The Fox and the Hound (film)
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| The Fox and the Hound | |
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| 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 Pearl Bailey Jack Albertson |
| Music by | Buddy Baker |
| Distributed by | Walt Disney Pictures Buena Vista Distribution |
| Release date(s) | July 10, 1981 (USA) |
| Running time | 83 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | The Rescuers (1977) |
| Followed by | The Black Cauldron (1985) |
| IMDb profile | |
The Fox and the Hound is the twenty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. The film was first released to movie theatres in the U.S. by July 10, 1981. A direct-to-video midquel, The Fox and the Hound 2, will be released on December 12, 2006. It is loosely based on the Daniel P. Mannix novel The Fox and the Hound.
Contents |
[edit] Characters
- Tod: A young fox whose mother was killed by a hunter. Fortunately, a loving widow who lived nearby took him in and raised him to adulthood. Young and naive, he foolishly makes friends with a hound pup named Copper, but their friendship becomes strained by the fact that Copper's owner, Amos Slade, hates any fox that isn't dead. Tod never quite understands what is going on until the end, growing up out of the forest.
- Copper: A young bloodhound belonging to Amos Slade. Copper befriends Tod at the beginning of the movie. He is a fast learner through growing up. In his first year hunting he tops Chief.
- Chief: Slade's senior hunting dog. He is cantankerous, and he shares his master's philosophy that the only good fox is a dead fox.
- Amos Slade: Slade is a grizzled old hunter who will kill just about anything wild, but for unknown reasons has a special hatred of foxes (it may have something to do with the fact that he keeps chickens).
- Widow Tweed: The kindly old lady who took Tod in and raised him as a pet.
- Big Mama: A kindly lady owl who takes Tod under her wing on several occasions. Unlike most Disney Owls she is more of a "village do-gooder" than a wise sage but that doesn't stop her from giving wise advice. It is she who recruits the help of Dinky and Boomer, two other birds, in getting the Widow Tweed to take care of Tod, and later she advises him on the perils of hanging around with a hound dog. Her last really important job in the movie is establishing the romance between Tod and Vixey.
- Vixey: A lady fox (a vixen; hence the name) with whom Tod forms a relationship following his release into the wild. She is much more attuned to nature, so it is only natural that she tends to be a step ahead of Tod; When she comments that "Six would be just right," it seems clear to the viewer that she is talking about the number of kids she would like to have, but Tod is completely in the dark.
- Boomer and Dinky: Two friends, a hairy woodpecker and sparrow, respectively, who were commonly seen either helping Big Mama act out a plan or, more humorously, trying to catch Squeeks, a caterpillar. The latter pursuit invariably saw the avian duo getting the short end of the stick, suffering every misery imaginable including getting fried by electric wires.
- "Bear": An unnamed bear that was accidentally woken up by Copper and Slade. He breaks a log above a waterfall, which sends him and Tod downward. He is never seen again from that point on, and is presumed dead.
- Squeeks: a caterpillar. Boomer and Dinky are seen at various times trying (unsuccessfully) to catch him. At the end of the movie, Squeeks becomes a butterfly and flies away.
- Porcupine: A porcupine in the reserve that Tod is dropped off in, he tries to explain to the badger exactly what happened to Tod, but it doesn't really work for Tod. He gives Tod shelter the first night in the reserve.
- Badger: A badger in the same reserve, he is first seen when Tod intrudes on his home, as Tod was new to the reserve and didn't know anyone lived there. The morning after the intrusion, Tod falls from the porcupine's tree directly onto the entrance to the badger's home, causing the badger to blow up at Tod. After the porcupine tells the badger of Tod and what he's been through, the badger simply tells Tod to go back to where he came from, not knowing that Tod couldn't.
[edit] Plot summary
A young red fox cub is left orphaned when his mother is killed. A kindly owl, named Big Mama, arranges him to be adopted by the compassionate Widow Tweed as a pet on her farm who names him Tod. Shortly after that, Tweed's neighbor, an ill tempered hunter named Amos Slade, brings home a young hound puppy named Copper.
The two young animals meet and quickly form a fast friendship they feel will last forever. However, Chief and Slade the hunter grow frustrated with Copper wandering off to play. 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 goes disastrously wrong when he inadvertently awakens the hunter's mean older dog, Chief, who promptly chases him throughout the farm with Slade shooting at him as well. Although the pursuit is stopped by the furious Widow Tweed, 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 meets him, thinking their friendship unchanged. Copper explains that he is a hunting dog now, and that they can no longer be friends.
Chief awakens and chases Tod along with Slade. Tod finds a hiding place. Copper finds him, but diverts Chief and Slade so that Tod can escape. Chief maintains the pursuit up on 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. Copper swears revenge on Tod for causing the accident.
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 beautiful vixen, named Vixey, and the two hit it off well. Vixey is amused greatly by Tod's inability to survive in the wild and helps him adapt.
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 that climaxes when Slade and Copper inadvertently provoke an attack from a disturbed bear. Against his better judgment, Tod intervenes to save his friend. He fights the much larger bear and ends up luring the bear on to a fallen trunk that breaks and sends the two falling down a waterfall.
Tod survives and meets Copper at shore, who is 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 best 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. Amos Slade hurts his leg from the traps he left, and Tweed helps him recover. Amos Slade and Widow Tweed become good friends. However, Tod and Copper realize that they can no longer be close as they were as children, and they go their separate ways.
[edit] Cast
- Mickey Rooney as Tod
- Kurt Russell as Copper
- Pearl Bailey as Big Mama
- Jack Albertson as Amos Slade
- Jeanette Nolan as Widow Tweed
- Pat Buttram as Chief
- Keith Coogan as Young Tod
- Corey Feldman as Young Copper
- Sandy Duncan as Vixey
- Paul Winchell as Boomer
- Richard Bakalyan as Dinky
- John Fiedler as The Porcupine
- John McIntire as The Grumpy Badger
[edit] Supervising animators
- Randy Cartwright
- Glen Keane (The Bear)
- Cliff Nordberg
- Ron Clements
- Frank Thomas
- Ollie Johnston
[edit] Production
The co-directors for the film were Ted Berman (December 17, 1919 - July 15, 2001), 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 the Rich Animation Studios. Their best known film is arguably the 1994 film The Swan Princess.
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.
Don Bluth worked as an animator on this film, but left Disney partway through production, taking several Disney animators with him to start a rival studio which would later produce The Secret of NIMH and several other films.
This film is unusual in that it was the only Disney film during the 1980's not produced in widescreen. Since most films were eventually to be broadcast on television, and since this was a cost-cutting solution for its troubled production schedule, like many other animated films at the time (e.g. The Care Bears Movie), the filmmakers did not take the option of widescreen production. Evidence of this is shown in a photograph on the documentary "Passing the Baton", in which a studio projector shows a scene not covering the full 16:9 screen.
Originally, the writers of the film wanted Chief to die when he got hit by the train, to make Copper's revenge against Tod more extreme. However, that idea was scrapped because of the mistakes the Disney crew learned from making "Bambi" and a similar event in "Lady and the Tramp". Like Bambi, Tod's mother is also killed, but she was only on screen for three minutes, unlike Bambi's mother being a major character. Nonetheless some viewers find the death of Tod's mother to be as shattering as that of Bambi's.
[edit] Release history
The Fox and the Hound was released in theatres in 1981 and 1988. It was the last VHS video of the "Classics Collection" in 1994 (it was not included in the "Masterpiece Collection"). It was released on "Gold Collection" DVD in 2000.
On October 10th, 2006, The Fox and the Hound 25th Anniversary Special Edition was released.
[edit] Critical reaction
The Fox and the Hound remains unusual among Disney films in that it (together with 1995's Pocahontas) does not have a traditional happy ending (This is rather disputed, but generally regarded to be the case in spite of the difficulty which comes with trying to judge a "happy ending" objectively). Though in comparison to the book this is a happy ending.
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.
[edit] Trivia
- This movie represented a changing of the guard of the animators creating the film from Walt's Disney's "nine old men" to more recently trained Disney animators. The studio had started an in house animation training program in 1976.[1]
- In the scene where Tod tries to find shelter in the woods during a rainstorm, we see a family of ducks in animation lifted from Disney's 1942 feature Bambi. Also borrowed in the movie are a twice-appearing family of quail (again from Bambi) and a squirrel whose appearance is identical to Wart / Arthur as a squirrel in The Sword in the Stone.
- The last Disney animated feature to begin with the complete opening credits and end with a "The End: Walt Disney Productions" credit, like all previous Disney films after Alice in Wonderland. The next Disney animated feature, The Black Cauldron, was the first to have closing credits.
- The last Disney animated feature to be made with entirely analogue techniques.
- The first Disney animated feature not to use line overlay since The Jungle Book.
- Tim Burton did design work on the film.
- In the Disney Channel Original Series, The Emperor's New School episode, "The Big Fight", Kuzco gets turned into a kitten and he also resembles Tod.
[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] References
[edit] External links
- The Fox and the Hound at the Internet Movie Database
- A profile of the film and its characters
- Detailed Info on The Fox and the Hound including Don Bluth's involvement
