Cast _* Interesting Facts _* Behind The Scenes

Directed by: Don Bluth
Written by: David N. Weiss
Music by: Robert Folk & T.J. Kuenster

Released in: April 3, 1992
Running Time: 77 minutes

Budget: $
Box-Office: $11.7 million in the U.S.
 
 

CAST
 

Edmond... Toby Ganger
Chanticleer... Glen Campbell
Goldie... Ellen Greene
Snipes... Eddie Deezen
Peepers... Sandy Duncan
Pinky... Sorrell Booke
Patou... Phil Harris (in his very last role)
Scott... Christian Hoff
Dad... Stan Ivar
Mark... Jason Marin
Grand Duke... Christopher Plummer
Hunch... Charles Nelson Reilly
Stuey... Will Ryan
 
 

INTERESTING FACTS

Disney had previously considered adapting Chanticleer as an animated feature.

  Christopher Plummer (1927) is a famous Canadian actor whose body of work includes The Sound of Music (1965), The Shadow Box (1980), An American Tail (Henri, 1986) and Dolores Clayborne (1995).  His daughter, Amanda Plummer (1957), portrayed Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction (1994), and was the voice of one of the Fates in Disney's Hercules (1997).  Lookalike Ellen Greene (1950), the star of The Little Shop of Horrors (1986), is the voice of Goldie.

  Co-director Gary Goldman recalled in August 2002 that voice actor "Phil Harris was great. It wasn't hard to sign him up. He had done such a good job on Jungle Book, we just thought he was a great choice for the dog, Patou, in Rock-A-Doodle. He loved to work and had a good time doing this voice-over. He was well into his 70's when he did the role."
 
 

BEHIND THE SCENES WITH DON BLUTH

The director comments on his experience working on Rock-A-Doodle (February 2002, Don's official site):

"The film did not turn out as we planned. A little bit of history may help. We were in a business deal with Goldcrest Films and Television. It was the 2nd of the two-picture deal. The first was All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Our first problem occurred at the start of the production of the live-action bookend elements, where the story gets set up and resolved. Victor French was hired to direct the live action. Just after he arrived to start the shoot, he discovered that he had pancreatic cancer. He was experiencing back pain. We sent him to the Black Rock Clinic in Dublin. They basically told him to go back to the States and gave him about 8 weeks to live. Eight weeks later, he was gone. What a disaster for him and for our film. We were already on the march thru the live-action production, people in place to work, contracts committed to, including the entire cast (who were also already in Dublin for the filmming), so Don took over the Director position and pushed the live-action thru. We chauffered him to and from the studios. In the car, he would story board scenes for the animators. So the whole thing got off to a rough start. Once we got a handle on the picture, story reel with the live action bookends all cut together so we could see it, we really started to move. Pinky was a caricature of someone like Colonal Parker (or the Colonal himself). We had a lot of fun with that character.

[But] the next disaster was that Goldcrest became concerned about one of our funniest sequences in the film. It was the sequence where Christopher Plummer's character, the Grand Duke (the large Great Horned Owl), was in his kitchen, making a skunk pie. The skunk was a baby skunk, with the voice of an eight-year old actor. Goldcrest went on and on about child abuse and that most abuse occurs in the kitchen. They made us cut most of this sequence out. This sequence was one of the favorite sequences of the children of the staff. This is where the Great Owl sings opera and prepares the dough for the pie with the poor little skunk trying to get away. At the end of the sequence the Owl's stupid nephew, played by Charles Nelson Reilly, crashes into the pots and pans, startling the Grand Duke, allowing the little skunk to flee. This was a great dissappointment as it got some of the biggest laughs in the film.

The next problem was that they (Goldcrest) insisted that Goldie be covered better. They had a problem with her costume. We had to go back and add the fur around the top of the strapless bustier, to cover up Goldie's cleavage. We really felt that the film was gutted.

Rock-A-Doodle did not have good distribution. It was picked up by Samuel Goldwyn, a small independent US distributor. The first problem was that they completely redesigned our poster advertising art. The European campaign used our poster art, which showed Edmund, the cat, riding on the front of a '59 Cadillac, driving thru the flood waters. The owls were on the flooded barn, in the distance and you could see Chanticleer on top of the highest building of the city with his guitar. This poster art was to telegraph to the audience that the film was a fifties rock 'n roll movie. The poster that was used for the US campaign had a waist shot of the main characters with Chanticleer holding Edmund the cat. The city skyline was in the background - we hated it. It didn't offer any of the energy contained in the European poster. The US campaign was weak compared to our other films' campaigns. MGM/UA's campaign for All Dogs, under the management of David Forbes, was very well done. Obviously the campaigns for An American Tail and Land Before Time were terrific because of Steven Spielberg's envolvement and Universal wanted to make a big splash in animation."