Olivia Newton-John's ankles

A friend of mine started working at Don Bluth's fledgling studio in early 1980. They were working on "The Secret of Nim" (although it still had the original book title at that point) when a call came in for a short animation piece to be done in a hurry to beef-up "Xanadu" and a good fee was offered. The studio shifted gears and halted work on the own feature for a few short weeks. Apparently the Bluth team noticed that there was sensitivity about her ankles not looking right, with them remaining covered by boots in most scenes and in the case of one tap dance sequence near the end by ribbons. You may have noticed that the animated bird form of Kira in the animated section wears some sort of fuzzy "warmers" around where the ankles would be if birds had them. This was an "in joke" slipped in by the Bluth team apparently known only to themselves.

Personally I never saw anything wrong with Olivia's ankles which were on full display in the dance number she has with Gene Kelly when he dreams of his days in a band in the 40's when she was a singer.

Oh Lord, you gave them eyes but they cannot see...