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'''Barnyard''' is a computer-animated film, produced by Nickelodeon Movies and distributed by Paramount Pictures, that was released on August 4, 2006 (October 20, 2006 in the United Kingdom). The film was directed by Steve Oedekerk (Kung Pow and many thumb movies), who was also the principal scriptwriter, and stars the voices of Kevin James, Courteney Cox Arquette, Sam Elliott, Danny Glover, Andie MacDowell and Wanda Sykes. The film was rated PG by the MPAA for some mild peril and rude humor. Most of the production was carried out in San Clemente, California. It is distributed in Switzerland, Spain, and Netherlands by Universal Pictures.
A spin-off TV series, ''Back at the Barnyard'', will premiere in Fall 2007.[1]

Contents

Plot

Cast

Production

Technical info

Reception

"Male cow" joke

Trivia

External links

Plot

While some characters in the film are humans, most are anthropomorphic animals which in the presence of humans pretend to be ordinary animals. In particular, when no humans are around they walk on two legs, and talk; much like ''Toy Story''.
The film opens with Otis (Kevin James), a "male cow" (see below), climbing on a surfboard with a block of ice underneath it on a hill with four of his friends: Peck (Rob Paulsen), the rooster who can't crow; Pip (Jeff Garcia) the mouse, Otis's best friend; Pig (Tino Insana), the perpetually hungry pig; and Freddy (Cam Clarke), a ferret constantly battling the desire to eat Peck or the other chickens. Otis and friends fly down the mountain and eventually crash into a chicken farm. They land in the barn for a meeting being held by his adoptive father and barnyard leader, Ben the cow (Sam Elliott). Though obviously irritated by Otis's late arrival, Ben continues the meeting.
After the meeting, Ben lectures Otis on the younger cow's irresponsibility-- the cell phone call during the meeting and Otis's laid-back nature in general. The elder cow tells his son to grow up, saying that he will never be happy if he spends all his time goofing off. When Otis begins to gripe about his night watch shift, Ben tells him that, "A strong man stands up for himself. A stronger man stands up for others."
After a day spent goofing around with friends and meeting Bessy and Daisy, two new female cows, Otis talks Ben out of his guard shift in order to attend a party in the barn. Later that night, a pack of coyotes led by Dag (David Koechner) sneak into the barnyard and raid the chicken coop. Ben fights them off, but collapses after the altercation. Etta the chicken (Andie MacDowell) rushes to the barn house party and tells Otis about Ben. Otis rushes out of the barn and finds Ben, wounded, lying on the ground. He looks at Otis, as if to say something, but then passes away.
After Ben's death, Otis is elected to be the new farm leader. However, he still lacks maturity in his new position resulting in being caught in a daytime party by the farmer. Otis also leads the rebellious Jersey cows in stealing the neighbor's car to get revenge on a cow-tipping boy.
While patrolling for coyotes, Otis confronts the pack, but is easily defeated. Dag and his gang return the next day, kidnapping a bunch of chickens in broad daylight while Otis is preoccupied about leaving the farm. To make up for his mistake, Otis sets off to confront the coyotes again. He is defeated again, but his friends eventually show up and help him to send the pack fleeing. After the battle, Otis and company return to the farm where Daisy the cow gives birth to a calf she names Ben.

Cast

Actor	Animal	Name
Kevin James	Male cow	Otis
Courteney Cox Arquette	Female cow	Daisy
Sam Elliott	Male cow	Ben
Danny Glover	Male donkey	Miles
Andie MacDowell	Hen chicken	Etta
Wanda Sykes	Female cow	Bessy
Jeff Garcia	Male mouse	Pip
Rob Paulsen	Rooster, male gopher, and pizza delivery boy	Peck/Gopher/Pizza Guy
Cam Clarke	Male ferret	Freddy
Tino Insana	Male pig	Pig
Dom Irrera	Male sheepdog	Duke
David Koechner	Male coyote	Dag
Madeline Lovejoy	Female chick	Maddy
S. Scott Bullock	Male cow	Eddie
Maurice LaMarche	Male cow	Igg
John DiMaggio	Male cow	Budd
Maria Bamford	Human	Mrs. Beady
Steve Oedekerk	Human boy/Human male adult/Various animals	Son of the Beadys/Mr. Beady/Additional animals
Nathaniel Martin Stroman	Rooster	Root
Paul Butcher	Rooster	Elvis- Singing Chicken

Production

Technical info

Complex scenes in ''Barnyard'' were rendered using 64-bit computers from Sun Microsystems, based on a 620-computer render farm, including Sun Fire x64 servers. [2] It was Nickelodeon's most technically challenging animated film, which included vast landscapes with realistic rendering of lighting, as well as complex scenes with over 200 characters.
The switch from a Dell/Microsoft Windows render farm to a Sun/Linux render farm occurred midway in the production [3], when the schedules began to slip and the management recognized that the horsepower based on 32-bit hardware was insufficient so that the release date had to be rescheduled to autumn. With Sun's solution, the release was shifted back to summertime.
Over 180 characters were rigged for animation [4] with rigs being capable of two and four leg stances and walk cycles, squash and stretch, procedural secondary animation of flesh and hair, and motion capture from Omation's 22-camera Vicon mocap stage.
The key software applications running on Sun servers included Avid Technology's Softimage XSI animation software, Mental Ray rendering software, and Eyeon's Digital Fusion digital compositing software.

Reception

It grossed $16 million its opening weekend, and made $73 million in its domestic theatrical release. It has made $108 million in its worldwide theatrical release.
The film has a 24% rating at rottentomatoes.com, but has a number of advocates, including Michael Medved, who gave ''Barnyard'' four stars (out of four) calling it "hilarious, thrilling" and "flat out one of the year's best films."[5].

"Male cow" joke

In the real world a male bovine is called a bull or a steer and does not have an udder. However, in this film several characters are "male cows" with an udder. While the director said he did this for fun, many commentators considered it an error, and/or found it irritating. Some reviewers jokingly referred to the film as a bovine ''Transamerica''. This is, however, not the first time cattle have been portrayed in this way. In the United Kingdom, Boddington's Ale featured an animated "male cow" in some of its 1990s advertising, and recent computer animated adverts for Anchor butter portray two "male cows" as having udders. Also, the Dairylea adverts in the UK have male cows with udders. A more recent advert portrays that they really are male because they all have male voices.

Trivia

★ A Barnyard video game based on the movie came out in July 2006 produced by Blue Tongue.

★ The character of "Otis" was based on a sculpture by LA Artist Mark Beam.

★ Near the end of the film, in the coyote's den scene, the old bus that is in the junkyard apparently once held a "World Thumb Wars" Tour. The director of the film, Steve Oedekerk, probably put this in as a cameo to his short featurettes entitled ''Thumbs!''.

★ The movie was originally going to be released on January 13, 2006 then October 6, 2006 then July 28, 2006, but was switched to August 4, 2006 with ''The Ant Bully'' moving to July 28, 2006.

★ The film's tagline is "What happens in the barn stays in the barn", a parody of the line from ''The Godfather'', "What happens in the family stays in the family" and the Las Vegas, Nevada tagline "What Happens in Vegas stays in Vegas".

External links

★ The film's official website

★ The film's official website at Nick.com

★ Summary on comingsoon.net

★ Production costs

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★ http://www.markbeam.com