The Fox and the Hound. © 1981 Walt Disney Productions. All Rights Reserved.

Films can be important for different reasons: blockbuster box office, the creative apogee of a particular performer, the first to debut a new innovation. The Walt Disney Studio's 1981 release The Fox and the Hound is probably not on many lists of top ten animated films of all time but it has an importance unique from other animated films. It marked the turning point, when the Golden Age artists of Pinnochio and Bambi yielded their torch finally and forever to the Baby Boom generation.

It was the last major work of the legendary Nine Old Men: Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and Woolie Reitherman. Milt Kahl, Marc Davis and Ward Kimball had moved on from feature animation or otherwise retired, and Eric Larson had focused on training incoming talent. John Lounsbery and Les Clark had died. The Fox and the Hound would be the first animated film with which Walt Disney had absolutely no involvement.

Run the video today and you'll notice something interesting about the screen credits. It is the last Disney film with no complete roll credits at the end. Credits were for a select few and moved to the long set-up sequence at the beginning. The names not mentioned are as interesting as those that are.

If through some form of prestidigitation you could get a full personnel roster of The Fox and the Hound you would see unveiled before you a veritable who's who of current Hollywood animation power, including: Glen Keane, Don Bluth, Tim Burton, John Musker and Ron Clements, future Pixar head John Lasseter, Henry Selick, Don Paul, Jerry Reese, Richard Rich, Brad Bird, Randy Cartwright, Ed Gombert and Dave Spafford, and the first American women animators since the days of Retta Scott, such as Linda Miller, Heidi Guedel and Lorna Cook. Bill and Sue Kroyer met on this film. The dean of Hollywood life drawing Glenn Vilppu did layout. Animation union heads Steve Hulett and Earl Kress were writers on it. Future Beauty and the Beast producer Don Hahn was a low-level production person. Also at Disney, but on another project, was a newly arrived animator from Germany named Andreas Deja.

The Fox and the Hound. © 1981 Walt Disney Productions. All Rights Reserved.

In Need of Rejuvenation
Disney Animation had been in a slow decline since 1959's Sleeping Beauty. In 1958 the studio downsized it's staff from 500 to 125 and this reduced staff level continued into the mid-1970s. If they hired at all it was a very, very selective process. From 1970 to 1977 Disney animation had hired only 21 people, and most of these were in the last year, 1977. To the young artists then beginning their careers it seemed easier to attain Nirvana then get into Disney.

Art does not require youthful energy. Hokusai and Titian did some of their best work at a very old age. Animators like to brag that they'll never retire, but draw until they "hit the disk." The Disney artists who visualized Walt's dreams in the 1940s were generally the same men and women at the desks 30 years later. However, by the mid-1970s it was obvious that if something wasn't done soon, Disney Animation would die out with its creators. Walt Disney had planned an extension of his training school to be built in Valencia, California and it became the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts). By 1976, its first graduates were taken on as trainees.