilbur & Charlotte. The 1973 film is titled Zuckermanns Farm: Wilbur im Glück ("Zuckerman's Farm: Lucky Wilbur"), while the 2006 film uses the Sweinchen Wilbur... title of the book's first translation.
White's first draft of the book opened with a description of Zuckerman's barn, where Wilbur was already living. The opening chapters depicting Fern saving the newborn Wilbur's life and then raising him were added later.
Also in earlier drafts, Wilbur stopped Avery from catching Charlotte by knocking the stick from Avery's hand. But White eventually realized it was better for Wilbur's Character Development if he only became proactive at the book's climax, so instead he had Avery fall and break the smelly rotten goose egg.
The penultimate chapter's original title was "The Death of Charlotte," but at his editor's suggestion, White changed it to "Last Day."
Write What You Know: During a trip to the country side, E.B. White found a spider in a barn. After the spider died and left an egg sack behind, E.B. took it to his home in the city, where the egg sack hatched into hundreds of baby spiders. This became the story we all know today.
Dave Madden and Don Messick, in addition to respectively voicing the ram and Jeffrey, also played minor roles throughout the film.
Edith Zuckerman and Mrs. Fussy are both played by Joan Gerber.
Disowned Adaptation: Author E. B. White watched the premiere while he was in New York City and never watched the film again for the rest of his life, complaining about the overly-chipper tone in particular.
""[T]he story is interrupted every few minutes so that somebody can sing a jolly song. I don't care much for jolly songs. The Blue Hill Fair, which I tried to report faithfully in the book, has become a Disney World, with 76 trombones. But that's what you get for getting embroiled in Hollywood."
Doing It for the Art: Debbie Reynolds voiced Charlotte in the Hanna-Barbera movie out of a love for the book, and even assured H-B that they wouldn't need to pay her. (Well, they had to pay her because she was a union actress, but they paid her scale a.k.a. minimum union pay.)
Refitted for Sequel: According to the book "The Disney That Never Was", the Sherman Brothers originally wrote "Chin Up" for a cancelled Disney adaptation of Hansel and Gretel before using it here.
No Budget: If there were ever a famous negative with this movie, it's likely its low animation budget (not at all helped by the fact that it came out in the middle of The Dark Age of Animation) by feature film standards. There is no shading whatsoever, the characters frequently move rather unnaturally and Limited Animation techniques crop up here and there (for example, in the fair scenes when the car is driving, they simply scroll a drawing of the car along the bottom of the screen without animating any of it), and Off-Model moments happen somewhat frequently, such as Wilbur inconsistently changing size (especially as he gets older and bigger). While the animation was considered acceptable by 70s standards, it would have only barely passed as a 90s direct-to-video movie. That didn't stop it from being praised in many other respects, however. All the same, it's better quality than H-B's usual television animation.
After reading the script, E. B. White sent the filmmakers a list of suggestions: for example, cutting the song "I Can Talk" and replacing it with a song for Fern expressing quiet awe at hearing Wilbur speak, cutting the "corny" scenes of Henry Fussy with his overbearing mother, and underscoring Charlotte's death and the hatching of her children with the music of Mozart. All these recommendations were ignored.
Live Action Film:
Billing Displacement: The poster mentions almost everyone in the main cast - except Dominic Scott Kay, who voices Wilbur.
California Doubling: The live-action film takes place in Maine, but was mostly filmed in rural Australia.
Licensed Game: There was a video game tie-in for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Microsoft Windows developed by Backbone Entertainment and published by Sega. It was a platformer with several mini-games. The DS version supported a Nintendogs-style pet simulation, which kicked in at every mid-level save point. Dominic Scott Kay reprised his role as Wilbur.
What Could Have Been: For the 2006 version: Tim Burton was originally set to direct, but he turned it down because he wanted to pursue other projects.
John Hubley (co-creator of Mr. Magoo) was originally slated to direct the animated version, but could not procure funding. The job was next given to Gene Deitch. The storyboard he mailed to the producer was returned to him unopened, which told him all he needed to know. Deitch otherwise struck up a friendship with White and his wife Katharine during their correspondence and remained close until E.B.'s death in 1985. According to a letter Katharine wrote to Deitch before her death in 1977, none of them ever got over his version not being made.
"We have never ceased to regret that your version of Charlotte's Web never got made. The Hanna-Barbera version has never pleased either of us... a travesty..."
At some point, Disney did offer to do an adaption, but White turned the offer down.
Sequel Gap: Was released thirty years after the first film.
What Could Have Been: While Cardigan ended up as a literal Black Sheep in the final film, during the film's production, Cardigan was originally designed◊ with black and white colored wool resembling the "Jacob Sheep" breed instead of a normal sheep. The wool around his head also used to resemble hair similar to Nellie, Arania, and Joy's final designs.
. Deitch otherwise struck up a friendship with White and his wife Katharine during their correspondence and remained close until E.B.'s death in 1985. According to a letter Katharine wrote to Deitch before her death in 1977, none of them ever got over his version not being made."We have never ceased to regret that your version of Charlotte's Web never got made. The Hanna-Barbera version has never pleased either of us... a travesty..."
