Review of The Fox and the Hound (1981) by Edith N — 30 Oct 2008

The casting of the adult fox and hound frankly bewilders me. There is a thirty-one year age difference between the pair. The adult fox is Mickey Rooney, born in 1920, who strikes me as having been too old for the part, but who asked me? The adult hound is played by Kurt Russel, born in 1951. I realize that an adult can pretty much play an adult of any age in an animated film, but did no one think that perhaps it wasn't the most sensible casting ever? Especially since Young Tod was played by Keith Coogan, grandson of Jackie Coogan, who I'm pretty sure worked with Mickey Rooney at one point or another. ([i]Captains Courageous[/i]?) Young Copper is played by Corey Feldman, for the curious.

Anyway. [i]The Fox and the Hound[/i] is one of those Disney stories of two creatures who shouldn't get along but do. The movie begins with Tod's mother being hunted to her death, getting the "Bambi's mother" moment out of the way early. But Todd is rescued by the Widow Tweed (Jeanette Nolan), who cares for him as she would any other pet. On the other hand, there's their neighbour, Amos Slade (Jack Albertson), who is probably the one who killed Todd's mother in the first place. He has an old hunting dog named Chief (Pat Buttram), and he has just acquired a young hunting dog named Copper. Todd and Copper become friends, they think for life. But life doesn't let foxes be friends with hunting dogs.

Actually, foxes are canids, too, so Todd should get more use out of that nose of his than he does. Certainly he should, by the end of the movie, be familiar with how his former friend [i]smells[/i]--and he should know how human smells, too, even if he weren't familiar with the human in question. Of course, he can't be; that destroys the setup we have going. But it's one of the few times that Disney has really fallen down on the behaviour of its animated animals. (Let's leave out "herding lemmings off a cliff," shall we?) We've seen better from them, and it makes it hard to accept their failing here.

Also, what do the two birds, Dinky (Richard Bakalyan) and Boomer (Paul Winchell), eat during the whole movie? They spend it chasing a caterpillar. One. Which presumably they are to share. Actually, the whole thing with them is kind of annoying; they don't really add anything to the film. They're intended to be comic relief, but in order to be comic relief, you have to be funny, and I don't really think they are. I suppose it's supposed to be amusing that they put all that effort into that one little "worm," but it really isn't. Besides, what sparrow teams up with a woodpecker in the first place?

I leave you with one thought. Our big climax features Copper facing up against a bear. Now, in the sixteenth century, there was the popular "sport" of bear baiting, which was indeed a bear fighting dogs. But it was dogs, plural. As in more than one. No single dog was ever expected to survive combat with a bear, because bears are a lot bigger, and a bear's paw can take out a single dog easily. Besides, how big is that game preserve in the first place, that it can support a bear in the first place?