Big Mama

Big Mama is a major character in Disney's 1981 feature film The Fox and the Hound. She is a good friend and mentor of Tod.

Background
Big Mama is an owl who appears to live close to Widow Tweed's home. She appears to be close friends with Dinky and Boomer, as well as forest inhabitants like Vixey.

Personality
She is a motherly character who coordinates Tod's adoption by Widow Tweed, and later advises and cares for Tod while he is growing up. She possesses a great deal of wisdom and is generally friendly to everybody.

Role in the film
Big Mama is the first to discover the newly orphaned Tod and is quick to comfort the young fox. Together with Dinky and Boomer, she arranges for Tod to be adopted by Widow Tweed. When Tod grows older, she takes notice of the irony of Tod's best friend being Copper, who is his natural enemy. When Copper is taken away on a hunting trip, Big Mama takes Tod aside and explains the dangers of his friendship with Copper and warns Tod that if he and Copper were still friends, he get killed. Big Mama shows Tod the numerous animal skins that Copper's owner Amos Slade has hunted down, and tells Tod that Copper will be a trained hunting dog when he returns, and thus a danger to Tod. Tod initially rejects Big Mama's advice, claiming that Copper would never hunt him.

Next spring, as Big Mama cleaned out her home with brown leaves, she sees Tod (who is now grown up). After Tod escapes Amos Slade, Big Mama, Dinky and Boomer, watch as Amos tries to barge into Tweed’s property.

When the adult Tod is released into the wild, Big Mama flies to the forest. While searching for Tod, she finds Vixey, a vixen who grew up in the woods. Big Mama arranges for the two to meet, as Tod has no idea how to survive in the wild. After Tod and Vixey refuse to speak to each other after Tod attempts to catch a trout to impress her, Big Mama intervenes by singing the song, “Appreciate the Lady”, making Tod and Vixey fall in love.

Big Mama is last seen sleeping in her tree, when she was awoken by Boomer’s pecking. Squeeks (now a butterfly) flies over to Big Mama, then waves goodbye to Squeeks as he flies away. But then she is awoken again by Amos Slade’s fuss over his injured leg while being nursed by Widow Tweed.