Rock-A-Doodle (1991)

In order to defeat the Grand Duke of Owls, a young boy transformed into a cat teams up with a group of barnyard animals to find a rooster who can raise the sun.

Directors:

Don Bluth, Gary Goldman (co-director)

Writers:

Don Bluth (story), John Pomeroy (story)

Stars:

Glen Campbell, Christopher Plummer, Phil Harris

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Phil Harris	...	Narrator / Patou (voice)
Glen Campbell	...	Chanticleer / The King (voice)
Eddie Deezen	...	Snipes (voice)
Kathryn Holcomb	...	Dory - Mother
Toby Scott Ganger	...	Edmond
Stan Ivar	...	Frank - Dad
Christian Hoff	...	Scott - Edmond's Brother
Jason Marin	...	Mark - Edmond's Brother
Christopher Plummer	...	Grand Duke (voice)
Sandy Duncan	...	Peepers (voice)
Will Ryan	...	Stuey (voice)
Charles Nelson Reilly	...	Hunch - Duke's Nephew (voice) (as Charles Nelson-Reilly)
Ellen Greene	...	Goldie (voice)
Sorrell Booke	...	Pinky - The Manager (voice)
Dee Wallace	...	Dory - Mother

Storyline

Edmund is a boy whose favorite story of Chanticleer, a rooster whose singing makes the sun rise every morning until the Grand Duke of Owls, whose kind despises the bright sun, makes him look like a fraud. With Chanticleer driven from his farm, the owls put it under a spell of perpetual darkness and rain. As Edmund's own farm floods, he calls to Chanticleer, only to summon the Duke himself who transforms him into a kitten to devour him. Rescued by Chanticleer's former friends Patou the hound, Snipes the magpie and Peepers the mouse, they go on an adventure to the city where the rooster had gone and became a great singing rock star!

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Plot Keywords:

cat | flirting | loss of money | giraffe | groupie | 

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Taglines:

The rousing, rollicking adventure of the world's first rockin' rooster!

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Genres:

Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Music

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Certificate:

G

Details

Country:

Ireland UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 April 1992 (USA)

Also Known As:

Rock-A-Doodle 3D

Filming Locations:

Ardmore Studios, Herbert Road, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland

Box Office

Budget:

$18,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$2,603,286, 5 April 1992

Gross USA:

$11,657,385

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$11,657,385

Company Credits

Production Co:

Goldcrest Films International, Sullivan Bluth Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

74 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Stereo

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Glen Campbell was chosen as the voice/sing voice of Chanticeer after Don Bluth heard his yodeling in the "I Remember You" song.

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Goofs

In his picture in the book, The Duke is wearing his monocle on his left eye, but when he shows up in Edmund's room, he is wearing it on his right.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Narrator: Once upon a time, back before I knew how to tie my shoes, the sun came up. Now, I know an everyday sunrise may not seem like such a big deal to some folks. But, imagine for a moment: if instead of rising up like this one morning where you lived, she took a look around and decided to go back to sleep. It happened once to us. Let me tell you all about it.

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Alternate Versions

For the Spanish release of the film, the cartoons were dubbed in Latin Spanish and the humans in Castilian Spanish. For a re-release in South America all the humans were re-dubbed to Latin Spanish.

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Connections

Featured in MarzGurl Reviews: MarzGurl Loves Don Bluth - Thumbelina (2011)

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Soundtracks

Come Back to You
Sung by Glen Campbell
Written by T.J. Kuenster
Arranged and Produced by T.J. Kuenster
Executive Music Producer: Shopan Entesari
Backing Vocals: The Jordanaires

User Reviews

A movie so bad it's awesome

You know, for over a year after I saw this for the first time, I pretty much convinced myself that this movie was actually good, and no, it isn't. It is a terrible mess of a film with poorly-written characters, a contrived plot and... to be honest... that's actually why I like it.

If you go into this movie knowing how poorly contrived it is, you will actually get a lot of enjoyment out of it. It starts off with a very interesting premise, one that made it worth questioning the immediately contradiction of its plot that wasted no time before rearing its ugly head, but the minute Edmond is introduced to the whole thing it becomes laugh-out-loud hilarious! The animations are very nice, the Grand Duke sometimes looking like something out of an 80's Bluth film and the good guy songs are nice to listen to (Which is why it's a shame Phil Harris talks over most of them) but all in all, this is a movie that's enjoyable simply because of how bad it is. The minute Edmond enters the story and we get quite possibly one of the strangest team-ups ever, it's impossible to take the movie seriously in the slightest.

It's kind of a shame, though, as this movie did have a lot of promise. The characters Peepers and Edmond both have speech impediments which could have made for great development between the two, but no, we get none of that. Maybe if Pinky had been the main villain and the animals were looking for Chanticleer for a, well, less selfish reason than saving their own hides, we could have still gotten a great entertaining movie with a much better message of acceptance. Maybe instead of the whole "owls threatening to eat them" thing, they could have sought out Chanticleer because without him, productivity on the farm would decrease or something like that.

Still, for what it is, it's unintentionally hilarious and that's why it passed in my eyes. Still, it's a shame the writers clearly weren't taking it seriously enough otherwise it could have been really good.