Chanticleer: the Disney rooster movie that lost to Sword in the Stone

Marc Davis and Ken Anderson spent a year on Chanticleer, a Disney musical about a vain rooster. One meeting killed it. See what it was, the chicken line and the movie that won.

Disney spent more than 20 years, on and off, trying to make a movie about a rooster.

The best shot came in the early 1960s. Two of the studio’s top artists, Marc Davis and Ken Anderson, spent a year building Chanticleer into a big, funny musical.

Then they pitched it. The money people sat through the whole thing in silence, somebody made a crack about chickens, and that was that. Disney made “The Sword in the Stone” instead.

So how does a rooster lose to a boy and a wizard? Pull up a perch.

What was Disney’s Chanticleer about?

It started with a French play. Edmond Rostand, the writer behind “Cyrano de Bergerac,” wrote “Chantecler” in 1910. It’s about a vain rooster who thinks his crowing makes the sun come up.

Disney started poking at it as early as 1937, according to the Disney history blog 2719 Hyperion, citing historian Charles Solomon’s book “The Disney That Never Was.”

The early story teams kept hitting the same wall. Nobody could figure out how to make a rooster likable, in looks or in personality.

So the studio folded in another old tale, Reynard the Fox, and made the fox the villain. That didn’t fix it either. By the early 1950s, the whole thing was back on the shelf, 2719 Hyperion noted.

What happened when Marc Davis and Ken Anderson took over?

They threw out the old stuff and started over.

As “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” wrapped up, Davis and Anderson took on the project. Walt Disney told them to scrap the old material and start fresh, Disney historian Jim Korkis wrote for Cartoon Research.

Walt knew the problem. “You don’t feel like picking a rooster up and petting it,” he said in 1960, according to Korkis.

He’s not wrong.

In their version, Chanticleer is the pride of a sleepy French farm village. Everybody loves him so much they make him mayor, which goes about how you’d expect. He raises the egg quota, and the hens end up working dawn to dusk, Korkis wrote.

Then a hungry Reynard rolls into town with a carnival of night creatures, from vultures and weasels to owls.

He runs for mayor on “Fun! Fun! Fun!” against Chanticleer’s “Work! Work! Work!”

Things get wild from there. There’s an undefeated fighting rooster named Senor Poco Loco, a pheasant who catches Chanticleer’s eye, a sword duel before dawn and a raid on the henhouse.

While the two roosters are busy fighting, the sun comes up anyway. No crowing required.

What would Chanticleer have looked like?

Like a Broadway show with feathers.

Davis pictured it as “a takeoff of a musical comedy,” chorus line and all, Korkis reported.

The opening number, “Chanticleer,” had lyrics by Mel Leven and music by George Bruns. In it, the whole village sings the praises of the rooster who brings up the sun. Korkis thought it might remind people of the Belle and Gaston songs in “Beauty and the Beast.”

Leven and Bruns wrote two more songs, “You No Good Reynard” and “Yesterday Is Over,” according to Korkis.

Why did Disney cancel Chanticleer?

Money, mostly.

By 1961, money was tight at the studio again, Korkis wrote. Walt’s brother Roy even tried to talk him out of making new animated features at all, since Disney already had enough old ones to keep re-releasing.

Walt said no. But two features were pretty far along, and there was only enough money for one of them.

Bill Peet had “The Sword in the Stone.” Davis and Anderson had “Chanticleer.”

Then came the big pitch, with all the art up on the walls. Walt sat in the back of the room, which Davis called unusual.

“The money people came in like it was a funeral,” Davis said, according to Korkis.

Nobody said a word through the whole presentation. “They all filed out and that was the end of it,” Davis said.

Who said you can’t make a personality out of a chicken?

Depends who you ask.

In a 1998 interview with Korkis, Davis said the line came from “some bookkeeper,” 2719 Hyperion reported: “You can’t make a good character out of a chicken.”

Davis wasn’t buying it. “You can make a good character out of a push pin if you want,” he said.

Bill Peet told it another way. In his 1989 autobiography, Peet claimed he was the guy in the back of the room who yelled that you can’t make a personality out of a chicken, Korkis wrote.

Peet, for the record, was the guy with the other movie.

Why did The Sword in the Stone win?

Walt figured it would cost less, partly because it had fewer characters, Korkis wrote. It also reminded him of “Camelot,” his favorite Broadway show at the time, and its underdog hero, Wart, was easy to root for.

“The Sword in the Stone” opened Dec. 25, 1963, according to D23, Disney’s official fan club. It was Wolfgang Reitherman’s first time directing a feature on his own.

A fan channel posted a 4K scan of the original 1963 theatrical trailer, made from 35mm film:

It’s streaming on Disney+, according to JustWatch. It still sells merch, too. Loungefly launched a Sword in the Stone collection in September, starring Merlin and Madam Mim.

Did Disney ever try to make Chanticleer again?

Once. In 1980, story artist Mel Shaw did pastel drawings in hopes of reviving it, but the people running the studio passed again, Korkis wrote.

Pieces of it lived on, though. Drawings from the late-1940s version helped inspire Disney’s “Robin Hood” (1973), which also starred a clever fox, Jim Hill Media reported.

In the early 1990s, Disney Press used Davis’ art in a storybook called “Chanticleer and the Fox,” according to 2719 Hyperion.

And a former Disney animator made his own version of the Chanticleer story anyway, 2719 Hyperion noted. Don Bluth’s “Rock-a-Doodle” reached U.S. theaters April 3, 1992, and made about $11.7 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

Critics tore it apart. Rooster movies, it turns out, are hard.

What else did Marc Davis do at Disney?

A lot. Davis was one of Walt’s “Nine Old Men” of animation, according to D23. He animated Cinderella, Tinker Bell and Cruella De Vil, then moved over to the parks.

He helped create Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion and “it’s a small world,” D23 says. He also had another big idea Disney never built, a Wild West boat ride for Magic Kingdom.

The Disney Channel profiled him in a 1985 episode of “Disney Family Album.” A fan uploaded it:

What are some fun facts about Chanticleer?

Davis was proud of it. “I think that I did some of my best drawings at the studio for Chanticleer,” he said, according to Korkis.

The ending had a sleepy twist. After the duel, Chanticleer hides in bed for three days, and nobody in the village wakes up on time, because his crow was their alarm clock. So he goes back to crowing every morning, plus once at 4:30 p.m. to tell everyone to stop working and go play, Korkis wrote.

Walt reused the start-fresh trick. He took the same throw-it-out approach later with “The Jungle Book,” Korkis noted.

Peet didn’t stick around long. He left Disney in 1964 and went on to write and illustrate children’s books, according to D23.

Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.

Pirates and Princesses is your destination for Disney news, theme park updates, and the pop culture you love. From Disney cruises and travel tips to Disney fashion, food, collectibles, and movie news, PNP covers it all. Visit us at piratesandprincesses.net for daily coverage. Follow PNP on Facebook and Instagram, and listen to the Pirates & Princesses podcast on Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Hat Tips:

• Jim Korkis, Cartoon Research, Dec. 24, 2021: Disney’s “Reynard,” Part Two

• Jeffrey Pepper, 2719 Hyperion, Feb. 20, 2009: Chanticleer and the Fox (citing Charles Solomon’s The Disney That Never Was and Korkis’ 1998 interview with Marc Davis)

• Jim Hill, Jim Hill Media, June 2, 2025: The Best Disney Animation Film Never Made, “Chanticleer”

• D23 Disney A to Z: The Sword in the Stone (film), Marc Davis, Bill Peet and Disney Family Album (television) entries

• Box Office Mojo: Rock-a-Doodle (1992)

• JustWatch: The Sword in the Stone U.S. listing, checked Oct. 11, 2026

• Animation Compendia on YouTube: The Sword in the Stone 1963 theatrical trailer (35mm 4K); Keeping Walt in Disney on YouTube: Disney Family Album, “Marc Davis” (1985)

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