What if Walt Disney was the producer of Looney Tunes/Walt Disney Animated Classics/Rock-a-Doodle

Rock-a-Doodle is a 1991 live action/animated comedy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, loosely based on Edmond Rostand's comedy Chantecler. The film features the voices of Glen Campbell, Christopher Plummer, Phil Harris (in his final role before his retirement and death), Charles Nelson Reilly, Sorrell Booke, Sandy Duncan, Eddie Deezen, Ellen Greene and Toby Scott Ganger in his film debut. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 2 August 1991, and in the United States on 3 April 1992.

The film takes place in the 1950s, where an anthropomorphic rooster named Chanticleer (whose special crow literally causes the sun to rise every morning) left the farm to become a rock star in the city. Without him, rain continues to pour non-stop, causing a massive flood all over the country. The evil Grand Duke of Owls and his birds-of-prey henchmen take over in the darkness. Chanticleer's barnyard friends, along with Edmond, a young human boy who had been transformed into a kitten by the Duke, take off on a mission to get Chanticleer to bring back the sun and save the country.

Rock-a-Doodle received mixed reviews from critics, but was a box-office success.

Development
After both the financial and critical success of his first full-length animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney was always on the lookout for new material that his animators could adapt for the screen. In 1943, after "Chantecler" was brought to his attention, Walt told storymen Ted Sears and Al Perkins to see what they could do with the material. However, after they reported to him that they were in difficulties because they were unsure how to make a sympathetic character out of the titular rooster, Walt combined the project with that of "Reynard the Fox", another story animators were working on adapting at the time. This was because he thought that having a villain-in this case a fox to oppose Chantecler would help audiences sympathize with him. However, as with many of the studio's other feature films currently in development at the time, the project had to be shelved for the duration of WWII.

After they had both finished their work on One Hundred and One Dalmatians, animators Marc Davis and Ken Anderson decided to collaborate in order to create a film in the wake of Broadway musicals. Going down to the Animation Archive Library, they both came across the Chanticleer concept art and liked what they saw. When Walt heard that they were going to pick up on the project, he advised them to scrap all previously attempted work and start fresh, hoping that they could get it done in this way. Although, Marc and Ken worked very hard for the next few months, creating lots of concept art, the other animators were more interested in Bill Peet's The Sword in the Stone because they also had the doubt that a rooster would be able to be sympathetic. On the other hand, the board of the studio, headed by Roy Disney was trying to convince Walt to halt production on animated features entirely so that he could put his finances toward his two theme parks. Though he would not agree to the former proposal, Walt did decide that one of the two projects currently in development at the studio would have to be shelved. The reason why The Sword in the Stone was kept over Chanticleer was because it was cheaper to animate humans than it was animals.

In the late 1980s, as a response to the success of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the proposal was revised by Disney veteran animator, Don Bluth, who wanted to tell the rooster's story through live action and animation. Bluth personally approached Walt and inquired about revive Chanticleer. Knowing he could trust Bluth because of the success of An American Tail and All Dogs Go to Heaven, Walt relented and production had begun.

Originally, the story's first and last scenes were to be shot in black and white, similar to The Wizard of Oz. The film's opening, which took place at a farm, had Edmond's mother reading the tale of Chanticleer to him. Victor French from Get Smart and Highway to Heaven was set to direct these scenes, 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.