The Fox and the Hound: 25th Anniversary Edition – DVD Review

Film, Reviews

Directed by
Ted Berman
Richard Rich
Art Stevens

Writing credits
(Based on a book by Daniel P. Mannix)
Ted Berman
Larry Clemmons
Vance Gerry
Steve Hulett
Earl Kress
Burny Mattinson
David Michener
Peter Young

Cast
Mickey Rooney ………. Adult Tod (voice)
Kurt Russell ………. Adult Copper (voice)
Pearl Bailey ………. Big Mama (voice)
Jack Albertson ………. Hunter (Amos Slade) (voice)
Sandy Duncan ………. Vixey (voice)
Jeanette Nolan ………. Widow Tweed (voice)
Pat Buttram ………. Chief (voice)
John Fiedler ………. Porcupine (voice)
John McIntire ………. Grumpy Badger (voice)
Richard Bakalyan ………. Dinky (voice)
Paul Winchell ………. Boomer (voice)
Keith Coogan ………. Young Tod (voice) (as Keith Mitchell)
Corey Feldman ………. Young Copper (voice)

Release date: October 10th 2006.
Running Time: 83 minutes
Rated: G

As a kid, I remember watching The Fox and the Hound and feeling that nothing happens in the film. Certainly plot-wise, there exist more exciting animated features with sassy sidekicks, black magic, wicked villains, and high adventure. The Fox and the Hound doesn’t aspire to such things. It plugs along with a fairly simple, quite down-to-earth, story with a sort of quiet dignity and thematic richness.

The Fox and the Hound is a fairly accurate title (a la Snakes on a Plane) in that the story is about a fox named Tod and a hound dog named Copper. When both are young, they become good friends. Eventually, circumstances force the two into their “proper” societal roles as adversaries. Each must then deal with an internal struggle between what they feel is a natural friendship and what they are told is the natural order of things.

The Fox and the Hound is probably the most low-key of the animated Disney features. The pace is deliberate, the setting pastoral, the adventures small-scale. The film is more skewed towards effecting one with emotion than with adrenaline. This thing is a nice change of pace from the latest string of shoddy, lame-joke-a-second, ADHD, CGI films. That’s not to say that The Fox and the Hound is without its own problems. It’s not going to appeal to a number of children. Its animation is hit or miss. Plus, it contains a weird section of “Lois Lane Style” goofy internal monologue poetry. Was that just a common trend of the late ’70s/early ’80s?

There are many recognizable voices at work here. Young Tod is voiced by Keith Coogan who many might remember from The Waltons at about the same time this film was released. Young Copper is voiced by one Mr. Corey Feldman, before he rose to his full ’80s power as “one of the Coreys. The adult fox and hound are voiced by the unlikely duo of Mickey Rooney and Kurt Russell, respectively. Pat Buttram, TV’s Mr. Haney, lends his unmistakable voice to the character of Chief, the old hunting dog trying to protect his spot from the up and coming Copper. Oscar, Emmy, and Tony winner Jack Albertson (best known as “The Man” from TV’s Chico and the Man) provides the voice of the hunter. The great Pearl Bailey provides the songs of the film as Big Mama, an owl matriarch. former cracker spokesperson Sandy Duncan plays the fox love-interest. Paul Winchell and John Fiedler use their old Winnie the Pooh voices to help round out the cast.

The DVD

I’m tempted to call shenanigans on Disney here. The Video and Audio seem on par with my worn out VHS copy of the film. More specifically, some scenes look exactly the same between the VHS and DVD, some look slightly improved, and others appear to be re-mastered to the detriment of quality. You can buy a copy of the VHS off of Amazon for about 19 cents right now. The film was also previously released on DVD 6 years ago in a “Gold edition.” Let’s see if the extras justify the existence of this release.

DVD storybook : New Best Friends – A re-telling of a portion of the film. You can read along, or read alone. I’ve never really seen the usefulness of this feature, but Disney seems to throw it on all the “special edition” dvds.

Sing along song: “The Best of Friends” – This feature shows a copy of the old “Sing along songs” VHS tapes that I always used to see in the supermarket. It shows the words to the song “Best of Friends” with words, slightly large than closed caption.

Forest Friendship game – It’s one of those annoying dvd games that 3-year olds like, but can’t quite play by themselves. Thanks a lot Disney!

“Passing the Baton: the Making of The Fox and the Hound” featurette – This “making of” special is ridiculously short, about 7 minutes all in all. Most of that time is spent stressing that it was the last Disney film worked on by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston of the “Nine Old Men” and the first film worked on by some other notable animators.

Of course, the feature fails to mention that production of The Fox and the Hound was interrupted by a number of animators defecting to Don Bluth’s company. Nor does it mentioned points of interest like, Tim Burton did some uncredited work on the film. Nor does it go into any aspect of the film outside of animation.

Art Gallery – 14 pages worth of pictures, from concept art to shots of Kurt Russell standing.

Two animated bonus shorts: Lend a Paw and Lambert the Sheepish Lion – Forget generic Pluto and kitten story Lend a Paw; it is all about Lambert the Sheepish Lion! That cartoon is burned into my brain. “Lambert, the sheepish lion, Lambert, is always trying, to be a wild and wooly sheep, Lambert the sheepish lion.” It’s also worth noting that Sterling Halloway reprises his Dumbo role as “Mr. Stork” in this short.

With Lambert, this version becomes the better DVD version to own. Plus, it’s actually cheaper to buy this version new than to buy the other DVD used, at least on Amazon.

The DVD Lounge’s Ratings for The Fox and the Hound
CATEGORY
RATING
(OUT OF 10)
THE MOVIE

8
THE VIDEO

5
THE AUDIO

6
THE EXTRAS

6
REPLAY VALUE

5
OVERALL
6.5
(NOT AN AVERAGE)