The Fox and the Hound is an American animated buddy drama film loosely based on the Daniel P. Mannix novel of the same name produced by Walt Disney Productions and released in the United States on July 10, 1981 and it is the 24th film in the Disney Animated Canon. It tells the story of two unlikely friends. A red fox named Tod and a hound dog named Copper who struggle to preserve their friendship, despite their emerging instincts and the surrounding social pressures demanding them to be adversaries. Tod and Copper meet when young and become friends. They play together all summer long, but as they reach adulthood, they become enemies because real hounds hunt foxes for food.
The film was directed by Ted Berman and Richard Rich who later founded Crest Animation Productions to create his first independent animated feature, Template:WikipediaLink. Daniel Mannix's original novel has a more realistic story which has dealt with the quest of a hunter and his dog, Copper to shoot Tod after he has killed the hunter's new dog, Chief. The novel is mainly about Tod's life in the woods. While being raised by humans, he has not been childhood friends with Copper and none of the animals talk. The story was changed to make it more suitable for a family film instead of a story about the life and death of a fox and it became a parable about how society determines our roles, despite our better impulses.
At the time of its release, The Fox and the Hound was the most expensive animated film produced to date, costing $12 million. It has been the last film which was worked on with animation legends like Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two members of Walt Disney's original "Nine Old Men" who has also worked on this one with it being the last one for both as well as the first one for future Disney leaders like Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas), Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), and Glen Keane who has animated the bear in this film and later worked on other animated films like The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991), in which he designed the Beast. It is also the final Disney film to have all the credits in the title sequence as opposed to having closing credits and have the words, "The End. A Walt Disney Production" at the end, the last Disney animated film to use the Buena Vista logo and the last Disney film in which Don Bluth was involved in its production.
Despite originally receiving mixed reviews, the film enjoyed as a moderate financial hit and has developed a low cult following and was nominated for three awards. It stars the voices of Kurt Russell, Mickey Rooney, Pearl Bailey, Pat Buttram, Sandy Duncan, Richard Bakalyan, Paul Winchell, Jack Albertson, Jeanette Nolan, John Fiedler, John McIntire, Keith Coogan, and Corey Feldman. A direct-to-video midquel: The Fox and the Hound 2 was released on December 12, 2006.
Rating[]
The Fox and the Hound received a G rating by the MPAA. This is the twenty-fourth Disney animated movie to be rated as such in the US after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Robin Hood, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and The Rescuers.
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