Patou, and Peepers go to the city to return Chanticleer to the farm, he stays behind to keep the owls at bay. He is almost eaten by the Duke, but is saved when the group returns with Chanticleer, shining a helicopter light on the Duke. Louise Chamis as Minnie, a rabbit from the farm. Bob Gallico as Radio Announcer Jake Steinfeld as Farmyard Bully, a rooster and minion of the Duke sent by him to stop Chanticleer from crowing. Steinfeld also voiced Max the Bouncer, the leader of a group of bouncer frogs who are Pinky's henchmen. T. J. Kuenster, Jim Doherty, John Drummond, and Frank Kelly as the Duke's owl henchmen. Kathryn Holcomb as Dory, Edmond's mother Stan Ivar as Frank, Edmond's father Christian Hoff as Scott, one of Edmond's older brothers Jason Marin as Mark, one of Edmond's older brothers Production Development Plans for an animated version of the Chanticleer tale dated as far back as the early years of the Disney studios, where several of its artists were interested in combining elements of the story with those about an anthropomorphic fox named Reynard. Though character designs by Marc Davis survive, Walt Disney personally rejected the pitch in 1961, eventually passing on the project in favor of The Sword in the Stone. Eleven years later, Don Bluth, himself a former Disney animator, had begun pre-production on an fully animated film based on Chanticleer in 1982, before the release of The Secret of NIMH. In 1985, the film was mentioned as being in development limbo. Three years later, as a response to the success of the groundbreaking live-action animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Bluth ultimately revived his proposal, intending to tell the rooster's story through live action and animation. Originally, the story's first and last scenes were to be shot in black and white, similar to 1939's The Wizard of Oz. The film's opening, which took place at a farm, had Edmond's mother reading the book The Story of Chanticleer to him. Victor French, who had directed several episodes of Get Smart and Highway to Heaven, was set to direct these sequences, but terminal lung cancer forced him out of production. Bluth, who had never done anything in this field, took over from this point. However, very little of this footage made it in the final cut. In a 1990 magazine article, Don described the plot of the