Purchase The Fox and the Hound on blu-ray

The Fox and the Hound is a classic, and one of my personal favorite, Animated Disney feature films. Originally released in 1981, The Fox and the Hound tells the story of two very unlikely friends, a red fox named Tod and a hound dog named Copper.

After Tod’s (voiced by Keith Coogan) mother is killed by a hunter he is taken, literally, under the wing of a forest owl by the name of Big Mama. She and her two friends, Boomer a woodpecker and Dinky a finch bird, take him to the home of the Widow Tweed who takes him in and takes care of him.

Next door Mrs. Tweed’s very grumpy neighbor, Amos Slade, introduces his faithful, but aging, hunting dog Chief to the new addition of the family; a young coonhound puppy named Copper (voiced Corey Feldman).

One day while chasing a butterfly Tod wanders closer and closer toward Copper’s house; being the young tracking dog that he is Copper starts smelling Tod and follows his nose until the two meet face to face. After a joyous day together the two vow that they will remain life-long friends. But, as all great things in life are tested, Amos Slade takes Copper and Chief off on a hunting trip; after months pass, and both Tod and Copper have reached adulthood, Copper finally returns home but as a trained hunting dog.

I won’t spoil the rest for those that haven’t seen it, but I will say that it culminates in true Disney fashion, and definitely leaves the viewer satisfied.

The Fox and the Hound 2 was released to DVD “midquel” released on December 12, 2006. The story of The Fox and the Hound 2 takes place while Tod and Copper are both still youths. One day while visiting the country fair Tod and Copper see a band of dogs called “The Singin’ Strays” consisting of Dixie (Reba McEntire), Cash (Patrick Swayze), Granny Rose (Vicki Lawrence), and the brothers Waylon and Floyd (both Jim Cummings). “The Singin’ Strays” are there to preform for a talent scout from the Grand Ole Opry.

After a band argument the band is forced to go on stage without Dixie; during the musical number the group overhears Copper singing along and invites the young pup on stage to sing with them. After the song is a smash Cash invites Copper to join the band, caught up in the excitement Copper lies and promises that he is a “stray” and joins the group forgetting his promise to watch the fireworks with Tod.

Dixie finds Tod and, during their conversation, Tod lets it slip that Copper is NOT a stray. Upon hearing this news Dixie schemes a way to get Copper out of the group, with the help of Tod of course. After a wild chase and widespread mayhem in the fair cause the musical number to fail miserably Copper is let go from the group and returns home with Slade.

Again, I dot want to spoil the rest of the film so I’ll leave it at this. While not as good as the original, the film goes on to tell a great story about friendship, forgiveness, and the ties that bind us all together.

Both films have received a really good, but not amazingly great, blu-ray transfer, arriving on blu-ray via a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer. The most noticeable issues arise from the fact that while both look really good on blu-ray it’s obvious that neither have received the complete restoration that you’d expect from a Disney Classic. This issue is most noticeable in The Fox and the Hound. The release suffers from print damage and, most notably, though not constant, some sort of vertical lines that appear on the screen.

The Fox and the Hound 2 fairs better, taking into account that it was released nearly two decades after the original. There’s the occasional banding issue, but nothing extremely noticable as with the first film.

Now that we’ve got the negatives out of the way I do want to mention that both films have impeccable color that is a definite improvement over their DVD counterparts. The colors are extremely vibrant and the blacks are nice and deep. It’s unfortunate that Disney decided not to match the restoration process to the standard of the color correction they’ve applied to the film.

Both of the films feature an excellent DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that you’re sure to be extremely pleased with. While The Fox and the Hound 2 definitely takes better advantage of the surround sound system by utilizing nearly all the speakers on a constant basis, The Fox and the Hound mostly utilizes the front speakers. While there’s definitely a discrepancy between the two releases and how they utilize the speaker system it’s not distracting to watch each based on their own strengths and weaknesses.

Both contain excellent, read clear, dialogue quality and excellent attention to music. The original film mostly suffers from the lack of immersion via it’s ambient sounds. While it’s not distracting it’s certainly something that could have improved the release.

This is the area of the disc that always lets me down. There’s rarely enough special features to satisfy my liking; however this may be an area that you absolutely couldn’t care less about. So with that said, I will comment on the fact that what is presented here is of great quality and definitely worth watching! Check out the special features below:

• Unlikely Friends
• Passing the Baton: The Making of The Fox and the Hound featurette
• “The Best of Friends” Sing-along
• The Making of the Music
• “You Know I Will” Music Video preformed by Lucas Grabeel
• DVD copies of both films

While the release certainly has its issues it’s also got it’s positives. If you can overlook a few blemishes and take note of the positives this is certainly the release to get. However, with that said, I can’t say that this is the best release either of these two movies will get. You probably know by now that Disney is notorious for taking thing into the vault and releasing them at their digression, so I certainly don’t have any timeframe for when an improved release may come. However I do believe that it will, one day.

The Fox and the Hound is definitely one of my favorites among the classic Disney films so ensuring that it was in my collection was a no brainer. However if you’re wanting the definitive release of the film I’d certainly recommend waiting, or in the very least waiting until the price drops just a bit.

Also, it’s worth noting, as I note in all of my reviews, that if you’re not one to care about special features then the bottom line score for this release would have been a 4. The audio and video are both definite improvements from their standard definition counterparts, but aren’t as impeccably remasters as a lot of the films Disney has released, even ones that pre-date The Fox and the Hound.

Purchase The Fox and the Hound on blu-ray