The Fox and the Hound

1981 Disney cartoon

Rating: 13/20 (Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: A mean hunter kills a cute little baby fox's mother. A nosey owl, a woodpecker who sounds just like Tigger from the Winnie the Pooh cartoons, and a bird sing a song and then leave the baby fox at a kindly old lady's home. The old woman sings a song and names her new pet Tod, probably because she can't spell very well. Meanwhile, her next door neighbor, a hunter, brings home a new hound dog to raise as a hunting dog. I forget its name. Smithy, I think. The fox and the hound become good friends. The owl sings a song about it. The old lady sings another song. The relationship of the fox and the hound becomes strained when they realize their roles in the world.

Trivia note: I saw this movie in a theater as a child, and it's the first movie I can remember that made me cry. I was an emotional eight-year-old apparently.

Abbizzle and I were home alone yesterday, so I got a chance to watch this Disney near-classic. The animation is alright, the characters are likable, and the story is cute (overly cute?), but there's really nothing special about it. And there are too many songs (I think three or four), none of them being any good. The incidental music is very good at times, and probably too dramatic at other times. Typical voice talent, a couple even recognizable as Disney regulars. Kurt Russell, fresh off his role as Snake Plissken, also had a voice role in this. So did Paul Winchell (the voice of Tigger) who also was apparently the voice for Papa Smurf. And Sandy Duncan, the sexiest one-eyed woman of all time, was in this after she had already played Pinnochio. The world of animation is an incestuous one! Potential bad influence on the youth of America: Tod and a female fox (Sandy Duncan) have a one-night stand off-screen. The Disney people don't even try to hide it.

I probably should have made the decision to watch The Great Mouse Detective instead of this one. Abbizzle watched that solo and gave it a 16/20 because it had scary parts. The Fox and the Hound just had scary pants!

This picture is a reenactment: