Trivia / The Last Unicorn

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• Acting for Two:
  • Besides voicing Captain Cully, Keenan Wynn also appears as the Harpy Celaeno.
  • Paul Frees voices Mabruk and the Cat.
  • Edward Peck appears as Jack Jingly and one of Cully's men.
  • Jack Lester voices one of Cully's men, as well as the first hunter and the old farmer.
  • Kenneth Jennings appears as the second hunter and one of Cully's men.
  • In the dub from Latin America, Jorge Roig voices the Butterfly, Mabruk and the skull. And the late voice actor Jesus Brock voices both Schmendrick and the cat.
• Channel Hop: Thanks to the constant levels of being Screwed by the Network, the film suffered from a lot of this before it even got released. Nowadays, ITV Studios owns the film (corporate predecessor Carlton having bought the ITC backlog in 1999) and has sub-licensed it to other distributors, specifically Lionsgate and Shout! Factory.
• Creator Backlash: Beagle has been frank that he found the book to be the most difficult to write of any in his career. It's not that he dislikes the book, but rather that he's intimidated by its success and knows that he'll never get it quite that right again.
• Doing It for the Art: Jeff Bridges apparently volunteered to do the voice of Lír for free, while Christopher Lee dubbed his character in German for no additional fee.
• International Coproduction: The film was a co-production between the American Rankin/Bass Productions and the British ITC Films. Topcraft animated the film in Japan and the music was recorded at De Lane Lea Studios in England.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Christopher Lee, who was fluent in German, also voiced King Haggard in the German dub of the film.
• Promoted Fanboy: Christopher Lee was a huge fan of the book, to the point of bringing his own copy of the book to his recording and pointing out some lines that he felt had to stay in the story. He also provides the voice in the German dub of the movie.
  • Lee hoped to be able to play Haggard in any live-action adaptation until the end of his life, and fans agree he would have been awesome - to the degree that some feel such an adaptation should now never be made.
• Screwed by the Network: The film seemed to be cursed as it went from distributor to distributor. It was originally going to be released by ITC Entertainment via their new American arm AFD. When AFD wound up being decimated by a string of flops, they sold their ready-for-release films to Universal. They apparently "weren't keen" on the film, and New World Pictures took the movie. That deal fell through, and a small firm known as Jensen Farley Pictures (formed by two ex-employees of the equally-obscure Sunn Classic Pictures) finally released it.... and almost immediately after declared bankruptcy.
• Self-Adaptation: Peter S. Beagle wrote the script for the animated movie adaptation of his novel The Last Unicorn. Due to a notorious case of "Hollywood accounting," his share of the profits was much smaller than would seem fair.
• Shrug of God: The unnamed magician in Peter Beagle's other novel The Innkeeper's Song matches Schmendrick's physical description and both mention their teacher's name was Nikos. Beagle hasn't confirmed outright whether they're the same person or not, leaving it to the audience.
• Throw It In!:
  • The cat's pirate voice was ad-libbed by his voice actor who was having fun with all sorts of accents to give the cat, and everyone loved the stereotypical Long John Silver voice that they just had to go with it. They gave the cat an eyepatch and peg leg to match.
  • "Have a taco" came about when Beagle was writing very late at night when you start writing all sorts of strange things. However, he loved the line so much he had to leave it in, Anachronism Stew be damned.
• Wag the Director: When Christopher Lee came in to work, he brought his own copy of the novel wherein he took note of lines that he believed should not be omitted.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A live-action remake has been in Development Hell since 2005. Christopher Lee for a long time had expressed interest in reprising his role as King Haggard. Shortly before his death in 2015, he had given his blessing for them to cast someone else. Angela Lansbury had also expressed interest in reprising her role as Mommy Fortuna.
  • The UK group Renaissance was considered to create the soundtrack before America came on board.
  • Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Dustin Hoffman were considered as voices for Schmendrick.
  • John Carradine, James Earl Jones and John Vernon were considered as voices for King Haggard.
  • Michael Crawford, Richard Harris and Kurt Russell were considered voices as for Prince Lír.
  • Elizabeth Hartman and Janet Leigh were considered as voices for the Unicorn/Amalthea.

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