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The Fox and the Crow are a pair of anthropomorphic cartoon characters created by Frank Tashlin for the Screen Gems studio.[1]
The characters, the refined but gullible Fauntleroy Fox and the streetwise Crawford Crow, appeared in a series of animated short subjects released by Screen Gems through its parent company, Columbia Pictures.[2][3]
Columbia cartoons
Tashlin directed the first film in the series, the 1941 Color Rhapsody short The Fox and the Grapes, loosely based on the Aesop fable of that name. Warner Bros. animation director Chuck Jones later acknowledged this short, which features a series of blackout gags as the Fox repeatedly tries and fails to obtain a bunch of grapes in the possession of the Crow, as one of the inspirations for his popular Road Runner cartoons.[4]
Although Tashlin directed no more films in the series (despite playing a supervisory role on the following two shorts, Woodman, Spare That Tree and Toll Bridge Troubles, prior to his departure), Screen Gems continued producing Fox and the Crow shorts, many of them directed by Bob Wickersham, until the studio closed in 1946.[5] Screen Gems had acquired enough of a backlog of completed films that the "Fox and Crow" series continued through 1949.
By this time, Columbia had signed a distribution deal with a new animation studio, United Productions of America (UPA), to produce three "Fox and the Crow" shorts, Robin Hoodlum (1948), The Magic Fluke (1949), and Punchy De Leon (1950). All three UPA Fox and the Crow cartoons were directed by John Hubley. The first two each received an Academy Award nomination for Animated Short Subject.
An unrelated, six-minute, silent animated short titled The Fox and the Crow, produced by Fables Studio, was released in 1921.[6]
List of shorts
Screen Gems
In 1943, due to the series' success, Columbia gave the Fox and the Crow their own series separate from the Color Rhapsodies; it lasted until 1946. All cartoons from Room and Bored (1943) to Mysto-Fox (1946) belong to this series.
| Film | Direction | Original release date | Series |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Fox and the Grapes | Frank Tashlin | December 5, 1941 | Color Rhapsody |
| Woodman, Spare That Tree | Bob Wickersham | July 2, 1942 | |
| Toll Bridge Troubles | November 27, 1942 | ||
| Slay It With Flowers | January 8, 1943 | ||
| Plenty Below Zero | May 14, 1943 | ||
| Tree for Two | June 21, 1943 | ||
| A-Hunting We Won't Go | August 23, 1943 | ||
| Room and Bored | September 30, 1943 | Fox and Crow | |
| Way Down Yonder in the Corn | November 25, 1943 | ||
| The Dream Kids | January 5, 1944 | ||
| Mr. Moocher | September 8, 1944 | ||
| Be Patient, Patient | October 27, 1944 | ||
| The Egg-Yegg | December 8, 1944 | ||
| Ku-Ku Nuts | March 30, 1945 | ||
| Treasure Jest | Howard Swift | August 30, 1945 | |
| Phoney Baloney | Bob Wickersham | September 13, 1945 | |
| Foxy Flatfoots | April 11, 1946 | ||
| Unsure Runts | Howard Swift | May 16, 1946 | |
| Mysto-Fox | Bob Wickersham | August 29, 1946 | |
| Tooth or Consequences | Howard Swift | June 5, 1947 | Phantasy |
| Grape Nutty | Alex Lovy | April 14, 1949 | Color Rhapsody |
UPA
| Film | Direction | Original release date | Series |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robin Hoodlum | John Hubley | December 23, 1948 | Jolly Frolics |
| The Magic Fluke | March 24, 1949 | Jolly Frolics | |
| Punchy de Leon | January 12, 1950 | Jolly Frolics |
In other media
Comic books
Template:Infobox comic book title The Fox and the Crow starred in several talking animal comic books published by DC Comics, from the 1940s well into the 1960s. They starred with other characters in DC's Columbia-licensed talking-animal anthology Real Screen Comics (first issue titled Real Screen Funnies) beginning in 1945,[7] then did likewise when DC converted the superhero title Comic Cavalcade to a talking-animal series in 1948.
The duo received its own title, The Fox and the Crow, which ran 108 issues (Jan. 1952 - March 1968). Until the 1954 demise of Comic Cavalcade, Fox and Crow were cover-featured on three DC titles. They continued on the cover of Real Screen Comics through its title change to TV Screen Cartoons from #129-138 (Aug. 1959 - Feb. 1961), the final issue.
The Fox and the Crow itself was renamed Stanley and His Monster beginning with #109 (May 1968), after the back-up feature, begun in #95 (Jan. 1966), that had taken over in popularity. For the last ten years of its existence, The Fox and the Crow was written by Cecil Beard, assisted by his wife, Alpine Harper. The illustrator was Jim Davis (b. 1915), although it was generally unsigned.[8]
Feature films
Fauntleroy Fox and Crawford Crow were going to have a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but were later dropped for unknown reasons.[9]
See also
Footnotes
External links
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- The Columbia Crow's Nest via The Wayback Machine
- The Fox and the Crow at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on July 30, 2016.
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- ↑ The Fox and The Crow #97, April–May 1966 letters column
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