Parish notes a variety of other production problems. The script that Feiffer submitted went through rewrites during the production, and he expressed concern that too much screen time was being devoted to minor characters. Feiffer also disliked Nilsson's songs, feeling they weren't right for the film. The original "muscle" arms (formed of silicon rubber) were difficult for Williams to manipulate and doff after filming, so two Italian artisans were brought to Malta to remake them. Altman had to juggle his filming schedule while awaiting the revised products. Altman also had the cast singing some of their musical numbers live, unlike the usual practice of pre-recorded numbers, lip-synched during filming; this reduced their sound quality due to difficulties in accurately capturing the voices. Williams also had to re-record his dialogue after running into trouble with his character's mumbling style, a by-product of talking with a pipe in his mouth, and his affinity for ad-libs also led to clashes with the director. The final battle involving the octopus led to more headaches when the mechanical beast failed to work properly. After the production cost rose beyond $20 million, Paramount ordered Altman to wrap filming and return to California with what he had.