for its 1987 re-release, animation historian charles solomon expressed criticism for its episodic plot, anachronisms, and borrowed plot elements from earlier disney animated features, but nevertheless wrote "[b]ut even at their least original, the disney artists provide better animation--and more entertainment--than the recent animated features hawking "the care bears", "rainbow brite" and ""." writing in his book "the disney films", disney historian and film critic leonard maltin wrote that "[t]he worst that one could say of "the aristocats" is that it is unmemorable. it's smoothly executed, of course, and enjoyable, but neither its superficial story nor its characters have any resonance." additionally, in his book "of mice and magic", maltin criticized the film for re-using phil harris to replicate "the jungle book"s baloo, dismissing the character thomas o'malley as "essentially the same character, dictated by the same voice personality."