Foghorn Leghorn


Foghorn Leghorn is a cartoon character who appears in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons and films from Warner Bros. Animation. He was created by Robert McKimson and writer Warren Foster, and starred in 29 cartoons from 1946 to 1964 in the Golden Age of American Animation. All 29 of these cartoons were directed by McKimson.
Foghorn Leghorn's first appearance was in the 1946 Henery Hawk short Walky Talky Hawky. Foghorn's voice was created and originally performed by Mel Blanc and was later performed by Jeff Bergman, Joe Alaskey, Bill Farmer, Greg Burson, Jeff Bennett, and Frank Gorshin.

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 Leonard Maltin, the character's voice was also patterned after 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. The accent has similarities to that of another Mel Blanc voice: Yosemite Sam ; and even more similar to a proto-Sam character in Stage Door Cartoon.

Biography, characteristics and personality

Physically, Foghorn Leghorn is depicted as a tall, overweight 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, added to which he shows a penchant for mischief. Aside from the Senator Claghorn reference, his first name "Foghorn" is indicative of his loudmouthed personality, while his surname "Leghorn" refers to a particular Italian breed of chicken.
Foghorn often fancied himself a mentor figure to the smaller and younger characters he encountered, 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 borrowed heavily from Senator Claghorn's vernacular.

"Camptown Races"

Beginning with the 1949 cartoon Henhouse Henery, Foghorn would perform 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 hummed the song more than once in a given short, though in the 1950 cartoon The Leghorn Blows at Midnight, he hummed "Camptown" only at the beginning, but then hummed "Old MacDonald" in two later scenes. "Camptown Races" essentially became Foghorn's signature tune and one of the most widely familiar uses of the song in popular culture.

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. But for all of Foghorn's pranks, Dawg is just as adept at retaliation.
Most of the Leghorn cartoons began 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, 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. In the 1958 short Feather Bluster the prank feud was passed down to Dawg's and Foghorn's respective grandsons, and the now-elderly Foghorn was puzzled as to why the little leghorn was behaving the way he was, but the elderly Dawg was 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 included the attempts of the naive and diminutive Henery Hawk to catch and eat Foghorn, and Foghorn's own efforts to woo the widowed hen Miss Prissy, often by babysitting her studious son, Egghead Jr. Foghorn was joined in a few episodes by a weasel called "Bill" who initially attempted to eat him but ended up joining forces to outwit the aforementioned canine.

Cartoon appearances

Shorts
All of the 29 shorts from 1946–1964 were directed by Robert McKimson
  1. Walky Talky Hawky
  2. Crowing Pains – with Sylvester
  3. The Foghorn Leghorn
  4. Henhouse Henery
  5. The Leghorn Blows at Midnight
  6. A Fractured Leghorn
  7. Leghorn Swoggled
  8. Lovelorn Leghorn
  9. Sock-a-Doodle-Do
  10. The Egg-Cited Rooster
  11. Plop Goes the Weasel
  12. Of Rice and Hen
  13. Little Boy Boo
  14. Feather Dusted
  15. All Fowled Up
  16. Weasel Stop
  17. The High and the Flighty – with Daffy Duck
  18. Raw! Raw! Rooster!
  19. Fox Terror
  20. Feather Bluster
  21. Weasel While You Work
  22. A Broken Leghorn
  23. Crockett-Doodle-Do
  24. The Dixie Fryer
  25. Strangled Eggs
  26. The Slick Chick
  27. Mother Was a Rooster
  28. Banty Raids
  29. False Hare – with Bugs Bunny
Miscellaneous
  1. Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol
  2. The Yolk's on You
  3. Who Framed Roger Rabbit –
  4. Superior Duck – voiced by Frank Gorshin
  5. Space Jam – voiced by Bill Farmer and Greg Burson
  6. Pullet Surprise – voiced by Frank Gorshin
  7. Tweety's High-Flying Adventure – voiced by Jeff Bennett
  8. – voiced by Jeff Bennett
  9. Cock-A-Doodle Duel – voiced by Jeff Bennett
  10. GEICO commercial – voiced by Jeff Bennett

    Later appearances

  1. 1980s – Appeared in several Oscar Mayer hot dog commercials. One features an animated Foghorn Leghorn, with an animated hot dog on a bun, on a live-action beach, asking a child what he likes on his roasted Oscar Mayer hot dog. Asked whether he likes it with ketchup or corn relish, the kid says he likes his hot dog "with friends", and is now sitting next to a girl, who is also eating an Oscar Mayer hot dog without a bun. Foghorn Leghorn remarks, "I'm starting to feel a little roasted myself". Another one features Foghorn Leghorn instructing a live-action child on the correct way to put fixings on a hot dog, including corn relish. The kid starts eating his own hot dog before Foghorn finishes demonstrating on another hot dog. It ends with Foghorn saying, "I say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks."
  2. 1980s - Appeared in several Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials. The film Space Jam contains a reference to this ad campaign; when Foghorn is torched by a Monstar during the ToonSquad/Monstars basketball game, Foghorn says, "Did you order Original Recipe or Extra Crispy?"
  3. Much like Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn had appeared in a GEICO commercial in 2011. Here, he is providing narration for an e-book, but motor-mouths as well as ad-libbing constantly and ends up getting clubbed by Henery Hawk off-screen.
  4. He appeared in the video games ', The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2, ', ', ', and The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout.