Robin Hood: Most Wanted Edition
Walt Disney Video, $29.99
The Fox and the Hound: 25th Anniversary Edition
Walt Disney Video, $29.99
For those of a certain age,
The Fox and the Hound and
Robin Hood both stand out as having a specific magical quality. Maybe it’s the quality that all things watched around age 5 acquire, but regardless, you won’t find too many people in their late 20s/early 30s without a special sentimental regard for the them. 1973’s
Robin Hood was re-released theatrically a year after
The Fox and the Hound‘s 1981 premiere, explaining why many of us saw them around the same time. It was the first animated feature to begin production after Walt Disney’s death in 1966 and is therefore the first of Disney’s post-Walt dark period, when audiences became more critical of the studio’s storytelling. 1989’s
The Little Mermaid is officially considered Disney’s redemptive comeback, and lots of people would probably argue that Ariel is the one with the specific magical quality. But for me,
Mermaid, with its splashy color palette and campy jokes (“Walkin’ around on those – whaddya call ’em? – oh, feet”), can’t compete with the distinctly gentle Seventies quality of
Robin Hood and
The Fox and the Hound, with their lovely pastoral landscapes – all muted browns and greens – and their subtle musical scores that don’t get all up your face like those in
Mermaid or
The Lion King (no offense to Elton John) or that movie with all the dancing dishes.
Robin Hood has the enviable distinction of being scored by Roger Miller, so it’s a hard act to follow (remember “Ooh-de-Lally”? – “Robin Hood and Little John walkin’ through the forest, laughin’ back and forth at what the other’n has to say”), but even
F&H‘s simple “Best of Friends” (“If only the world wouldn’t get in the way; if only people would just let you play”) strikes a sweet, subdued tone that Disney outings don’t seem to have today. Both movies are about friendship, of course. The impossible friendship between the hunter (Copper the hound dog, voiced by a very young Corey Feldman) and the hunted (Tod the fox) is still heartbreaking today, making the movie infamous for A) being many people’s first memory of crying in a theatre, and B) remaining a crying movie even in repeat, adult viewings. And even the upbeat, frolicking
Robin Hood has that unforgettable moment of heartbreak, when Little John, his giant bear shoulders slumped in defeat, thinks Robin is dead, after plunging from the burning castle into the moat below … and then you see Robin’s hollow reed moving through the water.
Robin Hood‘s Most Wanted Edition has a special “alternate ending” feature beginning with a very different version of this scene, while the most notable special feature on The Fox in the Hound is a too-short six-minute doc. “Passing the Baton” explains the movie’s distinction as a collaboration between the last of the old-guard animators, who’d been with the studio since the beginning, and the first of the new artists, who are still with Disney today. This history perhaps explains the distinctive charm of the two movies. Together, they recall a bygone era of sweetness that perhaps ended with The Fox and the Hound, which was, after all, the last of Disney’s animated features to frontload the credits, concluding with nothing but a simple, disconcerting “The End.”
This article appears in December 15 • 2006.
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