<Li> Corey Feldman as Young Copper </Li> <P> Wolfgang Reitherman read the original novel and found it particularly touching because one of his sons had once owned a pet fox years before . He decided that it would make for a good animated feature . Thus the film began production in spring 1977 . Reitherman, Art Stevens, and Ron Miller quarreled over key sections of the film with Miller supporting the younger Stevens . Miller instructed Reitherman to surrender reins over the junior personnel, but Reitherman resisted due to a lack of trust in the young animators . Thinking the film had a weak second act, Reitherman decided to add a musical sequence of two swooping cranes voiced by Phil Harris and Charo who would sing a silly song titled "Scoobie - Doobie Doobie Doo, Let Your Body Turn Goo". Live - action reference footage was shot of Charo in a sweaty pink leotard, but the scene was strongly disliked by studio personnel who felt the song was a distraction from the main plot with Stevens stating "We can't let that sequence in the movie! It's totally out of place!" Stevens notified studio management and after many story conferences, the scene was removed . Reitherman later walked into Stevens's office, slumped in a chair, and said, "I dunno, Art, maybe this is a young man's medium ." He later moved onto to undeveloped projects such as Catfish Bend and died in a car accident in 1985 . </P> <P> By late 1978, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and Cliff Nordberg had completed their animation . Thomas had animated scenes of Tod and Cooper using dialogue Larry Clemmons had written and recorded with the child actors . This project would mark the last film to have the involvement of the Disney's Nine Old Men who had retired early during production, and animation was turned over the next generation of directors and animators, which included John Lasseter, John Musker, Ron Clements, Glen Keane, Tim Burton, Brad Bird, Henry Selick, Chris Buck, and Mark Dindal, all of whom would finalize the animation and complete the film's production . These animators had moved through the in - house animation training program, and would play an important role in the Disney Renaissance of the 1980s and 1990s . </P> <P> However, the transition between the old guard and the new resulted in arguments over how to handle the film . Reitherman had his own ideas on the designs and layouts that should be used, but the newer team backed Stevens . Animator Don Bluth animated several scenes including of Widow Tweed milking her cow, Abigail, while his team worked on the rest of the sequence, and when Tweed fires at Amos Slade's automobile . Nevertheless, he declared Disney's work "stale" and on his 42nd birthday, September 13, 1979, Bluth, along with Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy, entered Ron Miller's office and turned in their resignation . Following their resignations, 13 animators followed suit in their resignations . Though Bluth and his team had animated substantial scenes, they asked not to receive screen credit . With 17% of the animators now gone, Miller ordered all of the resigning animators off the studio lot by noon of that same day and would later push the release of The Fox and the Hound from Christmas 1980 to summer 1981 . New animators were hired and promoted to fill the ranks . To compensate for the lack of experience of the new animators, much of the quality control would rely upon a corp of veteran assistant animators . Four years after production started, the film was finished with approximately 360,000 drawings, 110,000 painted cels and 1,100 painted backgrounds making up the finished product . A total of 180 people, including 24 animators, worked on the film . </P>

Who plays the woodpecker in fox and the hound