Fox and the Hound

The 1970's and 1980's were a hard period for Disney's animated classics. After Walt had passed on, the company spent a lot of time seemingly trying to figure out "What would Walt do?" This lead to a rather darker period and for a while the live action films started to get churned out faster and more often. Fox and the Hound is a film that does bear a few resemblances to not only Bambi, but is also set in a world of talking canines much like 101 Dalmatians and Lady and the Tramp.

The basic story was adapted from a much, much darker novel of the same name and still retains some of the less happy material. Our two main heroes are Tod the fox, and Copper the hound dog. This unlikely pair become fast friends despite their differences. Following the same vein as Bambi, we soon time skip ahead to Spring and everyone starts to change. The main question is will the two still be friends despite Copper having gone off to learn how to hunt? The entire last act answers this in a rather surprising manner as their friendship is put to the test and results in a rather action packed sequence involving a very, very angry bear.

So, let's take a look at our characters. On the one hand, baby/young Tod and Copper are extremely adorable to watch. When they get older, however, things take an odd turn as they become voiced by Mickey Rooney and Kurt Russell. Oooook. Odd choices, yet it works well enough. We also have a trio of birds including the owl Big Mama, and a pair of birds named Boomer and Dinky whose primary goal is to try and eat a tiny caterpillar. From there we have the kindly Widow Tweed who raises Tod, and her gun happy neighbour Amos Slade who raises Copper, as well as an older dog named Chief. Rounding out the cast are Vixey who is only around to be the Love Interest, and a porcupine.

Quite a few of these characters aren't quite as memorable, Tod and Copper don't really have enough going for them to warrant a whole lot to say. Both Widow Tweed and Amos Slade have the potential for more depth, but their limited screen time keeps this from happening.

The film itself does look a tad dated in the animation department. There are times where it doesn't look all that bad, such as the opening chase, but at other times you are very much aware that the characters are not meshing with the backgrounds. This is quite obvious during most of the film, and it can be a tad distacting as it keeps you from fully immersing yourself. Despite all this, the ending is quite well done as no dialogue is given and yet winds up being really expressive.

The songs in this film are much like most of the characters, not all that memorable. The one exception is the song "Best of Friends" which is sung early in by Big Mama and is likely the one song that everyone remembers from this film.

While Fox and the Hound isn't the worst feature to be put out, it's also far from the best in the Disney canon.

3/5