Chanticleer (partially found production material of cancelled Disney animated film; 1940s-mid 1960s)

Chanticleer duelling Poco Loco.

Status: Lost

Chanticleer was going to be an animated movie based on the pre-World War 1 French play Chanticleer written by Edmund Rostland. It was in development from the 1940s up until the mid 1960s and never saw completion.

Though the film never saw completion, the film's character designs later inspired the 1973 Disney animated film Robin Hood as well as the animatronics for defunct America Sings attraction in Disneyland.

Plot

The film takes place on a Parisian farm in the late 1800s, much like the play, Chanticleer would have been the story of a vain rooster who had all the animals believing that his crowing was what brought up the sun each morning. Then a ruthless band of "Night Creatures" lead by a vicious fox who is named Reynard are planning to seize the animals on the farm for food. Under the guise of a traveling circus, the animals came to the farm and performed for the animals. This somehow caused them to lose faith in Chanticleer and now want Reynard to lead them instead of Chanticleer.

In another scene, a beautiful Pheasant who was new on the farm had constantly been trying to get Chanticleer to notice her, but all attempts to do so had failed. So Reynard, hoping that her beauty would distract Chanticleer so that the rooster couldn't ruin his plan, offered to give her a makeover. However, Chanticleer would have eventually realized what the fox was up to, at which point the rooster was to have dueled one of Reynard's henchmen, a Spanish fighting rooster who would've gone by Senior Poco Loco, during which time the sun would have risen without the need his crowing. At this, he would learn how being vain is wrong, found the strength to beat Senior Poco Loco and chased away the baddies in the end.

Development

1940s

After the overall success of Disney's first full-length animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937, Walt was on the lookout for new material that his animation team could adapt for the screen. In 1943, When Chanticleer was brought to his attention, Walt told storymen, Ted Sears and Al Perkins, to see what ideas they could get from the material. However, after they reported to him that difficulties came up due to the team being unsure of making a rooster a sympathetic character, Walt combined the project with another project named "Reynard the Fox." He thought that having a villain to oppose the rooster would help boost sympathy with the audience. But due to multiple films being in development at the time, the project had to be shelved for the majority of WWII.

1960s

After finishing work on 101 Dalmatians, Marc Davis and Ken Anderson decided to collaborate on a film built in the wake of Broadway Musicals. Going down to the Animation Archive Library, they both came across the Chanticleer concept art and liked what they saw. Hearing of this news, Walt urged the duo to scrap all work done on the project and start fresh hoping that they could get it done this way. Thought they were getting a significant amount of work done, other animators were more interested in The Sword in the Stone due to the roster being more sympathetic. On the other hand, the Roy Disney, The headboard of the studio, was trying to convince Walt to halt production on all full-length animations to put towards his two theme parks in Anaheim, California and Orlando, Florida. Though he disagreed to this proposal, Walt made the decision to shelve one of the two animated projects currently in production and Chanticleer was ultimately the animated project that got shelved due to it being cheaper to animate humans than animals.

1980s

In 1981 Mel Shaw proposed a story re-write. This would've depicted Chanticleer as "the most macho chicken in all of France". This was quickly rejected by then-head of the studio for the same reasons it had been in the past.

Music

the music would have been composed by George Bruns. He had written three songs for the film which Mel Leven had lyricized.

These are the ones:

Chanticleer- opening to the film; the farm animals would've sung about how much they adored of Chanticleer as they awoke in the morning.

You No Good Reynard-Meant to be sung by Reynard's wife as she berated her husband for never having given her and the kits a chance at a finer lifestyle despite promising to do so many times.

Yesterday is Over-Near the ending of the film when Chanticleer becomes more worried that the other animals would ostracize him for not holding the power that he thought he did, the Pheasant would've sung this song to console him.

Gallery

A video discussing the movie.

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