Why so many narrators for The Point?

Cafe Society
1

My daughter MilliCal watched a videotape of Nilsson’s 1971 Tv cartoon The Point the other day. (It was, IIRC, the only animated entry in the ABC Movie of the Week. Interesting, but too long) It was narrated by Ringo Starr. I could have sworn that when I first saw it in TV it was narrated by Dustin Hoffman.

So I checked on the IMDB, and they confirm that the original TV release was narrated by Hoffman, but that the video version was narrated by Ringo:

(I’ve caught glimpses of it on TV every now and then, and I’m sure that all of those versions had Ringo as well. I haven’t heard Hoffman since the original release).

But according to the IMDB, Alan Thicke narrated it when it appeared on The Disney Channel, and Alan Barzman (who?) narrated it on the second telecast.
Why so many narrators? I can’t recall any other case like this, animated or otherwise. I could maybe understand it if the first narrator had a problem with the use of his voice, and had it pulled from subsequent broadcasts, or if it turned out that there was some sort of weird legal issue. But four different narrators? Something’s weird.

2

Wow, I had no idea.

I love The Point, but have only ever seen the Ringo Starr narration.

As an addition to the narrator list,on the LP of The Point, Nilsson himself does the narration in a somewhat different script and format from the cartoon.

<walks away singing>
“Me and my Arrow…”

3

I’m w/ Gargoyle. I’ve only seen the Ringo version, but I adored every second. I imagine the Hoffman version is just as wonderful.