in 1966, disney assigned ken anderson to determine whether "aristocats" would be suitable for an animated feature. with occasional guidance from reitherman, anderson worked from scratch and simplified the two stories into a story that focused more on the cats. disney saw the preliminary sketches and approved the project shortly before his death. after "the jungle book" was completed, the animation department began work on "aristocats". hibler was eventually replaced by reitherman, who would abandon the more emotional story of duchess's obsession to find adopters befitting of her kittens' talents initially favored by disney suggesting instead the film be conceived as an adventure comedy in the vein of "one hundred and one dalmatians". furthermore, the character elmira, the maid, who was intended to be voiced by elsa lanchester, was removed from the story placing edgar as the central villain in order to better simplify the storyline.