A delightful film. Interesting to note that this is one of the few movies at the time that combined animation and live action, which was not something new to the trio made up with Don Bluth, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy who worked on Pete’s Dragon together.

On to the review! Our main character, Chanticleer, a Rockin’ rooster with a little Elvis twist, crows every morning to wake up the sun. But one of the Grand Duke of Owl’s henchmen stops Chanticleer from crowing the sun came up without him, causing everyone called him a phony and fake. Chanticleer leaves the farm to go to the city, bowing his head feeling embarrassed and shamed.

The Grand Duke of Owl’s plan worked. What the Duke didn’t expect was a little boy named Edmond & Chanticleer’s friends coming to the rescue! So, when Edmond tries to interfere, the Duke turns him into a cat.

Edmond leads the quest in search of Chanticleer in the city to bring him back because the farm was getting more and more flooded and the sun would not come up without Chanticleer. Their adventure leads them through flooded towns & sewers, until they finally reached the city.

Looking for Chanticleer was like looking for a needling in a haystack. They tried endlessly to the point of almost giving up until they found him right under their noses! Chanticleer had become a famous singer and his image was plastered on every billboard and sign.

Now they had to figure out how to get close to him. Chanticleer was settled in, but was lonely and missed his old farm. His blood sucking manager, Pinky (hired by the Duke), kept him close at all costs.

Edmond was running out of time.

Pinky convinced Goldie, one of the performers, to seduce Chanticleer and she does it with little effort. Later, she ends up really falling for him and tells Chanticleer the truth.

Together they try to escape Pinky and his gang but in the process Chanticleer gets clubbed in the head and then it’s up to Edmond, Goldie, and their friends to save the day.

They rush to get Chanticleer back to the farm in time to stop the Duke. When Chanticleer finally wakes up he sees the destruction the Duke and the floods have caused. With every bit of energy Chanticleer had left, he crowed like never before and put a stop to Dukes evil scheme!

I personally had the pleasure of learning how to animate a few of the characters from this movie with Don Bluth’s instruction. I animated a walk cycle with Stewie the pig and Peepers the mouse.

I asked Don what his fondest memory of making “Rock-a-Doodle” was. He said, “Recording the voice of Charles Nelson Riley, he was a funny funny man. After Charles would finish a page of the script he would throw it on the floor. So when someone would ask Charles to read the line from page so and so, it would be somewhere on the floor and we had to find it.” – Don Bluth

Reviewed by: Lavalle Lee

Rock-a-Doodle Wiki