

With 17% of the animators now gone, production on The Fox and the Hound was delayed by six months. An especially hard blow was dealt during production of The Fox and the Hound (1981), when long-time animator Don Bluth left Disney's animation department to start his own rival studio, Don Bluth Productions, taking eleven Disney animators with him.

While critics and audiences alike awaited the birth of a new golden age for Disney animation after The Rescuers (1977), the films released over an 18-year period following this change of management did not perform as well commercially as their prior counterparts. Disney (in 19, respectively), Walt Disney Productions were left in the hands of Donn Tatum, Card Walker, and Walt's son-in-law Ron Miller.

The original Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios, which the animation department left in 1985.Īfter the deaths of Walt and Roy O.
