The Fox and the Hound (film)

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The Fox and the Hound
Directed by Ted Berman
Richard Rich
Produced by Ron Miller
Art Stevens
Wolfgang Reitherman
Written by Ted Berman
Larry Clemmons
Starring Mickey Rooney
Kurt Russell
Music by Buddy Baker
Distributed by Buena Vista Distribution
Release date(s) July 10, 1981 (U.S.)
Running time 83 minutes
Language English
Followed by The Fox and the Hound 2 (2006)
IMDb profile

The Fox and the Hound is a 1981 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Productions, first released to movie theatres in the U.S. on July 10, 1981. The twenty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, the film is based on the Daniel P. Mannix novel The Fox and the Hound. The film centers around the story of two unlikely friends, a bloodhound and a red fox, who struggle to preserve their friendship. At the time of release it was the most expensive animated film produced to date, costing $12 million.[1] A direct-to-video "midquel," The Fox and the Hound 2, was released on December 12, 2006.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

A young red fox Tod is left orphaned when his mother is killed by a hunter and his dog. A kindly owl, named Big Mama, arranges him to be adopted by the compassionate Widow Tweed as a pet on her farm. Tweed names the fox Tod. Meanwhile, Tweed's neighbor, an ill-tempered hunter named Amos Slade, brings home a young hound puppy named Copper. Slade introduces Copper to his experienced hunting dog Chief, who is rather uneasy to interact with the younger pup at first but later treats Copper as his own son.

Tod and Copper meet and form a friendship they feel will last forever. Slade grows frustrated after Copper is constantly caught wandering off to play with Tod. After several meetings between Tod and Copper, Slade places Copper on a leash to stop him from wandering off.

Undeterred, Tod decides to play with Copper at his home. Tod's visit to Slade's farm becomes disastrous when he inadvertently awakens Chief, who promptly chases him throughout the farm. Slade enters the pursuit as well, trying to shoot Tod. The pursuit finally ends after Slade begins shooting at Widow Tweed's car, with Tod in tow. A furious Tweed takes Slade's gun out of his hand and shoots his car's radiator. After a fierce argument, the belligerent Slade makes it clear that he intends to kill Tod at his first opportunity.

For the rest of the summer Tod is limited to the house with Widow Tweed. The matter is shelved for the moment, with hunting season commencing, and Slade takes his dogs into the wilderness for the interim. Meanwhile, Big Mama explains to Tod that his friendship with Copper cannot continue, as they were bred to be enemies. Tod, in his innocence, states that he and Copper are "gonna be friends forever."

Months pass, and Copper becomes an excellent hunting dog. Upon Copper's return, Tod, who at the same time has become a handsome, full-grown, adult fox, meets him during the night, thinking their friendship unchanged. Copper explains that he is a hunting dog now, and that they can no longer be friends. Their meeting is cut short when Chief awakens and alerts Slade. A chase ensues, but Copper diverts Chief and Slade so that Tod can escape. Unfortunately, Chief manages to maintain the pursuit, which carries onto a railroad track trestle. When a fast-moving train suddenly approaches, Tod is able to duck under the vehicle, but Chief is struck and wounded. Enraged, Copper blames Tod for the accident and swears vengeance.

Realizing that Tod cannot safely stay on her farm now, Tweed leaves him at a nature preserve, which has signs prohibiting hunting. Although Tod has a difficult time adjusting, Big Mama helps by introducing him to a young, beautiful vixen named Vixey. Tod first tries to impress Vixey by catching a fish, only to fail, causing Vixey and the other animals of the game preserve to laugh at him. Angry and hurt, Tod tells Vixey that she's "a silly, empty-headed...female!" Angered, they refuse to speak to each other, but Big Mama intervenes with the song "Appreciate the Lady" and directs Tod in being himself, and Vixey to give him another chance. They get along very well once Tod admits his lack of survival skills. Vixey is now aware of his inability to survive in the wild and helps him adapt. This also seems to bring Vixey and Tod closer in a romantic light.

The vengeful Slade and Copper trespass into the preserve to kill Tod with leghold traps and guns. The result is a harrowing chase throughout the forest trying to catch Tod and Vixey that climaxes when Slade and Copper inadvertently provoke an attack from a disturbed bear. Slade gets off only a single shot before he trips and gets caught in one of his own leghold traps and his gun falls just out of his reach. Copper fights the bear but is nearly killed in a very vicious fight. Against his better judgment, Tod intervenes to save his friend. He fights the much larger bear and ends up luring him on to a fallen trunk that breaks and sends the two falling down a waterfall.

Tod survives and meets Copper at shore, stunned at Tod's heroism for his sake in spite of current events. However, Slade does not share any gratitude and suddenly appears, still vindictively eager to kill the fox. Copper makes the moral decision of interposing his body in front of Tod, and Slade, reluctant to kill his own hound for a petty vendetta against a fox who had just saved their lives, is forced to give up and return home. The fox and hound share one final smile before going their separate ways and at the same time, Squeeks the caterpillar is turned into a butterfly while Dinky and Boomer are watching through his hole in order to eat him (throughout the film, Dinky and Boomer are always trying to eat Squeeks but are outsmarted by him every time).

In the final scene, Copper rests in his dog house, he hears Tod's voice of when they were young saying that they would be friends forever. He smiles at this, and falls asleep. The view then backs out to a small hill, where Vixey joins Tod, looking at both houses.

[edit] Cast

Mickey Rooney ... Tod

Kurt Russell... Copper

Pearl Bailey ... Big Mama

Jack Albertson ... Amos Slade

Sandy Duncan ... Vixey

Jeanette Nolan ... Widow Tweed

Pat Buttram... Chief

John McIntire ... The Badger

John Fiedler ... The Porcupine

Richard Bakalyan ... Dinky

Paul Winchell ... Boomer

Keith Coogan ... Young Tod

Corey Feldman ... Young Copper

Clarence Nash ... Bear

[edit] Making of the film

This film represented a changing of the guard of the animators creating the film from Walt Disney's "nine old men" to the more recently trained Disney animators who had moved through the in-house animation training program begun in 1976.[2][3]

The story was based on Daniel Mannix's 1967 book The Fox and the Hounds. The original novel ended with a hunter nailing Tod's lifeless pelt to the wall then shooting Copper with his shotgun.

The story was changed to be more Disney-like with a happy ending (though not a traditional one) and was the last work of the remaining original animators. Don Bluth worked as an animator on this film, but left Disney early in the production, taking 11 Disney animators (which comprised 17% of the production staff) with him to start his own rival studio, Don Bluth Productions. This studio, which eventually became Sullivan Bluth Studios, was Disney's main rival through the 1980s and produced The Secret of NIMH and a number of other well-known films. As a result of Bluth's defection, production on The Fox and the Hound was delayed by nearly six months. Bluth animated Widow Tweed and her cow, Abigail, and his team worked on the rest of the sequence.

The co-directors for the film were Ted Berman, Richard Rich, and Art Stevens.

Berman previously had credits as a character animator for the 1961 feature film One Hundred and One Dalmatians and writer for the 1977 film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. He would later be co-director for the 1985 film The Black Cauldron.

Rich had been a Disney employee since 1972 but this was his first major assignment. He would also serve as a co-director for The Black Cauldron. He would later found Rich Animation Studios.

Stevens was previously credited as a character animator for the 1953 Peter Pan, the previously mentioned One Hundred and One Dalmatians and the 1973 Robin Hood. He had also previously directed the 1977 film The Rescuers.

Originally, the writers of the film intended for Chief to die when he got hit by the train, so that Copper's revenge against Tod is more extreme. Story veteran Vance Gerry argued for the department: "But he gets hit in the kisser with a freight train!!" To which Ron Miller and co-director Art Stevens countered: "Geez, we never killed a main character in a Disney film and we're not starting now!" As was also the case in Lady and the Tramp, where Trusty is seemingly killed but in a later scene has recovered, Chief suffers major injuries but is saved from death.[citation needed]

John Lasseter started out working at Disney on this film and others such as Mickey's Christmas Carol before leaving to join Pixar in 1986.[4] With Disney's purchasing of Pixar, Lasseter has gone full circle and has returned to the company he started his career with.

Other new animators who worked on this film and some of their future successes:

[edit] Release history

It was released on VHS on March 4, 1994 and was the last video of the "Walt Disney Classics" collection (it was not included in the "Masterpiece Collection").

The Fox and the Hound was released on "Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection" DVD on May 2, 2000.

A single-disc 25th anniversary Special Edition DVD of The Fox and the Hound was released on October 10, 2006.

[edit] International release dates

[edit] Critical reaction

Although the film was a financial success, the general reaction by film critics to the film was mixed. Many were disappointed that the predominantly young creative staff, many of whom had only recently joined the company, had produced a film that seemed very conservative in both concept and execution. Other critics, like Richard Corliss of Time Magazine, praised the film for its intelligent story about prejudice. He argued the film shows that prejudiced attitudes can poison even the deepest relationships, and the film's bittersweet ending delivers a powerful and important moral message to audiences.

Nevertheless, the film gained a considerable following and it was awarded a Golden Screen Award at the Goldene Leinwand Awards in 1982. It was also nominated for a Young Artist Award and the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film.

[edit] Soundtrack Listing

  • "Best of Friends" Music by Richard Johnston, Lyrics by Stan Fidel, Performed by Pearl Bailey
  • "Lack of Education" Music and Lyrics by Jim Stafford, Performed by Pearl Bailey
  • "A Huntin' Man" Music and Lyrics by Jim Stafford, Performed by Jack Albertson
  • "Appreciate the Lady" Music and Lyrics by Jim Stafford, Performed by Pearl Bailey
  • "Goodbye May Seem Forever" Music by Richard Rich, Lyrics by Jeffrey Patch, Performed by Jeanette Nolan

[edit] External links

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Disney theatrical animated features
Official canon
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) • Pinocchio (1940) • Fantasia (1940) • Dumbo (1941) • Bambi (1942) • Saludos Amigos (1942) • The Three Caballeros (1944) • Make Mine Music (1946) • Fun and Fancy Free (1947) • Melody Time (1948) • The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) • Cinderella (1950) • Alice in Wonderland (1951) • Peter Pan (1953) • Lady and the Tramp (1955) • Sleeping Beauty (1959) • One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) • The Sword in the Stone (1963) • The Jungle Book (1967) • The Aristocats (1970) • Robin Hood (1973) • The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) • The Rescuers (1977) • The Fox and the Hound (1981) • The Black Cauldron (1985) • The Great Mouse Detective (1986) • Oliver & Company (1988) • The Little Mermaid (1989) • The Rescuers Down Under (1990) • Beauty and the Beast (1991) • Aladdin (1992) • The Lion King (1994) • Pocahontas (1995) • The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) • Hercules (1997) • Mulan (1998) • Tarzan (1999) • Fantasia 2000 (1999) • The Emperor's New Groove (2000) • Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) • Lilo & Stitch (2002) • Treasure Planet (2002) • Brother Bear (2003) • Home on the Range (2004) • Chicken Little (2005) • Meet the Robinsons (2007) • Bolt (2008) • The Princess and the Frog (2009) • Rapunzel (2010) • King of the Elves (2012)
Live-action films
with animation
The Reluctant Dragon (1941) • Victory Through Air Power (1943) • Song of the South (1946) • So Dear to My Heart (1949) • Mary Poppins (1964) • Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) • Pete's Dragon (1977) • Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) • Enchanted (2007)
DisneyToon
features
Other
See also