The Fox and the Crow are a pair of anthropomorphic cartoon characters created by Frank Tashlin for the Screen Gems studio.
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.
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. Cartoons 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.
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. The remaining backlog of completed Screen Gems shorts (which ran in theaters through 1949) included two shorts starring a redesigned and recast Fox and Crow.
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.
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. No.FilmDirectionOriginal release dateSeries1The Fox and the GrapesFrank TashlinDecember 5, 1941 Color Rhapsody2Woodman, Spare That Tree Bob WickershamJuly 2, 19423Toll Bridge TroublesNovember 27, 19424Slay It With FlowersJanuary 29, 19435Plenty Below ZeroMay 14, 19436Tree for TwoJune 21, 19437A-Hunting We Won't GoAugust 23, 19438Room and BoredSeptember 30, 1943Fox and Crow9Way Down Yonder in the CornNovember 25, 194310The Dream KidsJanuary 5, 194411Mr. MoocherSeptember 8, 194412Be Patient, PatientOctober 27, 194413The Egg-YeggDecember 8, 194414Ku-Ku NutsMarch 30, 194515Treasure JestHoward SwiftAugust 30, 194516Phoney BaloneyBob WickershamSeptember 13, 194517Foxy FlatfootsApril 11, 194618Unsure RuntsHoward SwiftMay 16, 194619Mysto-FoxBob WickershamAugust 29, 194620Tooth or ConsequencesHoward SwiftJune 5, 1947Phantasy21Grape NuttyAlex LovyApril 14, 1949Color Rhapsody
UPA No.FilmDirectionOriginal release dateSeries22Robin Hoodlum John HubleyDecember 23, 1948 Fox and Crow23The Magic FlukeMarch 24, 194924Punchy de LeonJanuary 12, 1950 Jolly Frolics
In other media Comic books
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, 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 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.The Fox and The Crow #97, April–May 1966 letters column
Feature films Fauntleroy Fox and Crawford Crow were going to have a cameo in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but were later dropped for unknown reasons. Although they were mentioned in the Latin American dub.
See also Foxes in popular culture, films and literature Golden age of American animation
References
External links
The Columbia Crow's Nest via The Wayback Machine The Fox and the Crow at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. from the original on July 30, 2016.