The trainees were brassy, bell-bottomed, long-haired and iconoclastic. They rode bicycles through the hallways. For the hedonistic Disco Era, they were a well-behaved bunch, but for a sleepy studio whose policy forbidding women to wear pants only changed in 1977, they were a breath of fresh air.

Yet the elder statesmen kept them aware of who was boss. These men and women had learned their craft the old fashioned way -- tough, no nonsense, butt kicking. This would be their method of teaching their young ingenues. Many animators have stories of a Milt, Frank or Ollie chewing them out for their mistakes. One animator told of being made to stand before his director while he rifled through scene folders mumbling, "Hmmm, you're not good enough for this one yet...you're not good enough for this...hmph...maybe you can manage this one."

The trainees produced two short pencil tests over a four-month period and if judged worthy they would be assigned to a veteran artist to do production.

An Era of Change
The studio had gone from Walt's death in 1966 to Roy Sr.'s death in 1970 to be led by Disney's son-in-law Ron Miller. In 1971 they had bought the rights to The Chronicles of Prydain which would become The Black Cauldron. All through the 1970s trade publications announced its development by a new generation of "Nine Young Men" but always with the same accompanying artwork done by old master Mel Shaw. The truth was the elder statesmen felt their young charges just weren't ready for such a difficult and dark story.

After The Rescuers (1977) Milt Kahl retired. The studio did Pete's Dragon and a Christmas special called The Small One. Production on Cauldron was again put off while the staff began work on a film based on Daniel Mannix's 1967 book The Fox and the Hound.

The story of Tod the fox who befriended a hunting dog named Copper was originally much more realistic. It ended with a hunter nailing Tod's lifeless pelt to the wall then euthanizing Copper with his shotgun. The story department "Disneyfied" the tale until the hard drinking hunter's importance was supplanted by a sweet, pudgy old lady, and friend and foe all became pals at the end. This grated on a lot of the younger story people.

Chief the dog gets hit by a freight train and drops a thousand feet into a gorge, yet in the last sequence appears okay with a little bandage on his paw. Story veteran Vance Gerry argued for the department: "But he gets hit in the kisser with a freight train!!" To which Ron Miller and co-director Art Stevens countered: "Geez, we never killed a main character in a Disney film and we're not starting now!" Besides, Ollie had done some neat test animation of Chief hobbling around in a cast. They then made young animator Randy Cartwright go back to the scene where Copper finds Chief's body and had him animate Chief's eyes opening and closing so the audience knew right away he was not dead.

Another controversy was when 70 year-old director Woolie Reitherman wanted to add a sequence three quarters through the movie where Phil Harris and Charro, playing two whooping cranes, would sing a silly song called, "Scoobie-Doobie Doobie Doo, Let your Body Goo, err...Go." Just about everyone but Woolie hated the idea and he was at last compelled to scrap it. The director of Jungle Book walked into a friend's office and said dejectedly, "I dunno....maybe this is a young man's medium..." He moved over to developing Catfish Bend and in 1985 was, unfortunately, killed in a car accident.

By early 1978 veteran animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston had completed their handling of Copper and Tod and had begun to think of their book projects like Illusions of Life. Veteran story artist Larry Clemons had written and recorded the dialogue of Copper and Tod as pups with the child actors, then retired.