The Fox and the Hound (1981)

We’ve reached a critical point in the Disney story. A time of great change and greater turmoil, where seeds are sown for the old to give way to the new. Soon, something beautiful will rise from the ashes of the ailing animation studio. But not quite yet. First, we have the Fox and the Hound.

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One day, the man of a thousand mysteries, Wolfgang Reitherman, read a book by Daniel Mannix called The Fox and the Hound, where a hunting hound chases a semi-domesticated fox through a forest that’s gradually turned into a housing development until the fox dies of exhaustion after escaping a rabies epidemic and the elderly hunter has to shoot the hound in the head because his retirement home doesn’t allow dogs. He thought this would make a fun animated movie for the whole family because his son had a pet fox. Um. Okay. This is probably the least family-friendly source material in the entire canon and I say that as a Hunchback apologist but go off Woolie.

By this point, Reitherman, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston were the last of Walt’s Nine Old Men still working at the studio. All of the others had either retired or died. Even these three were starting to have trouble drawing- their hands weren’t as steady, their eyes getting weak. So, as much as they hated to admit it, it was time to pass the torch. Fortunately, a partnership with CalArts and Disney’s own in-house animation program had churned out a whole host of future legends to rise to the challenge. Glen Keane, Andy Gaskill, Ron Clements, and Andreas Deja are back after working on the Rescuers, but that’s not all. They’re joined here by even more big names, including Brad Bird, John Lassetter, Henry Sellick, John Musker, Chris Buck, Mark Henn Mark Dindal, and every Disney Goth’s favorite guy, Tim. Freaking. Burton.

But the transition was not a smooth one. The old guard and the new kids constantly butted heads, especially Reitherman, the original director. CEO Ron Miller tried to mediate, but it didn’t work. Even now, very few of those animation superstars remember this film fondly because the senior animators were such incredible control freaks, unwilling to let the newer guys take chances or try new things. Glen Keane was reprimanded for delegating animation to inbetweeners without permission, even though management agreed that the film looked better for it. Brad Bird got himself fired for standing up to the studio heads who failed to live up to the art that inspired him to become an animator in the first place. And poor Tim Burton actually had a nervous breakdown trying to animate the cute foxes that were so far from his twisted, Gothic style. By his own admission, his art looked like roadkill and it wasn’t uncommon to find him hiding under his desk or in closets. And then there’s the time he got his wisdom teeth pulled and wandered around the office bleeding and biting people. So, yeah. Tensions were a little high.

One animator decided enough was enough. Don Bluth started with Disney around Sleeping Beauty and was one of the most seasoned of the new batch of animators. He considered studio leadership to be completely out of touch and particularly despised Reitherman. After incidents like being told to shut up when asking to color the Rescuers’ eyes or being forced to do double the work on Pete’s Dragon without a time extension, a higher budget, or even overtime, he was done. On his 40th birthday, he dropped his resignation on Ron Miller’s desk. His collaborators Gary Goldman, John Pomeroy, and 17% of the animation staff joined him, including nearly all of the studio’s female animators so that’s not a great look any way you slice it. Together, they created Sullivan-Bluth Studios and got to work on a big-budget animated feature called Secret of Nimh, which would be released the following year. For more than forty years, Disney was the only major American studio making animated feature films, but all that had just changed. Now they had serious competition for the first time in their history. And that would in turn kick the stagnant studio into creative high gear at long last.

The aftershocks of that little shakeup will keep resonating throughout the animation department (and maybe the live-action, I actually don’t know) for quite a while. But first, let’s see what happened to the rest of the old guard. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston retired during production after completing some work on Tod and Copper. Their story ends pretty quietly. But Woolie, Woolie, Woolie… Reitherman insisted that the second act of the film needed some levity and championed a song named, I kid you not, “Scoobie Doobie Doobie Doo, Let Your Body Turn to Goo” that was to take place directly after Goodbye May Seem Forever. Because I think this man stopped understanding emotions sometime after Dalmatians.

This song would have been sung by singer-actress Charo and Reitherman’s favorite guy Phil Harris. Again. We get it, dude, you’re a fan. No one else really liked the number, but it got as far as live-action reference footage with Charo in a sweaty pink leotard (have fun with that mental image, I know I am). Finally, though, the other co-director, the much younger Art Stevens, successfully cut it. Afterward, Reitherman reportedly collapsed in a chair and declared that he might just be too old for this. Shortly after, he retired, and shortly after that, he passed away in a car accident. Which, even though I consider his work to have declined dramatically after the early 60s, is a sad way to go. Stevens, who also worked on Rescuers, was joined by Richard Rich (who would go on to direct, produce, and write The Swan Princess) and Ted Berman (who wrote on Rescuers and Bedknobs and Broomsticks) in the directors’ chair following his departure.

After all that drama behind the scenes, the finished film was met with a resounding… meh? It did make money, but the critics were decidedly ambivalent. It was a fine kids’ film, but a very safe one that showed very little in the way of actual innovation. Worse, the general consensus was that there was very little here to entertain adults. The filmmakers were clearly trying to make a point about prejudice and elicit strong emotions, but critics felt they backed down every time they quite got there.

I know I have at least one reader who’s very excited for me to tackle this one. It’s surprisingly popular for such a lowkey little movie. But sadly, I’m inclined to agree with the critics of the time on this one. I very much appreciate the attempt at a deeper meaning, and I see what they’re aiming for with the racism allegory and the nature vs nurture theme. That’s all great. But I feel that the turmoil at the studio shows through onscreen. The oldtimers’ fear of change hurts what they’re trying to say really badly. It’s a movie I wish I liked more than I do, but hey! Better days are ahead.

STORY

These opening credits are already notable for being the last opening credits in a Disney animated film, but they’re also unusual in that they’re dead silent. It’s a full two minutes before we hear a sound, and even that’s just bird song and distant barking. It’s like the opening pan of Bambi, except really unsettling despite the lovely imagery. And that’s by design. The dogs get closer, and when the music finally kicks in it’s a jarring scare chord as a mother fox runs for her life with her kit in her mouth. It’s a very strong opening reminiscent of Escape to Witch Mountain sets us up for an exciting, action-packed story. Unfortunately, we do not get that, but the scene’s still very good in a vacuum.

The vixen bolts through the woods with the dogs in hot pursuit. An owl named Big Mama watches as the vixen hides her kit in the tall grass beneath a fence post. It’s his best chance. The hounds catch up, and the vixen runs, but it’s too late. A shot rings out. We don’t see it, but Big Mama’s gasp says it all. Disney has continued a long, grand tradition of dead moms. And five minutes in, too. Not many Disney animated films open with this kind of intensity. I’m kind of impressed. By the way, I don’t think she’s really a big enough character for a spot in Characters because that section’s already going to be long, but Big Mama is voiced by the legendary blues singer Pearl Bailey. She was the first Black woman to receive the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and won a Tony for the title role in an all-Black production of Hello, Dolly. She’s kind of amazing and tragically underused in this movie. Anyway, Big Mama approaches the now-orphaned fox kit, but when he tries to nurse, she realizes she’s not really equipped for this being a bird and all. So, to help find someone to look after Tod, she enlists the help of… these fine folks.

Dinky and Boomer here are bar-none the absolute rock bottom worst comedic (?) sidekicks in the entire Disney canon. They’re worse than the gargoyles. They’re worse than Gurgi. They’re not funny, they’re completely pointless, and large swaths of this short movie are dedicated to irritating shenanigans that I do not care about. Dinky the Finch is Richard Bakalyan in his final Disney appearance, basically playing a gangster in the form of a bird, and Boomer the Woodpecker is Paul Winchell not even bothering to hide that he’s Tigger. This is the only scene in the entire movie where they’re actually relevant. Under Big Mama’s direction, they pull laundry off a clothesline. The owner, the kindly dairy farmer Widow Tweed, frantically runs out swatting at them until they drop her clothes right on top of the kit. One look and her heart melts. The birds look on, pleased with a job well done as she bottle-feeds him like a toddler. And you know, Tod would make a great name for him. It even comes from an old English word for fox!

Next door, Widow Tweed’s neighbor Amos Slade, drives home with a sack in hand. He’s a fur trapper by trade, and his hunting hound Chief thinks he’s brought him a little snack. But it’s not food. It’s a tiny bloodhound puppy with the cutest lil wrinkles on his lil face! Baby Copper is a triumph of character animation. Amos tasks Chief with looking after the pup, much to Chief’s dismay. At first, Chief is annoyed with this young upstart, but it’s impossible to stay mad when an adorable little puppy falls asleep on you. That’s just science.

Time passes, and we catch up to Widow Tweed milking her cow Abigail. Tod gambols around her feet exploring the barn. He’s kind of making a nuisance of himself but she doesn’t mind. Unfortunately, the second she turns her back, Tod decides to investigate the chicken coop. The chickens only know he’s a predator and they’re prey, so they understandably freak out at the fox in the henhouse and chaos ensues. After a lot of slapstick, Widow Tweed manages to calm everyone down. She starts to scold Tod for causing trouble, but he is also far too adorable to actually stay mad. So rather than discipline him or train her pet at all, she sends him outside unsupervised. I know she’s supposed to be the nice one of the two humans but wow this woman is the worst pet owner on the planet.

Bored and lonely, Tod asks Dinky and Boomer if they want to play. But they’re too busy to even give him the time of day. So we have to wait for our two title characters to meet and instead get several minutes of these idiots failing to catch a caterpillar named Squeaks. This is all they do for the rest of the movie. It’s not interesting the first time, and it’s less interesting the fifth time. I’ve seen people who like this movie more than I do read this as a mirror of the dogs’ pursuit of the foxes, much like Lucifer’s pursuit of the mice mirrors Lady Tremaine’s persecution of Cinderella. That, in my not-so-humble opinion, is a load of garbage. Cinderella helps the mice escape the cat, so the first chance they get, the mice help her escape her own abusers. The two stories are very closely tied together, they come together in the end, and they work quite well. Not so much here. They just eat up screen time while Tod wanders off to find something else to do.

Tod chases a butterfly over the wall dividing Widow Tweed’s property from Amos’s. At the same time, the little puppy, now called Copper, smells something new and strange. Against Chief’s warnings that Amos wants him to stay put, Copper follows the scent trail. Again, I have to point out that Amos clearly doesn’t want him to leave the property so badly that he didn’t leash him or crate him or anything. Anyway, Copper’s nose leads him to an old hollow log. Tod cheerfully engages him in conversation, and Copper realizes he’s the source of that new smell. So, because he’s a very good boy, he howls just like Chief taught him. And it is the cutest thing. It’s very clearly just the child actor saying “A-roo-roo-roo!” but oh my god it is precious. The two kids introduce themselves and just like that, they’re the best of friends. The two spend an idyllic summer wrestling, playing hide and seek, joining a country-western band, and swimming in the lake while Big Mama looks on, marveling at the fact that these two opposing forces could get along so well.

On the rare occasions you find merchandise of this movie, 99% of the time it’ll be this scene. This is obviously because the adorable babies are much more marketable, but it warps the pop cultural perception of how important this friendship is. In context, it comes off more like two kids who met in a McDonald’s play place and had a grand old time before their moms called them and they never saw each other again. Montaging right over the happy part of their friendship really hurts the story, because I don’t feel like the relationship is established strongly enough to make it meaningful when things fall apart. It’s a metaphor for race relations by the animators’ own admission, but it can also be applied to sexuality or gender identity or any other social group of your choosing. More on this later, but the point being made is that there’s really nothing stopping them from being friends but social pressure, represented by Amos calling Copper home. And I would much rather develop either the film’s core relationship or those ideas, preferably both, than have to watch those stupid birds.

Amos stomps through the woods calling for his runaway pup, furious even though he’s really tried absolutely nothing to stop it from happening. Tod and Copper promise to see each other tomorrow, but Copper doesn’t show up. So, Tod goes over to Amos’s place and finds Copper tied to his barrel. It’s not an ideal situation by any means but Tod makes the best of it by trying to play wrestle right here on Amos’s land. Copper warns him to stay away and go home so Chief doesn’t wake up, but Tod is incapable of listening and walks right into the sleeping hound’s barrel. Copper begs him to knock it off, so Tod messes with his face and mocks him for talking in his sleep about the hunt he’s on. Shock! Amazement! He follows his dream trail right back to the waking world and spots the fox dangling right in front of his mouth!

Suddenly, Tod has to reckon with the consequences of his own actions. Chief strains so hard to chase him that he pulls his barrel right off the ground, forcing Tod to hide in the nearest structure. Unfortunately, that structure is Amos’s chicken coop. We pull the fox in the hen house bit for the second time, and Amos isn’t nearly as understanding as Widow Tweed. In his (slight) defense, this does look really bad, but grabbing his shotgun and blasting away at Tod is a little much even if he did graduate from the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy. He doesn’t stop when Tod escapes into Widow Tweed’s car, either, just leaps into his own truck and fires away, shooting holes in her milk jugs and coming within inches of shooting the widow herself.

Enough’s enough, and Widow Tweed stops her car to put an end to this madness by seizing his shotgun and shooting at his car. He goes berserk as if he didn’t just try to murder her pet and almost kill her in the process, calling her ‘female’ in a derogatory way. Charming. I’d give the movie a pass for this if it were just Amos because he’s the villain and he’s supposed to be icky, but it’s not just Amos so like. Come on, writers. When he stops spewing gendered insults, he accuses Tod of attacking his chickens, which Widow Tweed doesn’t believe for a second. Incensed, Amos threatens to shoot Tod if he ever comes near his land again. It would be frightening, but he’s such a terrible shot that it almost makes you wonder how he became a hunter at all.

Out of an abundance of caution, Widow Tweed has no choice but to keep Tod locked up in her house. But it looks like his captivity won’t last long. Barking draws her attention to the window, and she and Tod see Amos loading the dogs and some supplies into the truck. They’re heading off for a hunting trip until the following spring, ample time for Copper to learn the tricks of the trade. Widow Tweed’s not sorry to see the back of him, but Tod sneaks out the window to say his goodbyes. But he doesn’t make it in time. All he can do is watch them go while Copper gives the saddest ‘roo roo roo’ you ever heard in your life.

Dejected, Tod sits gloomily outside his friend’s barrel. Big Mama warns that he shouldn’t have come over here because while Copper might be his friend, Chief most certainly isn’t. Tod’s not scared of the big nasty wolfhound that chased him while Amos shot at him just yesterday. At this point, Big Mama decides it’s time to remedy his Lack of Education and warn him that Copper can’t be his friend. Copper’s learning to track and kill animals, especially foxes, and Tod needs to keep his distance for his own safety. Tod is physically incapable of listening and won’t believe someone he cares about could do something so terrible. It’s time for a little tough love, so Dinky and Boomer show Tod Amos’s shed full of fox skins. Possibly including his own mother. It’s a little like introducing a small child to the concept of death by showing them House of 1000 Corpses. Also, Brad Bird absolutely animated this scene and you cannot tell me otherwise because this exact scene happens in Ratatouille. Tod turns to Big Mama for comfort but remains convinced Copper won’t change, and Big Mama can’t bear to break his heart more.

Autumn turns to winter. The stupid birds still can’t catch the stupid caterpillar and I really don’t care. Squeaks hides in Widow Tweed’s house and Dinky and Boomer fly south for the winter. Please do not come back. Meanwhile, Copper has the time of his life playing in the snow while Chief tries and fails to keep him on task. But time passes, and Copper learns to successfully imitate Chief and rack up a whole big pile of furs. Many of them are fox furs. Gotta wonder if there was a crisis of conscience there at all. He quickly becomes Amos’s favorite dog and earns the coveted seat up front that used to be Chief’s. Winter turns into spring, and unfortunately, the birds come back to waste more of my time gushing about how much Tod has grown. Amos returns with the dogs, too, celebrating being a successful Huntin’ Man with a rousing song much to Chief’s chagrin. Tod is so thrilled to see his old friend that he doesn’t notice the mass slaughter in the back of the truck.

Despite Big Mama’s warnings, Tod’s kind of an idiot and sneaks over to see Copper in the dead of night. Copper’s happy to see him, but their friendship is over. It has to be. Tod may not have seen all those fox skins, but Copper sure saw the foxes get skinned, and he can’t bear to see that happen to his old friend. He warns Tod to leave for his own safety, but Tod’s still in shock that the thing he’s been warned about for several months happened. So he doesn’t move. Sure enough, Chief wakes up and tears after Tod, alerting Amos to make good on his threat to shoot him. Fortunately, his aim is still terrible. I really don’t know how he got all these skins. They chase Tod through the countryside, over the mountains, all the way to a trestle bridge. Copper finds him hiding under the tracks, torn between his friendship with Tod and his loyalty to Amos. Finally, he leaves Tod alone and pretends the trail continues past the hunting spot.

Thinking he’s free and clear, Tod tears across the train tracks. Chief spots him and gives chase. Apparently, this is the same universe as Amy because neither of them feels, sees, or hears the train coming until it’s too late. Tod dives under the tracks at the last second, but Chief does not. He takes a freight train to the face, falls like 50 feet, and lands face first on the rocks below. Horrified, Copper runs to his side. All thoughts are friendship are gone as he vows revenge on his former friend for daring to be in the vicinity of the accident. Amos storms to Widow Tweed’s house, raving and waving his shotgun, swearing he’s going to kill the fox that almost killed Chief WAIT woah woah what hold on no wait.

ALMOST?!?!?!?!?!

The major conflict in this movie almost happens. The entire rest of this already thin, padded plot hinges on Chief dying and Copper and Amos starting a blood vendetta against the fox that just kinda happened to be nearby. And you can tell Chief was supposed to die because he’s not in much of the rest of the movie. Story artists and future director/writers Ron Clements and John Musker even said as much, but director Art Stevens overruled them. He said they’d never killed off a major character in a Disney movie, which is not how I remember Bambi. And this is the less out-of-touch replacement director, making a decision so idiotic that the entire rest of the movie completely unravels from here. No wonder critics thought this movie was too safe! The new blood wanted so badly to tell a more daring, dramatic story but were forced by the aging sticks-in-the-mud to back off at every turn that could have made this movie really good. HRRGH.

I didn’t realize I was this passionate about The Fox and the Hound.

Anyway, Widow Tweed tells Amos to pound sand. But this is the second time he’s threatened her life while threatening the life of her pet. And she realizes that she can’t shut Tod in the house for the rest of his life. What follows is widely considered one of the saddest moments in the entire Disney canon. Maybe it’s because I’m still fuming over the previous scene, maybe because the song is so bad (yeah I said it), but it doesn’t quite have that same effect on me. Don’t worry, though, I am not some kind of heartless monster that doesn’t cry at The Fox and the Hound. Just not yet. With tears in her eyes, Widow Tweed takes Tod out to a local game preserve. Tod doesn’t understand what’s happening and is just happy to go bye-byes in the car. But he quickly realizes his mom’s sad and tries to cheer her up with snuggles and kisses. But it’s not enough. When they get to the forest, she unclips his collar and hugs him goodbye. He tries to follow her, but she tells him to stay put. And the domesticated fox who cannot survive in the wild can only watch, confused, as she abandons him.

That’s not just me overthinking this either. Tod has no idea how to survive in the wild, and a storm kicks up because it’s a sad scene in an animated movie. He struggles through the wind and rain past some recycled animation from Bambi and Sword in the Stone until he finds a likely-looking cave. Whoops, nope, it’s occupied by a very grumpy badger named Mr. Digger, voiced by John McIntire aka Rufus in The Rescuers. A friendly porcupine with the unmistakable voice of Jon “Piglet” Fiedler intervenes, inviting Tod to share his burrow. And this is how I learned that there are porcupines in North America. Like right now. In my 30s.

Meanwhile, Amos watches Widow Tweed return home sad and fox-less. He makes a huge leap of logic to deduce that he’s at the game preserve based on vibes I guess. Meanwhile, Chief, miraculously alive and inexplicably nursing one broken leg, watches from the other room. Far from being tragically wounded, he’s having the time of his life getting to sleep inside by the fire with all the table scraps he can eat. Amos isn’t even concerned about him! He snaps at him to go away when he plays up his injury for attention! So what are we even doing here? This whole obsession with killing Tod is for absolutely no reason! Chief. Is. Fine. And yet, Amos bought some shiny new bear traps capable of snapping a thick branch in half – or a fox’s leg.

Morning comes and the storm ends. Big Mama flies through the forest trying to make sure Tod didn’t die of exposure during the night. She thinks she finds him, but it’s only Vixey. You know, Vixey! The dialogue acts like she’s been here the whole time instead of introducing a new major character twenty minutes before the end. The second she hears that Big Mama’s looking for a boy fox, she’s all about looking for him, especially when she hears he’s handsome. Awesome. Love that this is still where we are as a society when it comes to female representation. Her extreme thirstiness sparks an idea in Big Mama because she’s a girl fox and he’s a boy fox so obviously they HAVE to hook up. It’s the epitome of a romance shoehorned into a movie that doesn’t need it, which always makes me crazy and it’s baaad here. You don’t take time to develop Tod and Copper’s friendship and you’re wasting my time with this nonsense? Get outta here.

Tod gets a rude awakening when the porcupine accidentally jabs him with his spines. Unfortunately, he falls right into Mr. Digger’s burrow, earning more vitriol from the cantankerous badger. He even tells him to go back where he came from, in case the bigotry metaphor was too subtle. Dejected, Tod slinks off to sit alone in the clearing, and that’s where Big Mama and Vixey find him. Big Mama knows nothing cheers a guy up like some smoochin’, so she goes over to Tod and basically goes ‘hey look at that!’ And the second he sees Vixey, Tod goes slack-jawed and forgets all about Widow Tweed. Some painfully awkward flirting happens while Big Mama watches and the annoying birds show up.

Vixey asks Tod to catch a fish for her, and Tod instantly seizes the opportunity to impress her. Problem: he’s never caught a fish in his life. That doesn’t stop him from bragging and trying to show off, and he fails spectacularly at fishing. Vixey bursts out laughing at his antics, and Tod’s fragile ego shatters. Okay, being a little sensitive after the night he had is to be expected, but our hero using female as an insult is not. These writers could have gotten away with this if it was just Amos because he’s the villain but no now it’s lookin’ really bad. To their credit, though, Vixey does not just take that lying down. Also, I’ve been biting my tongue on this the whole movie but so much of the dialogue feels like it was written for Leave It To Beaver and it is really jarring. Not that I’m expecting swearing or anything in a Disney animated film, but by the 80s no one had really said ‘gee whillikers’ for 40 years. It’s like if Moana was running around saying ‘groovy’ – it doesn’t fit. The biggest offender is in this scene, where Tod whines “‘aw raspberries.” Some of the studio bigwigs were out of touch? The devil you say?

Big Mama flies down to break up the fight and teach Tod to Appreciate the Lady because boys and girls just CANNOT be in the same general vicinity without hooking up. So now they’re all twitterpated and Vixey shows Tod the beauty of the forest. She also starts talking about kids on the first date because girls exist to be love interests and mothers and who cares that they’ve known each other for three minutes? Fairy tales get a pass on this. This thing does not. They snuggle up by a waterfall and we get the most obvious fade to black since Lady and the Tramp.

Back at the main plot, such as it is, Amos brings Copper out to the game preserve. They’re so bent on revenge for Chief being slightly inconvenienced that Amos cuts the barbed wire right next to a giant No Hunting sign and crosses the line into villainy. He gives the order and Copper sniffs out Tod’s trail straight to a watering hole, the perfect place to corner a fox. As we quickly see, it’s also not far from said fox’s new burrow, where he’s all snuggled up to Vixey. Amos sets an absurd number of traps on the very small trail between the burrow and the watering hole in the hopes that one of them will catch Tod. As they venture outside, Vixey suddenly freezes. The instincts she’s honed during a lifetime in the forest tell her something’s wrong, but he’s a Manly Man^TM and Manly Men^TM are always right even when it’s their first day in the wild. So she, being an empty-headed female, has no choice but to follow him into the glade.

By some miracle, Tod manages to miss every single trap. Amos tries to shoot the foxes but he still can’t aim to save his life. Seriously, dude, how are you a trapper? Tod orders Vixey to get to safety while he confronts his former friend. And it is not a happy reunion. All the syrupy sweetness from earlier is gone. Now it’s all red eyes and bared fangs. The animators did an incredible job portraying our leads as animals in a fight to the death, and if the rest of this movie was better this scene could stand alongside the Bambi-Ronno fight. It’s a very, very strong action scene, and a welcome relief after the absolute slog that was the middle of this movie. With Copper snarling and growling behind, Tod flees to the safety of the burrow, where Copper can’t fit.

The foxes try to escape out the back entrance, but Amos is there waiting for them. Between Copper’s fangs on one side and Amos’s gun on the other, Tod chooses the former and lunges at his old friend. Meanwhile, Vixey makes herself useful and screams Tod’s name a thousand times. Strong female characters! While the former friends brawl, Amos lights some dry brush on fire to smoke the foxes out. Tod scrambles to find a way out while Vixey cries and cowers behind him and not that this is not the perfect time to freak out when someone broke into her house and set it on fire but like come on. It’s either burn to death or maybe get shot so rather than face off against Amos’s atrocious marksmanship, so Tod steels himself and bursts through the flames while Amos shoots almost in their general direction.

SUDDENLY! GIANT BEAR! OUT OF FRICKIN’ NOWHERE!

Yes, the bear is an absolute triumph of animation, where you can really see the weight and muscle movement that made Glen Keane a legend when he animated the Beast. Yes, this movie excels at action scenes. But it’s a symptom of this movie’s subpar storytelling that its standout scene is not foreshadowed or really even related to the tragedy of Tod and Copper’s deteriorating friendship. It just kinda happens, like the newer staff were trying to figure out how to do a climax when the older ones wouldn’t allow them to include any actual drama in the main storyline. But hey, nothing else in the second half of this movie makes a lick of sense so sure. Bear attack. Why not?

Amos tries to shoot it but only makes the bear angry and earns a swipe from those massive paws. It is at this point that Amos realizes 87 bear traps might have been excessive for this small area, but it’s too late. One of them has already crushed his foot, trapping him in the path of the bear’s rampage. His Very Good Boy Copper leaps to save him, snapping and snarling and clinging to the monster bear for dear life. Amos gets free and limps towards his gun, and Copper loses his fight. The bear swats him aside and he lays there, dazed, vulnerable. Tod can’t watch his former best friend get mauled by a bear so he leaps to Copper’s aid. The bear chases him over a log by a raging waterfall, where Tod clings for dear life until another swipe smashes the log to pieces. Tod survives. The bear does not. Rip bear.

Badly injured and exhausted, Tod doesn’t have enough left in him to flee Amos. He collapses in the water, looking helpless at the hunter’s gun. Copper can’t bear to see his old friend in this condition, but he’s torn between his two greatest loyalties. But when Amos cocks the shotgun, he makes up his mind. If Amos kills Tod, he has to kill Copper, too. Amos orders him to move aside, but Copper stands firm, shielding his wounded friend with his body. And this is the part that summoned the onion-chopping ninjas. It’s very powerful, with no music, no dialogue, just animation and this tiny pitiful whine from Copper that triggered the waterworks. Finally, Amos understands. He sets the gun down and calls Copper away, leaving the fox that didn’t kill Chief alone for good. Copper and Tod share one last look and separate forever, but with a respect that transcends all.

But wait! Weren’t you just dying to know if the annoying birds ever caught the caterpillar? Isn’t that way more important? Well, animated caterpillars always turn into butterflies in the end, so Squeaks does so with a whole lot of glitter and sparkles. While Dinky and Boomer stare dumbfounded, Big Mama waves goodbye and he flies away to freedom. Meanwhile, after he belittled her, shot at her, tried to kill her pet, and forced her to give away said pet for its own safety, Widow Tweed tends to Amos Slade’s injured foot. You know, the injuries he sustained while trespassing on the game preserve to try to murder her beloved pet. And she’s laughing and having a grand old time while he yowls about how much pain he’s in. Chief and Copper roll their eyes, and Tod and Vixey look on from a nearby hill. So, everyone’s with their own kind, the woman is caring for the man, and the status quo remains unchallenged. It sure would be nice if people of different backgrounds could co-exist but that’s the world we’re in. Sucks, don’t it?

The Fox and the Hound’s highs are very high. There are some excellent action sequences, beautiful animation, and a valiant effort to say something profound and meaningful about something deeper than surface level. It’s pretty intentionally a metaphor for 1981 race relations, where a sheltered minority child meets a privileged child unaware that the latter’s bigoted family wants the former dead. And there’s a queer reading to be found there, too, where the former retreats into compulsory heterosexuality to hide from persecution. Either way, Copper’s hatred isn’t innate, it’s learned, and we could all stand to learn something from that and be a little more accepting.

Unfortunately, this movie’s lows are incredibly low. That important, beautiful message is told so incompetently that by the end, it takes on the complete opposite meaning. I’ve seen this ending referred to as pro-segregation! While I personally think that’s a stretch, it’s only a little stretch. I can see where they’re coming from. Your role in society is strictly defined and there’s nothing you can do to get out of it no matter how much you wish otherwise. And that is a choice for a movie that, in the animators’ own words, is about prejudice. And then there’s the ungodly amounts of filler and the absolute cowardice in not killing Chief. In not wanting to traumatize children, they went too far in the opposite direction and insulted their intelligence, which I think is worse. Thank god they learned to trust the audience by the time Lion King came out because if they’d pulled that nonsense with Mufasa we 90s kids would be very different people. With another draft or two, the Fox and the Hound could have been great but the turmoil at the studio shows onscreen and the result is a complete mess.

CHARACTERS

Tod‘s curiosity and refusal to listen constantly get him into trouble and puts him on the wrong end of Amos’s gun. He doesn’t mean it but that doesn’t matter. Amos already has blood in his eyes. And in a vacuum, I’m totally down with a protagonist with character flaws that drive the plot. Flawed characters are interesting characters and a film this light on plot needs interesting characters. But when you factor in the metaphor thing… I don’t know, I’m too white to really speak on this but I am LGBTQIA+ and the idea that some people hate you for daring to show your face is… um. Yeah. I think that’s why the ending rubs me the wrong way so much. The best thing he can do to survive is to just hide forever. Thanks, guys. Again, they wanted to say something good and fumbled the ball hard.

Young Tod’s voice is delightfully adorable, husky like he’s on the brink of adolescence but not quite there yet. It’s provided by Keither Mitchell, who later changed his name to Keith Coogan in tribute to his grandfather Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester in the original Addams Family). He was a prolific child actor, known for TV shows like Little House on the Prairie and Mork & Mindy, and later went on to act in movies like Adventures in Babysitting and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. So he’s great. But who in their right mind cast Mickey Rooney as his adult voice?! He was hired right off Pete’s Dragon because nothing proves that he can play a naive teenage/young adult like playing a grandfatherly lighthouse keeper who’s also a severe alcoholic. Like… what? It does not work at all. His bizarrely out-of-date dialogue does not help this movie stop feeling like it was at least partly made by people who should have retired fifteen years ago. Rooney was an immensely talented performer and a true legend but he was not right for this role.

Copper is more of a follower than a leader throughout his life. It’s cute when he’s a puppy, where he lets Tod lead him around like any younger sibling who idolizes the older one. But then if you really, really overthink it, you get a little hint that things aren’t all sweet and innocent. Tod is the one who declares they’re best friends. Copper just kinda agrees. And then the second Tod’s not there to lead him, he has Amos and Chief instead. And he lets them fill his head with bigotry. So that’s heartbreaking. It’s a very interesting character detail that doesn’t get explored as much as it should. Still, it’s very satisfying to see him finally step out of others’ shadows and take a stand against hate.

Both of Copper’s voice actors are very notable names in the entertainment industry. As a baby, he’s Corey freaking Feldman in his second movie ever, which blew my mind. Later in the 80s, he’d be in a whole bunch of HUGE movies: The Goonies, Stand By Me, The Lost Boys, Gremlins… And then things got weird and he became the Tommy Wiseau of the music world. But he is adorable in this, especially the lil howl. It’s so cute I wanna squish him. And then he grows up and our good friend Kurt Russell returns to Disney! This actually came out the same day as Escape From New York, so 1981 was quite the year for Kurt. He finished recording all of his dialogue in two days which IMDB clearly wants to be impressive, but while Kurt Russell is undeniably a wonderful actor and a professional, he only has like twelve lines. After Chief’s ‘death’, he stops talking and becomes more of a tool for Amos. The scene where he defends Tod is better for being silent, but I don’t know, maybe throw some lines in one of the fights?

Widow Tweed is defined by her loneliness, so maybe it’s good that she learns to make peace with her neighbor. It’s just so disappointing after the early scene where she shoots the air to stop him from threatening her and refuses to take his nonsense. Also, as precious as her scenes with Tod are, one, don’t take random animals from the wild, two, don’t just let your pets wander around loose and then wonder why they’re causing problems, and three, don’t then abandon them in the woods when they have no survival skills. She’s sweet but she’s also responsible for many of the main plot’s story issues that aren’t bird-related. Tellingly, Helen Hayes (Herbie Rides Again and Candleshoe) and Lillian Gish (Follow Me Boys) were offered the role and turned it down. Once upon a time, people dreamed of being offered roles in Disney animation, and now they’re turning them down. Yikes. Instead, we ended up with Jeanette Nolan, who we previously heard as Ellie Mae the muskrat in The Rescuers. I also just learned she’s the voice of Norma Bates in Psycho.

Amos Slade could have been a fascinating villain. The quiet redemption where he gives up on his white whale is such a beautiful moment. To see that from a better character, combined with his genuine affection for his dogs, could have been a three-dimensional character the likes of which you don’t really get from Disney villains. But his villainy comes from such a completely nonsensical place! Your. Dog. Is. Fine. What are you doing? And then there’s the abominable way he treats Widow Tweed and gets rewarded for it. Ick. This was Jack Albertson’s final film, and once you know he’s Grandpa Joe you cannot unhear it.

Chief should have died. Have I made that clear? Not because I enjoy seeing dogs die or anything sadistic like that, but because the entire rest of the plot requires it. This character cannot survive if the second and third acts are going to make any sense. Even before that, though, I wish they’d dug more into his role as Copper’s reluctant mentor. Even if he’s supposed to represent someone who’s already corrupted by society’s bigotry, if we got more than two scenes of the hounds interacting, his death would hit like a freight train (sorry, sorry). This is Pat Buttram’s last major role in a Disney film, though he’ll make two more cameos. We will miss his yowling voice.

Vixey is Girl. And Girl is not a position you want your female characters to be in. Disney’s leading ladies have a bad reputation for wanting nothing more than to fall in love and get married. For the most part, I think this is complete nonsense, but in Vixey’s case, that is all the characterization she gets. She wants to hook up with a handsome fox and have six babies and well, Tod is the first one she sees so why not. She grew up in the wild! She could guide Tod through his new life! But the one chance she gets to show that, he flat-out ignores her because she’s just Girl. Tod needs a reason to acclimate to the forest life, but come on. Even her name is lazy- they pretty much just named her Vixen! And then to add insult to injury, she’s voiced by Sandy Duncan (Million Dollar Duck, Cat From Outer Space). I’m sure she’s a lovely person but her voice is intolerable to me.

MUSIC

This movie has faults but its score is not one of them. Buddy Baker’s final Disney score is one of his best, effortlessly using banjo, fiddle, and harmonica to create a time and place. Every so often something completely out of left field like a harpsichord or surf guitar will pop up because it’s the 80s, but it still manages to work. The trembling strings and sharp brass add so much to the opening and the bear attack, while the wacky Benny Hill melody that plays over the fox chases prevents this whole movie from becoming a downer. It’s not an accident that most of the best scenes in this movie let the music do the work. I’m actually surprised they don’t play some of the bluegrass-inspired score around Frontierland.

Unfortunately, the lyrical songs are not nearly as good. It’s almost impressive that they managed to be this bad, considering three of the five are sung by Pearl Bailey. She’s a musical legend and this is what you do with her?

Best of Friends is by far the best song in the movie. That’s really not saying much because the other four really are wretched, but it’s pleasant enough. It has a folksy, wistful quality that made me think of Randy Newman. It’s a little saccharine and it’s far from the best song of the Disney Dark Ages, but it’s all right. As far as I can tell the only lyrics Stan Fidel ever wrote are for this movie (he’s in marketing now, I found his website where he talks a little about writing for this), but the music is by Richard Johnston, son of animator and Old Man Ollie Johnston. So that’s neat!

Lack of Education should be hilarious with its cheerful melody and morbid lyrics. But the melody doesn’t kick in until midway through, and the beginning is this rhythmic not-quite-rap-not-quite-spoken-word thing that then takes over the ending. Which is a shame because the belty, bluesy middle section is probably the best showcase of Pearl Bailey’s voice in the whole movie. Novelty musician Jim Stafford (“Spiders and Snakes”) wrote this, Huntin’ Man, and Appreciate the Lady, and all of his songs are like this, forgetting to be musical until about halfway through.

A Huntin’ Man is only like twenty seconds long but it’s on the soundtrack so I guess Disney counts it? It’s kinda fun to hear Grandpa Joe singing something that isn’t Golden Ticket, and I really do wish there were more of it. I love a good villain song even if Amos is a different kind of Disney villain. The song originally was longer and titled Moonshine Night, sung later in the film while Amos was actually taking care of Chief instead of yelling at him to go away. Copper and Chief would get into the titular beverage and we’d get a good old-fashioned drunk sequence ala Skumps or Pink Elephants (source: A Disney Villains Retrospective by Colin LooksBack – his videos are wonderful). The scene doesn’t appear to have gone past the storyboard phase, and I do agree with it being cut because it was clearly an old guard addition, but if it had been just celebrating their success on the way home from the hunting trip? Sure, why not. Part of the reason the songs are so bad is that none of them commits to being a song other than Best of Friends, and this one could really stand to become a full-fledged number

Goodbye May Seem Forever has never had the same effect on me as other Disney fans. Like Someone’s Waiting For You, it goes SO hard on the sentimentality that it stops being sad and dives headlong into glurge. It doesn’t help that Amos’s reasons for forcing the Widow to abandon Tod are so nonsensical and that leaving the domesticated animal in the woods to die is really not a solution to this problem. Richard Rich’s (yes, the director) melody is lovely, but the choice to make most of Jeffrey Patch’s lyrics a spoken-word poem prevents us from hearing it until the Generic Disney Chorus makes their not-so-grand return. Like, is this the 40s? What year is it? What are you guys doing here? Having Tweed or even Tod, as she’s driving away, pick up the melody would have been so much more impactful.

Appreciate the Lady feels like Pearl Bailey’s making things up as she goes along because Stafford is clearly not as comfortable writing music as he is with poetry. I also really hate this entire forced romance plotline so the song also makes me want to smack my head against a wall. Oh no, he just insulted her, better force them together with a cheesy musical number! No. Just no.

ARTISTRY

We’ve made it out of the Xerography era! Okay, they’re still using it, and you can see it in some places, especially with Amos, but for the most part, it’s smoothed out and it’s such a breath of fresh air. This movie is gorgeous, painterly, and impressionistic in a way that comes very close to evoking Bambi. It’s not quite the work of art Bambi is, but it’s leaps and bounds between the washed-out backgrounds and scratchy lines of the last few movies. There’s a very clever little detail where the background changes colors to reflect what season we’re in, gradually showing the passage of time. It really is lovely. This is also reportedly the first Disney animated feature to include computer graphics. Supposedly it’s the fire in the burning burrow, but it’s so much more subtle than I would believe 80s CGI could be so kudos, animators.

A fun game for the big animation nerds to play while watching this movie is to pick out bits of specific animators’ styles throughout the film. I’ve already talked about how the bear clearly informed Glen Keane’s work on The Beast, and Brad Bird borrowed heavily from the woodshed for a similar scene in Ratatouille. You also get lots of Frank and Ollie’s real-life friendship in the connection between Tod and Copper, and Ron Clements’ habit of including the voice actors’ mannerisms shows through in Big Mama. But the most obvious of all is Don Bluth’s work on Widow Tweed, especially in the cow milking scene. I haven’t even seen a lot of Bluth’s work, but even I picked up on the almost-excessive movement he tends to give bigger characters. She moves like the orphanage owner from Anastasia and looks like Thumbelina’s mother. Bluth may have asked not to be credited, but you can tell what he did.

THEME PARK INFLUENCE

I had to dig really, really deep to find much of anything for this movie. Disney really does not care for their 70’s and 80’s output and I get it but I am bound and determined to find something for at least the animated ones. Back when the movie first came out, Widow Tweed and Amos Slade’s cars were added to Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade as a promotional thing. The little puppet Tod in the back of Widow Tweed’s car is actually quite cute. The reused America on Parade costumes are decidedly less cute. Around the same time, they also added dioramas representing scenes from the film, which made a comeback to celebrate Disneyland’s 50th anniversary in 2005. Finally, a version of Best of Friends with cheerier lyrics was used as the main song in a show called Disney’s Showtime Spectacular in Disneyland Paris from 2010-2011. I cannot believe I can think of more representation for the next animated movie off the top of my head than I found after hours of research for this one but here we are.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I don’t actually hate this movie as much as I hated The Rescuers. I can see glimmers of what the daring newer creative team was trying to do, and it’s all things I really, really like. Deeper, more dramatic stories with a good solid message are something I’ve been missing for a long time, though Rescuers went too far in the other direction. But the older team pulled every punch so hard that it completely unraveled both the prejudice metaphor and the basic plot. Reitherman and the others were legends in their day, I’m not denying that. I mean, Reitherman animated the Maleficent dragon scene! But the world changed drastically between the ‘60s and the ‘80s, and they didn’t change with it. The two approaches to storytelling don’t mingle well. The clash between the old and new reduces what could have been great to something aggressively mediocre.

But hey, with the animation studio now in the hands of the risk-takers at last, things can only get better from here, right? Right? …. right?

Favorite scene: Even though it’s completely out of nowhere and pretty much epitomizes this movie’s writing problems, that bear fight is just so cool.

Final rating: 5/10. It’s not completely unwatchable but the plot holes drag it down hard.