Foghorn Leghorn is an anthropomorphic rooster who appears in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons and films from Warner Bros. Animation. He was created by Robert McKimson, and starred in 29 cartoons from 1946 to 1964 in the golden age of American animation.
Foghorn Leghorn's first appearance was in the 1946 Henery Hawk short Walky Talky Hawky.
Inspiration
Foghorn Leghorn was directly inspired by the character of
Senator Claghorn, a blustery Southern politician played by
Kenny Delmar on
Fred Allen's popular 1940s radio show. Foghorn adopted many of Claghorn's catchphrases, such as "I say..." and "That's a joke, son!" Delmar's inspiration for Claghorn was a Texas rancher who was fond of saying this.
According to Keith Scott, the character's voice was also patterned after actor Jack Clifford who played a hard-of-hearing West Coast-only radio character from the 1930s, known simply as The Sheriff, on a radio program called Blue Monday Jamboree.[Scott, Keith (2008). The Origin of Foghorn Leghorn , cartoonresearch.com] The accent has similarities to that of another Mel Blanc voice: Yosemite Sam (a near-strictly Friz Freleng character); and even more similar to a proto-Sam character in Stage Door Cartoon.
Biography, characteristics and personality
Physically, Foghorn Leghorn is depicted as a very large
rooster with a Southern accent; he is easily the tallest of all the regular
Looney Tunes characters. He has a bombastic and somewhat unrefined personality, and shows a penchant for mischief. Aside from the Senator Claghorn reference, "
Foghorn" is indicative of his loudmouthed personality, while "
Leghorn chicken" refers to a particular Italian breed of chicken. According to
A Broken Leghorn and
Raw! Raw! Rooster! Foghorn lives on "Old MacDonald's Farm" in Cucamonga, California, and had attended Chicken Tech University; his college roommate and rival Rhode Island Red is a practical joker and even more obnoxious than Foghorn himself.
Foghorn often fancies himself a mentor figure to the smaller and younger characters he encounters, particularly Henery Hawk, tossing off bits of self-styled sagacity interjected with phrases like "Pay attention, son", or "Look at me when I'm talkin' to ya, boy", both of which are borrowed heavily from Senator Claghorn's vernacular. But this proves to be Foghorn's worst trait, as his loud and fast mouth and propensity for over-explanation eventually annoys his intended subjects so much that, completely fed up with him, they end up hitting him over the head with a blunt object, yelling "Ahhhhh, shaddap!" and leaving in a huff.
"Camptown Races"
Beginning with the 1949 cartoon
Henhouse Henery, Foghorn frequently performs a verse from the
Stephen Foster song "
Camptown Races", softly humming the lyrics while loudly singing the refrain "Doo-Dahh! Doo-Dahh!", and ending the verse, again loudly, with "Ohh, Doo-Dahh Day!" He often hums the song more than once in a given short, though in the 1950 cartoon
The Leghorn Blows at Midnight, he hums "Camptown" only at the beginning, but then hums "
Old MacDonald" in two later scenes. On occasion, he also sings his own lyrics if they are related to what he's doing at the time. "Camptown Races" essentially became Foghorn's signature tune and one of the most widely familiar uses of the song in popular culture. The final theatrical film in which Foghorn sings "Camptown" is
Mother Was a Rooster (1962).
Rivalry with Barnyard Dawg
Many of Foghorn's cartoons involve his perennial prank war with
Barnyard Dawg, though it is never revealed how or why their feud started in the first place. Foghorn is often the initial aggressor, but unlike most of the other Looney Tunes rivalries, Foghorn pranks Dawg out of sheer self-amusement and Dawg is usually the one with the winning hand in nearly every short they appear together, although both lost in
Walky Talky Hawky,
Of Rice and Hen, and
Mother Was a Rooster, and Foghorn managed to have some victories over Dawg in the
Looney Tunes comic books. But for all of Foghorn's pranks, Dawg is just as adept at retaliation.
Most of the Leghorn cartoons begin the same: Foghorn, humming "Camptown Races" to himself and carrying a wooden plank, sneaks up on Dawg while he is sleeping, often facing into his doghouse with his back protruding out the entry hole. Foghorn then pulls Dawg up by his tail and uses the plank to give him a whacking on his rear (in nearly every cartoon, Foghorn gives Dawg eight whacks), at which point the angered Dawg chases after Foghorn barking, but can only go as far as the rope to which he is tied, which either yanks him back or stops him. In the latter case, he keeps barking at Foghorn, who tells him, "Aah-h, sha-daahhp!" or does something to Dawg to force him to stop.
Despite their feud, Foghorn and Dawg manage to get along in a few instances, usually joining forces to defeat somebody who has caused problems for both of them (e.g. Daffy Duck in The High and the Flighty or a fox in Fox-Terror).
In the 1958 short Feather Bluster, the prank feud has been passed down to Dawg's and Foghorn's respective grandsons, and the now-elderly Foghorn is puzzled as to why the little leghorn is behaving the way he is, but the elderly Dawg is only too happy to point out there's nothing wrong with him, except that "he takes after you."
"Foggy" and others
Other recurring themes throughout the cartoons include the attempts of the naive and diminutive
Henery Hawk to catch and eat a chicken and Foghorn usually tricking him into believe that he is another animal and that Dawg is a chicken; and Foghorn's own efforts to woo the widowed hen Miss Prissy, often by babysitting her studious son, Egghead Jr. Foghorn is joined in a few episodes by a
weasel called "Bill", who initially attempts to eat him but ends up joining forces to outwit the aforementioned canine.
Cartoon appearances
- Shorts (1946–1964)
All of the 29 shorts from 1946 to 1964 were directed by
Robert McKimson
-
Walky Talky Hawky (1946)
-
Crowing Pains (1947) – with Sylvester
-
The Foghorn Leghorn (1948)
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Henhouse Henery (1949)
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The Leghorn Blows at Midnight (1950)
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A Fractured Leghorn (1950)
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Leghorn Swoggled (1951)
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Lovelorn Leghorn (1951)
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Sock-a-Doodle-Do (1952)
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The EGGcited Rooster (1952)
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Plop Goes the Weasel (1953)
-
Of Rice and Hen (1953)
-
Little Boy Boo (1954)
-
Feather Dusted (1955)
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All Fowled Up (1955)
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Weasel Stop (1956)
-
The High and the Flighty (1956) – with Daffy Duck
-
Raw! Raw! Rooster! (1956)
-
Fox-Terror (1957)
-
Feather Bluster (1958)
-
Weasel While You Work (1958)
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A Broken Leghorn (1959)
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Crockett-Doodle-Do (1960)
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The Dixie Fryer (1960)
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Strangled Eggs (1961)
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The Slick Chick (1962)
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Mother Was a Rooster (1962)
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Banty Raids (1963)
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False Hare (1964) (cameo) – with Bugs Bunny
- Miscellaneous
-
Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies (1972) - voiced by Mel Blanc
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Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol (1979) - voiced by Mel Blanc
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The Yolk's on You (1980) voiced by Mel Blanc
-
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) – voiced by Mel Blanc, (silent cameo appearance; voiced in a deleted scene)
-
Superior Duck (cameo appearance) (1996) – voiced by Frank Gorshin
-
Space Jam (1996) – voiced by Bill Farmer and Greg Burson
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Pullet Surprise (1997) – voiced by Frank Gorshin
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Tweety's High-Flying Adventure (2000) – voiced by Jeff Bennett
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(2003) – voiced by Jeff Bennett
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Cock-A-Doodle Duel (2004) – voiced by Jeff Bennett
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GEICO commercial (2011) – voiced by Jeff Bennett
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(2021) – voiced by Eric Bauza
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– (2022) (non-physical cameo appearance)
Voice actors
-
Mel Blanc (1946–1989)
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Gilbert Mack (Golden Records records, Bugs Bunny Songfest)
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Jeff Bergman ( Bugs Bunny's 50th Birthday Spectacular,
-
Noel Blanc ( You Rang? answering machine messages)
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Greg Burson ( Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball, Looney Tunes River Ride, Tiny Toon Adventures, Bugs Bunny Goin' Hollywood,
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Keith Scott ( Looney Tunes Musical Revue,
[ "Keith Scott-"The One-Man Crowd"". Retrieved September 28, 2020.]
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Joe Alaskey ( Madcap Mardi Gras,
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Frank Gorshin ( Superior Duck, Pullet Surprise)
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Bill Farmer ( Space Jam (some lines), The Looney Tunes Rockin' Road Show,
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Billy West ( The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, Histeria!
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Jeff Bennett ( Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, Sprint commercial, , , Cock-A-Doodle-Duel, A Looney Tunes Sing-A-Long Christmas,
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Scott McNeil ( Baby Looney Tunes)
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Maurice LaMarche ( )
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Damon Jones (singing voice in The Looney Tunes Show)
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Eric Bauza ( Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem, , Acme Fools,
External links
