The Fox and the Hound

Buena Vista Distribution Company | Release Date: July 10, 1981

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

65	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews

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Mixed:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

The animation here is better than average, though not quite up to the quality of Disney Studios in its heyday. Still, this film has a lot of heart and is wonderful entertainment for both kids and their parents. Read full review

David Ansen

Cute, anthropomorphic animals, old-fashioned American rural locales and alternating doses of sentimentality and scares firmly place The Fox and the Hound in the classic Disney mold. [13 July 1981, p.81]

Dave Kehr

The story, from a book by Daniel Mannix, was Disney's best material in a decade or two, the stuff of rending family melodrama on the order of Dumbo or Lady and the Tramp. Unfortunately, the execution is only adequate: the character work relies too much on celebrity voices (as was Disney's habit in the dark 60s) and the whole film has a sketchy, underpopulated feel that hardly represents Disney at the studio's baroque best. Read full review

Roger Ebert

The Fox and the Hound is one of those relatively rare Disney animated features that contains a useful lesson for its younger audiences. It's not just cute animals and frightening adventures and a happy ending; it's also a rather thoughtful meditation on how society determines our behavior. Read full review

Rob Humanick

Children’s films have often been more unsettling, but few, if any, exceed The Fox and the Hound for quietly bitter honesty. Its modesty is unsurpassed, and thanks to it, we’ve been spared its inclusion in the theme-park side of Disney culture. Read full review

Dan Callahan

A wounded and unresolved movie free of the expected Disney cutesiness and complacency. Read full review

Bob Thomas

Instead of exploring new territory in the animated art, the film harks back to the tried-and-true Disney formula. The result is sentimental, predictable and totally endearing. [27 July 1981]

R.L. Shaffer

It's pleasant, and while it's a bit sloppy, I rather enjoy the unclean look of the animation. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

One of the more homely Disney animated features, neither hip like The Jungle Book nor (pardon the expression) trippy like Fantasia. We're back in that serene Disney woodland where bright flowers dot heavily shaded glades and snow plops off branches like ice-cream. Read full review

EmpireWilliam Thomas

While the backgrounds and animation are wonderful, the film suffers from an intensely depressing middle section, full of heart-stopping chases, damaged friendships and forgettable songs more likely to invoke fidgets than sniffles among the younger contingent in the audience. Read full review

Vincent Canby

One of the nicer things that can be said about The Fox and the Hound is that it breaks no new ground whatsoever. This is a pretty, relentlessly cheery, old-fashioned sort of Disney cartoon feature, chock-full of bouncy songs of an upbeatness that is stickier than Krazy-Glue and played by animals more anthropomorphic than the humans that occasionally appear. Read full review

Tasha Robinson

The middle scenes, where the foreground and background don't always integrate, and footage, voice talent, visual design, and characterizations are heavily recycled from earlier Disney movies, leave a queasy impression. Read full review

Gary Arnold

A dinky, lackluster offering. [10 July 1981, p.B4]

Judith Martin

Like a faked antique that copies the physical characteristics of the original but misses the spirit, the new animated Disney film, The Fox and the Hound, looks like Bambi and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but exudes phony innocence. [10 July 1981, p.17]

Salem Alaton

The premise, nearly miraculous in its banality, is not failed by the execution, which unblushingly operates at the level of somnambulism. [13 July 1981]