Who are the Fox and the Crow?
They are, in my opinion, one of the greatest animated duos to ever grace the silver screen. The Fox is a refined, haughty, upper-class character who tries to salvage his belongings from a certain "chiseling" crow. His name is never fully revealed in the actual cartoons, but in the comics his first name is revealed to be Fauntleroy. The name is a direct reference to the classic 19th century children's book "Little Lord Fauntleroy," featuring a rich boy hero who was excessively well-mannered and dressed by his parents in a lacy, stylized sailor suit and hat. In the years after the book's release, the character's name came to symbolize pampered little kids, then sissified ones, and finally sissy types in general (even though the Fauntleroy in the book was indeed no sissy). The Crow on the other hand, is everything that the Fox is not. The Crow is a fast-talking, street-wise chiseler who just happens to live next door to the world's greatest sucker, the Fox. In the Screen Gems films, the Crow's name is not fully revealed (usually it's E.S. Crow or Joe Crow), but in the comics it's simply Crawford S. Crow, or occasionally C. Crawford Crow. Both the Fox and Crow call each other "Foxie" and "Crowy" as nicknames.

The Fox and the Crow were first introduced in Frank Tashlin's "The Fox and the Grapes" in 1941. Not only was this the Fox and Crow's screen debut, but it featured excellent animation, beautiful backgrounds, and well-paced gags of the Fox trying to capture the grapes, which the Crow offered to have thrown down in exchange for his rather huge picnic lunch. This series of gags inspired Chuck Jones' Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote series. Famous voice actor for cartoons, Mel Blanc, voiced both the Fox and the Crow in this cartoon as well.

In the following year however, both Frank Tashlin and Mel Blanc were no longer at Columbia to work on the Fox and the Crow. So, Columbia brought in an animator and story man from Tashlin's staff, named Bob Wickersham, to take over direction. Voice artist, Frank Graham, took over Blanc's stand to supply the voice for both the Fox and Crow. Equipped with a new staff of writers, including Tedd Pierce and Sid Marcus, production began with "Woodman Spare That Tree" (1942), the second Fox and Crow cartoon in which The Fox threatens to cut down the tree where the Crow lives.

In 1943, the Fox and the Crow became so successful that they got their own series of cartoons starting with "Room and Bored," a cartoon in which the Crow rents one of the Fox's spare rooms. He proves to be the most annoying tenant the Fox ever had. The Fox and Crow efforts by Bob Wickersham that were to follow were nothing short of genius.

In 1947, the in-house Columbia staff was taken over by Henry Binder and Ray Katz. The Fox and Crow cartoons now were slightly different. Instead of being considerably intelligent and cultured, the Fox was now a blundering idiot with a deep, low voice (a Warner Bros. trademark). The Crow's personality remained the same, although his new voice became quite irritating. There were only two Fox and Crow cartoons made by the Binder-Katz staff, both were unsuccessful. In 1947, Columbia's cartoon department closed down, and UPA would be producing all the cartoons released by Columbia Pictures from that time forward. There were only three UPA “Fox and Crows” made. Two of them were nominated for Oscars.

Even though they no longer starred in animated cartoons, the Fox and Crow still remained popular in comics. The characters started out in 1945, introduced in DC Comics' "Screen Funnies" series alongside other Columbia stars like Flippy and Tito and his Burrito. The Fox and Crow became so successful that they appeared more often in the "Screen Funnies" comics than the other stars. Eventually, they would land their very own series of comics. The stories were written by Bob Wickersham's divison. But once the Screen Gems studio closed, the late great Jim Davis took over. The Fox and Crow comics would still continue to uphold their share of popularity until 1968 when the duo was "pushed aside" by "Stanley's Monster" who had a short run until 1969. Ask any animation expert on the history of Screen Gems and "The Fox and the Crow" will instantly come to mind first as the remembered, but most obscure duo of all time.