I just had a little run with Foghorn Leghorn (one of my favourite characters) lately, and have some observations about the the series.

Walky Talky Hawky feels like a Tex Avery cartoon. Or at least something that is vastly different from the traditional McKimson style. While it built the basic structure for the series (ie. dog and leghorn trade pranks, intruder appears, leghorn takes advantage etc etc.), it used gags and animation (not to mention the drawing of the characters) very differently. Foghorn wasn't as pompous as well as in later shorts. WTH is still a good 40s style short, but somehow I never felt it as a canonic adventure for the main characters.

Crowing Pains feels like an experimental short, and honestly it's not a very good one. Even with that much needed title card restoration (which now gives some reason for Henery to be in the short), the whole thing feels like an ecclectic mess. Funny mess, but really, what's the reason of the dog's presence here for example?

The Foghorn Leghorn is the first short where Foghorn really starts to take over. The cartoon has an interesting structure, which should have been used more often later on, because it makes sense. Foghorn in this structure isn't playing with the dog. He is just having a pride, and wants to prove a point to clueless Henery. Accidentally the dog appears, but he is more formidable than in other shorts. This strange chemistry was only used once later on, in Fox Terror, where the twosome weren't actual enemies. TFL for this reason deserve the praise for being the fan favourite of the series.

Henhouse Henery is a very underrated short. As a kid, I considered it as THE Foghorn Leghorn short, because how influential I felt it being. You know, this introduced the Camptown Races in style, and the more laid back, more familiar early 50s style Foghorn also debuted here. It also returned to the Walky Talky Hawky formula after 2 experiments, but fixing the issues. If there is a canonic episode, this must be the one. And funny as hell.

The Leghorn Blows at Midnight, well, it's just a filler for me. I think McKimson just wanted to remake Walky Talky Hawky with injecting his learning curve since then. The vanishing cream was funny, and the drawing/animation is top notch, but by this time, the Henery Hawk formula is losing it's mojo.

A Fractured Leghorn is the first short without Henery and the dog, and in fact, it's totally different to anything else in this series, almost like Odor of the Day for Pepe le Pew, except it's made by the same creator. It's basically a reimagination of the funny It's Hummer Time, with improvements on both characters. I'm not sure what you think of it, but AFL is probably my favourite McKimson cartoon ever, and would make my top 20 of all time favourite Looney Tunes. It's just this funny. Very quotable, two likable characters, and some strong visual gags between those pompous speech.

I have no real opinion of Leghorn Swoggled, EGGcited Rooster, All Fowled Up etc. By this time, Henery lost his appeal, and these new iterations by him all felt forced and phony as a $7 bill. These are not bad cartoons again, just remakes of better ones with unnecessary additions like The Henpecked Duck style egg sitting.

Miss Prissy's (and Tedd Pierce's) appearance in Lovelorn Leghorn gave some fresh air for the series. It's the same Walky Talky Hawky formula, just Henery is now an old, witless hen, who wants a husband. Yet, despite being formulaic, I love Lovelorn Leghorn for its energy. It's also influential, because the husband chasing trope is very well known for the character (even a flash game was made about it), despite only used twice.

Sock a Doodle Do is well, it's there, and I'm not a fan. I don't like the replacement character at all, and this cartoon has very little reason to punish poor Foghorn at the end. After all, the dog started the problem.

Plop Goes the Weasel on the other hand is a great short. First, it used a very funny secondary character in the weasel. McKimson clearly liked working with hyperactive guys, and the weasel almost felt like a semi prototype for the Tasmanian Devil. The other good thing about this cartoon is it's different approach to the classic Walky Talky Hawky formula. Foghorn and dog still play pranks, but instead of beating and bashing, Foghorn used psychology to let the chicks get out and annoy the dog instead of beating him.

Of Rice and Hen is another short I consider to be in my top 20 or top 30 of all Looney Tunes, and my second favourite in the series. I mean, this one is dark. It's subtle as well, almost felt like a Friz Freleng cartoon. Warren Foster's one of reappearance certainly helped as he brought his Freleng unit experiments with him. The first two minutes of this short is almost unsettling, and only Foghorn's happy go style steered it away from the early narrative. The gags are fine tuned and developed, the dog used psychology, and the ending is cynical and satisfactory. I also love the new song instead of Camptown Races, and the background look very interesting in this short.

OK, I stop now. From Little Boy Boo, I think the series takes a negative turn, and start to become repetitive and lifeless. There were some mildly amusing Foghorn shorts later on (like Banty Raids), it never recovered to its energetic style. Little Boy Boo was a childhood favourite of mine, but this changed a lot lately. I'm not sure why I don't like it and its follow ups, probably because they put emphasis on the interaction between the father and son type characters, but it's just not as funny in my opinion as the classic pompous style which became Foghorn's trademark. Unfortunately, after the shutdown, this kind of father vs son chemistry became the norm in the series, and it felt wrong.

Tldr, long story short: I still love Foghorn Leghorn, despite the series' flaws. I wish other directors worked with him in the classic era to show a different angle to the character. My favourite Foghorn shorts are:
The Foghorn Leghorn
Henhouse Henery
A Fractured Leghorn (a masterpiece IMHO)
Lovelorn Leghorn
Plop Goes the Weasel
Of Rice and Hen (also a mini masterpiece)

I always liked Foghorn Leghorn growing up, but in the last five years or so he's really become a favorite of mine. Barnyard Dawg is also one of my all-time favorite supporting characters, to the point that I find myself actively rooting for him in the Foghorn shorts. There's just something about his voice and personality that have always appealed to me. It's a shame that Foghorn and Barnyard Dawg's rivalry doesn't have the same reputation as Bugs/Daffy, Bugs/Elmer, Road Runner/Coyote, and Sylvester/Tweety. Personally, I'd put those two right up with the other pairings. Perhaps a small part of the problem is that Barnyard Dawg is never explicitly named in any of his cartoons. Some fans might not even know that he has a name.

I think you have some very good notes on the first handful of his cartoons. Personally, I don't see the "Tex Avery-ness" of "Walky Talky Hawky." It feels very much like a McKimson cartoon in terms of dialogue, character poses, pacing, etc. But I haven't seen it in a while, so I can't judge.

As for "Crowing Pains," I always wonder about Sylvester's presence way more than Barnyard Dawg's. Other than Daffy in "The High and Flighty," this is the only time another main WB character appears in a Foggy short, and Sylvester sticks out like a sore thumb here. Then again, this is only the second Foghorn short, so the formula hadn't really been nailed down yet. But I agree with you that it's kind of all over the place.

I'm confused by your comments on "The Foghorn Leghorn" - you say Barnyard Dawg is more formidable, but then say it's like "Fox Terror" where Foggy and Dawg are friends. Can you clear this up?

I didn't realize that "Henhouse Henery" is the first Foghorn cartoon to use "Camptown Races" - good on you for pointing that out.

"A Fractured Leghorn" is a great cartoon, and "Of Rice and Hen" will always be one of my favorites. I appreciated your comments on both of those. But I'm kind of disappointed at how quickly you wrote off the entire second half of Foghorn's filmography. Personally, I love the "Little Boy Boo"/"Feather Dusted"/"Crockett Doodle Doo" trilogy, and cartoons like "The High and Flighty" and "Raw! Raw! Rooster" are as good as anything in the late-40s/early-50s. To be fair, though, some of his later cartoons are a hot mess (I'm looking at you, "Slick Chick").

For the most part, I think the Foghorn cartoons did a decent job of breaking formula, at least better than Sylvester/Tweety, Sylvester/Hippety Hopper, or Daffy/Speedy. You can group his cartoons in five or six different categories that overlap and intersect with each other:

1. Foggy/Barnyard
2. Foggy/Henery
3. Foggy/Prissy
4. Foggy/Eggbert Jr.
5. Foggy/Weasel
6. Foggy/One-shot characters

Granted, some of the cartoons within each of these categories are redundant, but I applaud McKimson for at least trying to shift from one type of Foghorn story to another. You mentioned, for example, that Henery Hawk started getting boring in his last few cartoons, and McKimson seemed to sense that as well.

I really appreciated you posting your thoughts, osoul. This kind of post is exactly what I miss about this forum and its predecessors. Sometimes it seems like all anyone talks about here is what is/isn't/should be/will be on DVD and Blu-ray. This was a welcome and refreshing change of pace, talking about the cartoons themselves.

You're welcome looneylife. Yeah, it's kinda sad this forum is just rather uninteresting since it's reopening after the original GAC shutdown in 2011. I'm very rarely looking up here, and miss the old fellows (Thad, JJ Hunsecker, Andrea, Marty, sogturtle, Fibber Fox, Speedy Boris, larriva 9/11 etc etc.)

As for your comments, I have to say I'm not a huge fan of McKimson's cartoons after the 3D shutdown. His new team was full of second tier animators and it was clearly visible in the pace and energy of his films by this time. Both Raw, Raw, Rooster and The High and the Flighty has good premises, and both could have been great if they were done 5 years earlier. The final result was just the same dynamite jokes repeating themselves. If there is one post-shutdown Foghorn short I somewhat enjoy and forgot to mention, it has to be Weasel Stop. The new shepherd dog was a rather interesting addition, the hyperactive weasel is always funny, and the cartoon has some really nice pacing, particularly the opening scene when Foggy woke up the dog was hilarious. Too bad the cartoon ended up very shortly, in fact, before it actually started to roll.

As for my comment of the formidable dog, I indeed have to clear up. In The Foghorn Leghorn, our favourite poultry didn't want to joke on him. In fact, he feared of him. The dog wasn't just the guy in the other corner of the ring, he was a force to be reckoned with. Well, he indeed wasn't formidable in Fox Terror, but he was still an unwanted force, and Foggy didn't actually want to comfront him. Well, different chemistry you know, that's what I wanted to say. :D

Btw. what are your personal favourites?

My favorite Foghorn shorts:
-The Foghorn Leghorn
-Henhouse Henery
-A Fractured Leghorn
-Lovelorn Leghorn
-Plop Goes the Weasel
-Little Boy Boo
-Weasel While You Work
-Banty Raids

The only one in his entire filmography that's outright bad is The Slick Chick.

It's quite interesting that Foghorn is considered as the main culprit in the barnyard fight, but in reality, most of the fights were instigated by the dog first.

Walky Talky Hawky, The Leghorn Blows at Midnight, Leghorn Swoggled, Lovelorn Leghorn, Sock A Doodle Do and The EGGcited Rooster were all cartoons (from the pre-shutdown era), where the dog asked for it. Foghorn instigated the fights only in Henhouse Henery, Plop Goes the Weasel and Of Rice and Hen, and actually gave some twisted reasons why he did that.

In the former group, at least in WTH, TLBAM and Lovelorn... the result was satisfying, as in the first two shorts both characters lost at the end, while in Lovelorn... the comeuppance wasn't that bad, was it?

But one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of Leghorn Swoggled, Sock a Doodle Do and The EGGcited Rooster are the fact the instigator got away with winning. Sock... was particularly painful to watch as the twosome just traded the pranks with each other, and the final one was a really unsettling loss to Foggy. In EGG... 4 characters were against Foggy, who did nothing wrong, he was just a henpecked husband.

The group of Henhouse Henery, Plop Goes the Weasel and Of Rice and Hen worked much better for me, because Foggy was the obvious culprit in all of these episodes, and deserved his comeuppance at the end in all of them. Yet, Of Rice and Hen's ending was the most satyrical and satisfying in all Foghorn shorts in my opinion.

Man, I always forget that McKimson's unit was completely replaced after the 3D shutdown. I only learned about it for the first time a couple years ago, and I feel like I need to go back and watch his 40s/50s cartoons again with that in mind.

As for my personal favorites, off the top of my head I'd have to say Walky Talky Hawky, A Fractured Leghorn, Of Rice and Hen, Feather Dusted, The High and the Flighty, Crockett-Doodle-Doo, The Dixie Fryer, and Mother Was a Rooster (though this last one is mostly from the nostalgia of watching it on Cartoon Network on Saturday mornings as a kid. It's not a great cartoon, but I have happy memories of it).

A couple more isolated thoughts on the series: it seems to me that the best Foghorn cartoons are really popular with pretty much everyone. I remember back when the Golden Collections were being produced, everyone seemed to want more of Foghorn than any other character. Everyone was excited when he got his DVD in the Super Stars line (and then we all complained that it was an "And Friends" disc instead of just straight Foghorn). I think one reason for his popularity is that it's more character-based than gag-oriented. The Tweety and Sylvester cartoons are incredibly formulaic - redundant gags and premises in different locations (the beach, the city, the farm, Italy, Hawaii, etc.). The Pepe le Pew shorts are even more redundant, and the Road Runner shorts are perhaps the most repetitive and gag-oriented (they're saved by the fact that the gags in their cartoons are among the most creative and hilarious of all time). More than being gag-driven, the Foghorn cartoons seem to be more character-driven. Foghorn has a much deeper personality than Pepe, Tweety, Road Runner, and Wile E. Coyote, and each of his co-stars brings out a different side of him. He acts differently with Prissy than he does with Henery.

As for Foghorn and Barnyard Dawg, I think one reason why their rivalry is so good is because it's extremely balanced. Osoul, it seems to me that you are more sympathetic toward Foghorn, while I always root for Dawg. The nature of their rivalry is very different from Bugs/Elmer or Sam, Sylvester/Tweety or Sam, and Road Runner/Coyote, where one character is designated as the instigator/predator/aggressor and the other as the reactor/prey/victim. Like you pointed out, they take turns dishing it out and taking it, provoking and reacting, sometimes within the same cartoon. It makes their relationship really seem more like a rivalry, perhaps more than any other pairing of characters.

It's interesting that Foghorn Leghorn usually winds up behind the 8-ball, with a few exceptions like RAH! RAH! ROOSTER!

Most of the ones are pretty good...(even WEASEL WHILE YOU WORK< not mentioned, with the John Seely/Capitol H-Q score..the only wintry one.) SOCK-A-DOODLE-DOO (with the SHeldon Leonard voiced-rooster) is a bit too tough on our Foggy, who loses by being a feathered punching bag.)

Man, I always forget that McKimson's unit was completely replaced after the 3D shutdown. I only learned about it for the first time a couple years ago, and I feel like I need to go back and watch his 40s/50s cartoons again with that in mind.

As for my personal favorites, off the top of my head I'd have to say Walky Talky Hawky, A Fractured Leghorn, Of Rice and Hen, Feather Dusted, The High and the Flighty, Crockett-Doodle-Doo, The Dixie Fryer, and Mother Was a Rooster (though this last one is mostly from the nostalgia of watching it on Cartoon Network on Saturday mornings as a kid. It's not a great cartoon, but I have happy memories of it).

A couple more isolated thoughts on the series: it seems to me that the best Foghorn cartoons are really popular with pretty much everyone. I remember back when the Golden Collections were being produced, everyone seemed to want more of Foghorn than any other character. Everyone was excited when he got his DVD in the Super Stars line (and then we all complained that it was an "And Friends" disc instead of just straight Foghorn). I think one reason for his popularity is that it's more character-based than gag-oriented. The Tweety and Sylvester cartoons are incredibly formulaic - redundant gags and premises in different locations (the beach, the city, the farm, Italy, Hawaii, etc.). The Pepe le Pew shorts are even more redundant, and the Road Runner shorts are perhaps the most repetitive and gag-oriented (they're saved by the fact that the gags in their cartoons are among the most creative and hilarious of all time). More than being gag-driven, the Foghorn cartoons seem to be more character-driven. Foghorn has a much deeper personality than Pepe, Tweety, Road Runner, and Wile E. Coyote, and each of his co-stars brings out a different side of him. He acts differently with Prissy than he does with Henery.

As for Foghorn and Barnyard Dawg, I think one reason why their rivalry is so good is because it's extremely balanced. Osoul, it seems to me that you are more sympathetic toward Foghorn, while I always root for Dawg. The nature of their rivalry is very different from Bugs/Elmer or Sam, Sylvester/Tweety or Sam, and Road Runner/Coyote, where one character is designated as the instigator/predator/aggressor and the other as the reactor/prey/victim. Like you pointed out, they take turns dishing it out and taking it, provoking and reacting, sometimes within the same cartoon. It makes their relationship really seem more like a rivalry, perhaps more than any other pairing of characters.

Foghorn acts indeed very differently with the characters around him. He is always the manchild prankster when he is acting with the dog, probably because the dog knows him better than anyone else, so he doesn't need to hide anything about him. He thinks of Henery and Prissy as utterly dumb characters, but while Henery is just an inexperienced child for him, Prissy gets some respect due to being female and old. Lovelorn Leghorn aside, Foghorn never treats her as dumb as someone who doesn't even know how a chicken looks like. Even in that cartoon, he showed some empathy towards her, which never happened with Henery.

With Sylvester and the Barnyard Cat, he showed his exaggerated manly man masculine side, while with Egghead Jr. he acted as a father type figure. The weasel is another interesting one, while he is just an inept preadtor like Henery, Foghorn treated him with more sympathy, he thinks of the weasel as a friend who is always in those mischievous acts. He also have deep fear of other capable roosters around. He treats them with care and want to get rid of them as soon as possible.

Overall, he is a very masculine character who has pride and a deep fear of exposure. I think he is a very typical portrayal of a certain phenotype, people who like to show themselves as big an fearless to the public, but in reality, they have lots of weaknesses and want to hide them from the others.

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