The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "The Fox and the Hound".
I don’t have too much to say about this film. Or maybe I do. It was fine. It was mildly entertaining, but nothing stuck out for me. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it, and for the most part, no small beings had to endure meanness or cruelty. I didn’t have much feeling about it, which is actually worse than me hating it, because it means I didn’t care. And I didn’t really. I started getting bored about halfway through. I’ve seen it, and I don’t feel the need to see it again.
So I didn’t know anything about the film going in (are you sensing a trend?), other than that I presumed there was a fox and a dog that were the main characters, and from what little I remember about seeing pictures from it, they were both young. OK, cute animals, I can do that.
Oh, hey, there’s a cute baby animal. Being carried by his mother who is trying to find a safe place for him. She hides him, and she runs away. And then she’s shot. What the hell? Did we accidentally end up watching “Bambi” by mistake? Nope. OK, I’m not liking this beginning. So a wise old owl (Big Mama - really with the name, when the role is voiced by Pearl Bailey?) sees all this happening and realizes that the poor little fox is left all alone and wants to find someone to take care of him. Awww, how nice, compassion. She tries to enlist the help of Dinky the sparrow and Boomer the woodpecker (who I absolutely could not deal with because it’s TIGGER, as in T-I-double-guh-ER - every time he spoke, it ripped me out of the story, especially with his little laugh), and they eventually manage to get the attention of Widow Tweed, who adopts the little fox and names him Tod. Meanwhile, Widow Tweed’s neighbor Amos Slade, who is a hunter of some sort, adopts a hound puppy who he names Copper, and he expects his hunting dog Chief to train the new puppy basically to take over Chief’s job. Don’t do it, Chief. As soon as you teach him, he’s gonna kick you out.
So Tod and Copper end up meeting and playing. I thought Tod was pretty cute, but I wasn’t as keen on Copper. And they become the bestest of friends and vow to be BFFs forever. You see where this is going, right?
Amos and Chief and Copper end up pursuing Tod at one point, who sees Widow Tweed driving and jumps into her car as she’s presumably driving barrel-loads of milk to be sold. And Amos, while trying to shoot Tod, instead shoots her barrels, spilling milk everywhere. So Widow Tweed gets mad at him for shooting off his gun every which where (as she should be), but I’m thinking she ought to make him pay for the milk he wasted. And she doesn’t.
Meanwhile, Dinky and Boomer are having their own troubles, trying to catch (and presumably eat) Squeeks the caterpillar. At first, I thought he was a worm, but then I saw his little feet, thought of Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade and went, ah, ok, caterpillar. I guess I could have thought of Alice in Wonderland, but I didn’t. Squeeks is pretty small. Are Dinky and Boomer going to split him? Not much of a morsel. Or are they going to fight over him? And given that they apparently spend the better part of an entire year trying to catch him, and SPOILER ALERT, fail to do so, are they starving that entire time, because we don’t see them go after anything else.
So Amos and Chief and Copper go away elsewhere so Copper can be taught to hunt, and when they return, both Tod and Copper are all grown up. And, as I predicted, Copper is in charge now and Chief is pushed to the back of the truck. See, Chief, I told you not to teach him.
Still didn’t care that much about Copper, and Tod was cuter as a baby. And the inevitable happens - Tod goes to visit his friend Copper, thinking they’re still pals, but Amos and Chief and Copper end up chasing Tod onto a bridge, and Chief ends up getting hit by a train, which Copper blames Tod for. Umm, Tod didn’t hit Chief, and Chief is the one who was pursuing him on train tracks, so it’s his own fault. I thought Chief died, but we find out later that he was only hurt with a few broken bones.
Later, after Amos once again pursues Tod to Widow Tweed’s house, she tearfully gathers Tod and drives away with him. Uh oh. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. She drives him to a game preserve in a forest and leaves him there, presumably to protect him, but hey, you’re leaving him in the wild with predators that he knows nothing about and doesn’t know how to defend himself, and he also doesn’t know how to find food for himself. And to add insult to injury, it starts to rain, and he can’t find anywhere to hide because all the hidey-holes are taken. And then somehow, Big Mama ends up meeting Vixey, a female fox (who’s name is a nickname for Vixen? really?), and of course, the first thing that crosses Big Mama’s mind is to set her up with Tod. She ends up playing matchmaker for them, and it works. I have to admit, I wasn’t paying that much attention to their frolicking.
Amos finds them and chases after them but encounters a bear instead, and Copper tries to save Amos from the bear, but he’s not doing well, until Tod comes to join the fight and help out his old friend. Tod and the bear end up falling over a waterfall into a river. We don’t know what happened to the bear, but Tod survives, and while Amos is ready to shoot him, Copper steps in front of Tod to protect him and plead for his life, presumably because Tod had saved Copper from the bear. And Amos looks and looks and softens and puts down his gun. Why? I have no idea. I don’t recall if he saw that Tod saved Copper, but he was damn well ready to shoot Tod anyway. And because Copper is standing there, he gives in? Why wouldn’t he just shoo Copper out of the way and yell and scream at him about why he’s blocking his shot? I don’t know. It didn’t make much sense to me. So he walked away. Is he no longer going to be a hunter? Is he just not going to hunt Tod? Is he just not hunting Tod this time but next time, Tod is fair game? Again, I don’t know.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, Squeeks eventually turns into a butterfly (as I figured it would), which confounds Dinky and Boomer, who watch dumbfounded as Squeeks flies away, and I guess Dinky and Boomer are going to continue starving.
And, since Amos is hurt, Widow Tweed inexplicably goes to help him, and they bicker and argue, which of course means that they’re going to become a couple. Yeah, whatever, I don’t care.
So after all that, because Tod saved Copper and Copper saved Tod, they become best friends again, right? Ummm, no, that’s not what I got. Copper is still a hunting dog, and Tod is going to live a happy life with his girlfriend Vixey, with this giant literal chasm between Tod and Copper.
OK.
It was interesting to hear Mickey Rooney as Tod and Kurt Russell as Copper. I laughed when I saw Corey Feldman as the voice of young Copper. I think my favorite voice performance was Pearl Bailey. I liked her soothing tone, though I didn’t care for any of the songs.
I don’t have too much to say about this film. Or maybe I do. It was fine. It was mildly entertaining, but nothing stuck out for me. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it, and for the most part, no small beings had to endure meanness or cruelty. I didn’t have much feeling about it, which is actually worse than me hating it, because it means I didn’t care. And I didn’t really. I started getting bored about halfway through. I’ve seen it, and I don’t feel the need to see it again.
So I didn’t know anything about the film going in (are you sensing a trend?), other than that I presumed there was a fox and a dog that were the main characters, and from what little I remember about seeing pictures from it, they were both young. OK, cute animals, I can do that.
Oh, hey, there’s a cute baby animal. Being carried by his mother who is trying to find a safe place for him. She hides him, and she runs away. And then she’s shot. What the hell? Did we accidentally end up watching “Bambi” by mistake? Nope. OK, I’m not liking this beginning. So a wise old owl (Big Mama - really with the name, when the role is voiced by Pearl Bailey?) sees all this happening and realizes that the poor little fox is left all alone and wants to find someone to take care of him. Awww, how nice, compassion. She tries to enlist the help of Dinky the sparrow and Boomer the woodpecker (who I absolutely could not deal with because it’s TIGGER, as in T-I-double-guh-ER - every time he spoke, it ripped me out of the story, especially with his little laugh), and they eventually manage to get the attention of Widow Tweed, who adopts the little fox and names him Tod. Meanwhile, Widow Tweed’s neighbor Amos Slade, who is a hunter of some sort, adopts a hound puppy who he names Copper, and he expects his hunting dog Chief to train the new puppy basically to take over Chief’s job. Don’t do it, Chief. As soon as you teach him, he’s gonna kick you out.
So Tod and Copper end up meeting and playing. I thought Tod was pretty cute, but I wasn’t as keen on Copper. And they become the bestest of friends and vow to be BFFs forever. You see where this is going, right?
Amos and Chief and Copper end up pursuing Tod at one point, who sees Widow Tweed driving and jumps into her car as she’s presumably driving barrel-loads of milk to be sold. And Amos, while trying to shoot Tod, instead shoots her barrels, spilling milk everywhere. So Widow Tweed gets mad at him for shooting off his gun every which where (as she should be), but I’m thinking she ought to make him pay for the milk he wasted. And she doesn’t.
Meanwhile, Dinky and Boomer are having their own troubles, trying to catch (and presumably eat) Squeeks the caterpillar. At first, I thought he was a worm, but then I saw his little feet, thought of Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade and went, ah, ok, caterpillar. I guess I could have thought of Alice in Wonderland, but I didn’t. Squeeks is pretty small. Are Dinky and Boomer going to split him? Not much of a morsel. Or are they going to fight over him? And given that they apparently spend the better part of an entire year trying to catch him, and SPOILER ALERT, fail to do so, are they starving that entire time, because we don’t see them go after anything else.
So Amos and Chief and Copper go away elsewhere so Copper can be taught to hunt, and when they return, both Tod and Copper are all grown up. And, as I predicted, Copper is in charge now and Chief is pushed to the back of the truck. See, Chief, I told you not to teach him.
Still didn’t care that much about Copper, and Tod was cuter as a baby. And the inevitable happens - Tod goes to visit his friend Copper, thinking they’re still pals, but Amos and Chief and Copper end up chasing Tod onto a bridge, and Chief ends up getting hit by a train, which Copper blames Tod for. Umm, Tod didn’t hit Chief, and Chief is the one who was pursuing him on train tracks, so it’s his own fault. I thought Chief died, but we find out later that he was only hurt with a few broken bones.
Later, after Amos once again pursues Tod to Widow Tweed’s house, she tearfully gathers Tod and drives away with him. Uh oh. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. She drives him to a game preserve in a forest and leaves him there, presumably to protect him, but hey, you’re leaving him in the wild with predators that he knows nothing about and doesn’t know how to defend himself, and he also doesn’t know how to find food for himself. And to add insult to injury, it starts to rain, and he can’t find anywhere to hide because all the hidey-holes are taken. And then somehow, Big Mama ends up meeting Vixey, a female fox (who’s name is a nickname for Vixen? really?), and of course, the first thing that crosses Big Mama’s mind is to set her up with Tod. She ends up playing matchmaker for them, and it works. I have to admit, I wasn’t paying that much attention to their frolicking.
Amos finds them and chases after them but encounters a bear instead, and Copper tries to save Amos from the bear, but he’s not doing well, until Tod comes to join the fight and help out his old friend. Tod and the bear end up falling over a waterfall into a river. We don’t know what happened to the bear, but Tod survives, and while Amos is ready to shoot him, Copper steps in front of Tod to protect him and plead for his life, presumably because Tod had saved Copper from the bear. And Amos looks and looks and softens and puts down his gun. Why? I have no idea. I don’t recall if he saw that Tod saved Copper, but he was damn well ready to shoot Tod anyway. And because Copper is standing there, he gives in? Why wouldn’t he just shoo Copper out of the way and yell and scream at him about why he’s blocking his shot? I don’t know. It didn’t make much sense to me. So he walked away. Is he no longer going to be a hunter? Is he just not going to hunt Tod? Is he just not hunting Tod this time but next time, Tod is fair game? Again, I don’t know.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, Squeeks eventually turns into a butterfly (as I figured it would), which confounds Dinky and Boomer, who watch dumbfounded as Squeeks flies away, and I guess Dinky and Boomer are going to continue starving.
And, since Amos is hurt, Widow Tweed inexplicably goes to help him, and they bicker and argue, which of course means that they’re going to become a couple. Yeah, whatever, I don’t care.
So after all that, because Tod saved Copper and Copper saved Tod, they become best friends again, right? Ummm, no, that’s not what I got. Copper is still a hunting dog, and Tod is going to live a happy life with his girlfriend Vixey, with this giant literal chasm between Tod and Copper.
OK.
It was interesting to hear Mickey Rooney as Tod and Kurt Russell as Copper. I laughed when I saw Corey Feldman as the voice of young Copper. I think my favorite voice performance was Pearl Bailey. I liked her soothing tone, though I didn’t care for any of the songs.
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