After the completion of Disney's "101 Dalmatians" there were two different projects in pre-production as possible follow ups .
One was titled "The Sword in the Stone" which was developed by Bill Peet, the other one was "Chanticleer". Ken Anderson and Marc Davis were doing story and design work on it.
Walt eventually had to make a choice, and he picked "The Sword in the Stone" to move forward.
Marc told the story that after the final Chanticleer presentation, a certain business man tried to convince Walt, that you can't make a personality out of a chicken.
I would like to think that Walt had other reasons for its cancelation, because these Marc Davis concept sketches are FULL of personality and charm.
Marc added: "I think that I did some of my best drawings at the studio for Chanticleer".
The tale revolves around an arrogant rooster who is convinced that his crow in the morning makes the sun rise.
Years ago Disney published a small children's book version of the story with Marc's illustrations, which you can still find on Amazon :
For now enjoy a selection of Marc Davis' incredible work for the project.
He starts out be studying the forms and shapes of real roosters and chicken, then he applies that knowledge to his anthropomorphic designs.
