The Bear’s snarl is the same snarl as Shere Khan the tiger from The Jungle Book (1967) and Brutus and Nero the crocodiles from The Rescuers (1977).
The Bear’s snarl is the same snarl as Shere Khan the tiger from The Jungle Book (1967) and Brutus and Nero the crocodiles from The Rescuers (1977).
The last Disney animated feature to simply end with a “The End; Walt Disney Productions” credit, as with all previous Disney animated films after Alice in Wonderland (1951). (All of the credits were at the beginning.) The next Disney animated feature, The Black Cauldron (1985), was the first one with closing credits.
Animator Glen Keane, who was given the task of animating the climactic battle between Tod and the bear, felt that the storyboards he was given were not dramatic enough, so he re-boarded the whole scene. He also planned to draw the fight in charcoal rather than pencil, but budgetary concerns prevented this.
Originally, when Chief got hit by the train, he was supposed to die, which was supposed to fully justify Copper’s revenge at Tod. However, for the same reason as Trusty from Lady and the Tramp (1955), some of the crew had qualms against eliminating a main character, mostly because of the risk of the scene being too intense for children.
Producer Wolfgang Reitherman brought his son’s pet fox as reference for the animators.
The name “Tod” is derived from the Middle English word “todde”, which means “fox”.
Co-director Art Stevens served as the live-action model for Amos Slade.
The National Stuttering Project targeted Boomer the stammering woodpecker when protesting the film’s release on video.