Anssi Vartiainen The fifth movie by Don Bluth, and probably the first one where his signature moves really got the best of him. It once again features anthropomorphic animals acting out the plot, with lots of gorgeous animation, nonsensical songs, bratty child characters and extremely jumpy storytelling.Chanticleer is a rooster living on a farm, and his job is to bring out the sun every morning with his crow. Unfortunately the Grand Duke of Owls prefers the night and tricks the other farm animals to see Chanticleer as a fraud and chase him away. But then the long night settles in and suddenly it's the mission of the animals and one little human boy named Edmond to find their missing friend and bring back the sun. Sounds pretty basic when you put it like that. But it's not. It's unbelievably weird in execution. Chanticleer has become Elvis, the Duke's magical powers are expressed through his breath, Edmond starts out as a live-action character but is turned into a kitten, et cetera, et cetera.And nothing really connects with anything. It's full of interesting little touches, but the plot itself is nonsensical and moves with the speed of a freight train, not allowing anything to sink in before we've already moved to something else. The songs are also pretty lame, though there's a catchy tune every now and then.All in all, I'd call Rock-A-Doodle a passable film. It's weird and hard to follow, but the characters are nice, the animation is still great and at least it's memorable.

FilmFreak94 Coming after such great movies like The Secret of Nimh, American Tail and The Land Before Time it's baffling how Don Bluth could make something like Rock-A-Doodle. The film has things going for it, like some of the voice cast is pretty good, and the animation is nice but the story... most of the songs... Well the story is there's a rooster named Chanticleer (voiced and sung by country singer Glen Campbell) who's job is to crow every morning to bring the sun up. One morning he gets involved in a fight with some other bird sent by his nemesis The Grand Duke (voiced by the great Christopher Plummer) and he forgets to crow. He's cast out as a charlatan by his fellow farm animals and leaves for the nearby city.It turns out this was a story that was being read to a small boy named Edmund. He lives on a farm that is currently undergoing a terrible storm. Since he just read about Chanticleer leaving he assumes that's the reason the storm is happening and calls out for him. Okay but what about the rest of the day? Was it just raining all day or something? Anyway, The Grand Duke shows up and turns Edmund into an animated cat with his magic breath (don't ask) and tries to eat him. One of Chanticleer's old friends, Patou the dog (voiced by the late Phil Harris) saves Edmund and is joined by other animals from the farm. They resolve to go to the city and bring Chanticleer back so he can crow and bring back the sun.There's already a lot of holes in the story from the first ten or so minutes. Like if Chanticleer was really responsible for raising the sun, why did it come up that one time? Or why does Edmund assume the sun just isn't coming up, I mean he's a kid but he's not stupid. When they get to the city it gets a little more confusing when all the inhabitants are animals. Did they just show up when all the humans evacuated the city? Did the humans evacuate the city, are they all dead? Anyway, it turns out Chanticleer is now making a living as an Elvis impersonator named 'The King.' He's incredibly depressed and only feels good when he's on stage singing. His manager, Pinky, is in contact with The Grand Duke and is told to keep Chanticleer from meeting his old friends by distracting him with a chorus girl named Goldie. The two fall in love and Pinky manages to capture Edmund and the gang. Goldie tells Chanticleer his friends are here and they save them and after a lengthy chase return to the farm. While this is going on, The Duke sends his nephew, Hunch to try and kill Edmund but he keeps failing miserably. This all comes to a head when Chanticleer can't crow and The Duke hurts Edmund. This causes the animals to try and boost Chanticleer's confidence until he finally crows and brings up the sun, sending the owls flying and turning the Duke into a midget for whatever reason. Edmund turns back into a boy and then it turns out the whole thing was a dream, Wizard of Oz style. Or maybe it wasn't cause Chanticleer pops out of the book, and Edmund is now on their farm and... what? I'm not ashamed to admit I watched this movie a lot as a kid, but watching it now... what's going on? The animation is nice and some of the songs are decent but there's too much going on. I didn't mention the other two animals who accompany Edmund, a magpie named Snipes (voiced by Eddie Deezen of Dexter's Lab fame) and a mouse named Peepers. None of the characters get a lot of development and most of the story is told through narration from Phil Harris. Narration is good sometimes, but not to tell the audience everything that's going on at the moment. We're not stupid we can figure this out by ourselves.The songs also range from OK to just plain unnecessary. The Duke and his cronies don't get any good songs which is a shame since Christopher Plummer is a talented singer. Some toad bouncers get a song about bouncing people, make of that what you will, and most of Chanticleer's songs are talked over. Wasn't the whole purpose of getting someone like Glen Campbell to sing for the character to use his voice to attract an audience? Why talk over most of his numbers?This film is a mess, through and through. Is there anything here offensive for kids? Not entirely, I remember liking it when I was young but there isn't really much to offer them in return. Apart from some good animation and a decent cast this film isn't really for those looking for the high quality of Don Bluth's other movies.

fargocowgirl This is a great cartoon movie. My boys watched it over and over. It is colorful with great animation. it has a good story line that is easy for kids to follow. I truly enjoyed this movie. All the kids I showed it to enjoyed it. I am currently trying to get my hands on a copy for my grandchildren because I know they will love it too. The voices are clear and easy to understand and the music keeps the kids attention. This film ranks right up there with "Finding Nemo" and "101 Dalmations" in my opinion. There is funny stuff, serious stuff and sad stuff. The story teaches a good lesson in a positive way. I recommend getting this movie if you can find it.

bijoukaiba The last time I saw this movie, I was probably about 3-4. I actually just finished watching it on Youtube, so I thought I'd leave my comments.I loved Chanticleer (Glen Campbell) and the Grand Duke (Christopher Plummer) in this. I loved the majority of the musical numbers in this- Chanticleer knows how to rock and crow! The only really bad songs were the ones involving the owls in my opinion, and even then they were at least tolerable.As many people have mentioned, Edmund was completely unnecessary, and the live action footage was terrible. At the musical number at the end (spoilers), seeing the live action boy amongst the animated critters was poorly carried out.If it had just been Patou, Peepers, and Snipes on the adventure, I probably would have rated this higher. Any fans of Dexter's Lab will grin when they realize that Snipes sounds exactly like Mandark because they are voiced by the same actor. Anyone familiar with Disney (then again, who isn't?) will recognize Phil Harris's voice as Patou and the narrator, who also voiced Little John in Robin Hood, Thomas O'Malley in the Aristocats, and Baloo in The Jungle Book. It was his last film role, but he did a good job with it.If not for the poor live-action quality and Edmund's involvement in the story, I would've given this at least a 6.