The Fox And The Hound: 25th Anniversary Special Edition

The remastering shows the Fox And The Hound in a fresh new light, with the colours much more vibrant than in previous releases. The sound, too, is crisp and the subtitling clear.

Children will doubtless enjoy the Forest Friendship game, which lets them hunt Tod, revealing other characters as it goes along and they may play like the Sing Along Song The Best Of Friends, which comes complete with a bouncing Mickey, although the tune is poor, so I can’t imagine it becoming a favourite.

The best of the interactive games is probably the DVD storybook, which children can read along with or, read to themselves. The instructions are clear and there is scope for children to use their own imagination to tell the story, rather than relying on the one Disney have created.

There are two short films also accompanying the feature – Lambert The Sheepish Lion (1951) and a Mickey and Pluto outing, Lend A Paw (1941). Both feature similar story aspects to The Fox And The Hound – the idea of animals who don’t seem to fit in finally finding their place and Lambert, in particular, is a classic.

The most interesting aspect of the DVD for older fans will be the six-minute short Passing The Baton, which features interviews with older animators including Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, as well as input from the young cubs on the block, Glen Keane and Randy Cartwright.

It’s a shame this is so brief, since it is interesting to hear how they came to work together – although they, perhaps, understandably, don’t go into details about how The Fox And The Hound became such a troubled production for Disney after several of their animators quit.

It is a shame also, that so little is made of the vocal talents who worked on the film. It would have been great to have included an interview with Mickey Rooney or Kurt Russell about what it was like to work on the film.

There is also an extensive art gallery, featuring storyboards, concept art, live action reference footage, behind the scenes pictures of the voice talent and more. In fact, the gallery is so exhaustive it even includes photos of the Disneyland attraction that was based on the film.

Despite the film looking and sounding great, you can’t help but feel a slightly longer featurette would have done the film better justice and rounded out the package more fully, despite this, this release is a superior edition that has plenty for younger audiences to enjoy.