President Emeritus Sito reminds us that it's been three decades since Disney's animated dog picture came out.
1981 The Fox & The Hound released. The first film Walt Disney had no influence on. Although the film has brief screen credits, it marks the torch being passed from the Nine Old Men golden age generation to the modern generation of animators. A complete personnel roster would include Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Woolie Reitherman, Tim Burton, John Lasseter, Bill & Sue Kroyer, Don Bluth, Lorna Cook, Henry Sellick, Brad Bird, Randy Cartwright, John Pomeroy, John Musker, Dan Haskett, Jerry Reese, Glen Keane and many more ....
The picture was a long time in work. Disney veterans Woolfgang Reitherman, Frank Thomas, Larry Clemmons and Ollie Johnston started the feature, but had all departed by the time of its release. TAG Vice-President Earl Kress worked on F and H's story.
Numerous speed bumps happened along the production road. There was a fight over whether to kill off the older dog "Chief" or not. Some of the younger animators and story crew wanted the character to die, believing this would strengthen character motivation and story, but this particular arc was stoutly resisted by management and some of the old-timers. ("We can't kill one of the main characters!")
Then, midway through The Fox and the Hound, directing animator Don Bluth exited to make The Secret of NIMH, taking half the animation staff with him. This put a bit of a hole in the schedule.
But there were good things that happened too. Ron Clements left the animation department to take up story work, on his way to becoming a director and writer with John Musker on a plethora of animated features over the next several decades. And Glen Keane reboarded and punched up the bear fight sequence that climaxed the film, which is one of the reasons (I think) that The Fox and the Hound ended up with the highest initial domestic gross of any Disney animated feature to that time. (Box Office Mojo shows it grossing $10 million more than The Rescuers, Disney's animated hit from 1977.)
So happy birthday to Todd, Copper, Vixie and the rest. You might not have been the topper-most of the new Disney generation's features, but you were the first.
(Mr. Sito should really be posting here, we crib so much of his stuff.)
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7 comments:
Don't just stop there.
Please list some names of people that worked on the film whose names we never hear of.
It gets boring hearing about the same 10 or 12 people over the years.
Those weren't the only talented people at the time.
It's like a freaking broken record!!
YES!
Let's hear about the many more........
What a shame the film looked so ugly. The "art direction" of jim coleman really set things back at Disney. If only the management had REALLY embraced what the younger animators were pushing for, and if the film hadn't gotten a full dose of "don bluth" before crystalizing into something great (rather than the bluth saccharine phoniness"), it could have been something really new. The idea was always great.
What should have been an exciting time at Disney, it was one of the more depressing. Too many factions, egos and infighting.
I'm glad Don Duckwall and "Fast Eddie" did me a favor and fired me.
"Fast Eddie" HANSEN? Boy, you only get fired by the BEST! LOL!
Hmmm, perhaps they should've killed Chief off like they wanted. :-)
Did Don Bluth have much influence on the film?
You can't blame him.
I thought he only animation a tiny sequence.
I mean Secret of Nimh was beautiful too bad
his it was all down hill after...
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