Trivia / Chicken Little

• Bury Your Art: While Disney is infamously known to do this to their less successful movies, special mention goes to Chicken Little. Its title character is a summon in Kingdom Hearts II. Both came out in 2005, the only year in which a Disney product would acknowledge Chicken Little in such a significant capacity, given its generally awful reception.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: Mexican actor and TV host Xavier Lopez (famously known as "Chabelo") voiced Buck Cluck in the Latin American Spanish dub.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Mark Dindal isn't proud of the end result.
    "I think, oh that version … Then I’m reconnected with what I’m thinking at the time. And you’re thinking how that version would have turned out. If we had stuck with that instead of this. If we had pushed Eisner and said, 'It has to be a girl,' it could have been killed. With this, I wish I could see an alternate reality, what that would have been like. That’s mostly it."
  • Layout Arist Allen Blaisdell shared his art of one of the spaceships of the movie, claming it as "the one Disney movie had the (dis)pleasure of making."
• Creator's Favorite: Zach Braff admits he had so much fun voicing the character. He even wants to do a reboot.
• Creator Killer: Though a commercial success, its poor critical reception and international box office caused a major shakeup in Disney staff.
  • Director Mark Dindal, whose career was already not doing well after Cats Don't Dance a decade prior, was not credited in another movie until 2019's Wonder Park, which itself seems to have become a Stillborn Franchise. All of the projects he was involved with in-between died in Development Hell. However, he is still working as the director on the 2024 animated Garfield movie.
  • Producer Randy Fullmer would leave the studio with Dindal to follow a career making guitars, and he would not be in another project until Restrung, a 2014 documentary about Randy Fullmer's life. Dindal would be credited in the documentary for making illustrations.
  • It was the final blow to Michael Eisner's time at Disney. Following a decade of failed investments in Disney Theme Parks, plus internal struggles with both Roy E. Disney and Pixar's John Lasseter, Eisner resigned shortly before the film's release, Passing the Torch to Bob Iger. He has since stuck to producing TV shows through The Tornante Company, most notably the critical darling BoJack Horseman, though his creative input has been minimal after the failure of Glenn Martin, DDS, which he co-created.
  • Eisner's departure also resulted in animation head David Stainton being replaced by Ed Catmull.
• Deleted Scene: There are several. You can find them on the DVD and Blu-ray.
  • Rather than the fake-out that appeared in the final film, the movie had an actual Storybook Opening completely animated, which would have panned out to a bookstore window with Chicken Little seeing that it's "soon a major motion picture" and wondering how he's even going to live this down.
  • A scene from the original version of Chicken Little would show Buck's relationship with Chloe, as he would complain to her wife of him wanted him to have a normal kid. This would accidentally leave their daughter heartbroken, and Buck later apologizes to her for his behavior.
  • Originally, there was no dodgeball scene. During lunchtime, Chicken Little would explain to his friends the idea of having the chance to have one moment of glory to erase his mistake of the past. The scene would show a bit more of his relationship with Abby, indicating not only she likes him, but he reciprocates.
  • Turkey Lurkey would have a short conversation with Buck after the aliens incident, and would give to him a "Show your Support" patch.
  • Another alternative opening, which was almost fully animated, would've show Buck Cluck making breakfast to his son, following the instructions from a cooking show, showing that Buck is ultimately trying to be a good parent to his son.
• DVD Commentary: With director Mark Dindal, producer Randy Fullmer and visual effects supervisor Steve Goldberg. Strangely enough, Randy Fullmer starts the commentary saying it’s the DVD Commentary, even though it's only available on the Blu-ray.
• Early Draft Tie-In: The McDonald's Happy Meal box promoting the movie (see Kids' Meal Toy below) mentions Camp Yes-U-Can, the main setting of the movie's original draft (back when Chicken Little was female).
• Executive Meddling: The film was originally going to be closer to the original fairy tale, but still a different take. Chicken Little was depicted as a girl in the original draft, but was changed into a boy just because the higher ups thought that an animated movie with a girl as a main protagonist wound't make a lot of money and appeal to boys. As for the story, the plot would have been about Chicken Little going to summer camp and meeting the same friends from the final film. However, there was a dark twist where the camp was run by wolves who disguise themselves as sheep and had a plan on fattening up the campers for a feast. It was scrapped as the higher ups wanted to cash in on the fractured fairy tale story that was seen in Shrek.
• Follow the Leader: It's no secret that the film's snarky, edgy humor is trying to capitalize on the success of Shrek (though in this case, it's less anti-Disney humor and more self-deprecation).
• In Memoriam: Dedicated to the memory of legendary Disney story artist Joe Grant (1908-2005).
• Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's released a set of eight toys in their Happy Meals during the film's theatrical release.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Kingdom Hearts II came out before the actual movie in Japan, so this was Chicken Little's official introduction to Japanese audiences.
• Meaningful Release Date: The film was released in 2005, which was the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese zodiac.
• Missing Trailer Scene: Most trailers ended on a joke that is completely absent from the movie.
  Buck: Son, there's something I want you to know.
  Chicken Little: What, Dad?
  Buck: In about three seconds, I'm going to scream like a little girl.
• The Other Darrin: In the tie-in game, everyone reprises their roles from the movie except for Joan Cusack as Abby and Don Knotts as the mayor. Abby is instead voiced by Pamela Adlon while the mayor is voiced by Jeff Bennett.
• The Other Marty: Holly Hunter was originally cast as Chicken Little and recorded all her dialogue before the film was rewritten. Zach Braff replaced her.
• Stillborn Franchise: A Direct to Video sequel, simply titled Chicken Little 2, was planned. In it, Chicken Little's childhood sweetheart Abby Mallard would find herself in a Love Triangle with him and Raffaela, a French sheep, inspiring her to get a makeover. The film's poor critical reception and the management shakeup at Disney Animation a year later cracked this egg before it could cook.
• "Take That!" Tit-for-Tat: Michael Eisner was not thrilled about his former colleague and now rival Jeffrey Katzenberg using a caricature of him as the villain in the computer-animated hit movie Shrek, and wanted to beat him at his own game by doing his own CGI movie full of snarky-self aware humor. Needless to say, it wasn't much of a fight.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The first draft of the film stuck closer to the original fairy tale and had Chicken Little as an anxious young girl with an incredibly overactive imagination. She would have had both parents, with her mother Chloe keeping Buck (who back then was called Chuck) grounded. She convinces her parents to send her to summer camp so she can gain courage after the "sky falling" incident. In the camp, however, she and her new friends end up stopping a pack of wolves impersonating the sheep counselors that plans on fattening up the campers so to eat them in a big feast afterwards.
  • At one point, the Aflac duck was going to make a cameo in certain scenes of the film. He was scrapped eventually.
  • This film was briefly considered to be hand drawn before it was decided it would be in computer animation to compete with other studios.
  • Abby Mallard, "The Ugly Duckling" was originally a male duck who was to be voiced by Sean Hayes. After the decision to turn Chicken Little into a male character, her love interest was likewise flipped into a girl.
  • According to the commentary, one version of the movie had Chicken Little running away from home and turning himself into a hobo after the alien incident. This would happen before the aliens would come down and invade the town. Storyboards can be seen at the beginning of this video, presented by head of story, Mark Kennedy
  • In this trailer hosted by supervising animator Jason Ryan, Several scenes animated and lines have been cut from the final cut. There's one point where Chicken Little says "This has definitely gotten more complicated".
  • A direct-to-video sequel was in development before John Lasseter put an end to all such films. At least two concepts were considered - Chicken Little 2: Mission To Mars (mentioned in the film's "Essential Guide Book"), and Chicken Little 2: The Ugly Duckling Story, in which Abby Mallard attempts to improve her looks in order to keep Chicken's attention after he starts falling for Rafaella, an attractive French sheep.

---