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'Foghorn Leghorn' is the name of a character appearing in numerous Warner Brothers animated cartoons, especially Looney Tunes. He is a large, anthropomorphic adult rooster with a strong Southern accent and a penchant for mischief. He first appeared in 1946 in a Henery Hawk film entitled ''Walky Talky Hawky.'' All of the motion picture Foghorn Leghorn cartoons were directed by Robert McKimson, and the rooster vies with the Tasmanian Devil as the most popular character associated with the director.
Many of the gags involved Foghorn and a canine nemesis (informally known as the "Barnyard Dawg," though on early model sheets his name is given as 'George P. Dog') engaging in one-upmanship through a series of pranks. Most common among them was Leghorn's taking up a plank of wood, while ambling along humming "Camptown Races" (the only intelligible words being "Doo-DAH! Doo-DAH!"), coming to the sleeping Dawg with his front half inside his doghouse, picking up his tail and rapidly whacking (almost always with eight strokes) his exposed rear end. The dog would give chase, usually with his leash still attached to his collar, until the leash stretched taut and his barking was replaced by an anguished shriek. In rare cases, it's the dog that starts the series of pranks; as such it is somewhat difficult to tell who started the feud. This gag was passed down to the Leghorn's grandson in ''Feather Bluster,'' where Foghorn was puzzled as to why the kid was behaving that way and the Dog was all too happy to remind him: "Ain't nothin' wrong with 'im, Foggy, 'cept that he takes after ''you''."
Other recurring themes throughout the cartoons included the attempts of the diminutive Henery Hawk to catch and eat Foghorn, and the rooster's efforts to woo the widowed hen Miss Prissy (often by babysitting her bookish son, Egghead Jr).
Foghorn's voice was created by actor Mel Blanc, Joe Alaskey and Billy Farmer and is by Greg Burson and Jeff Glen Bennett, patterned after the character of Senator Claghorn, a blustering Southern politician who was a regular character on the Fred Allen radio show. Senator Claghorn was created and voiced by radio comedian Kenny Delmar and later is voiced by actor Jeff Glen Bennett. Foghorn Leghorn used a number of Claghorn's catch phrases, like "That's a joke... I say, that's a joke, son." The references to Claghorn were obvious to much of the audience when the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons first premiered, but like many of the references in WB cartoons of the era, they have since become . A toddler version of Foghorn made an appearance in ''Baby Looney Tunes''.
A ''leghorn'' is a breed of chicken, and ''foghorn'' describes the character's loud, overbearing voice. At its most raucous, it sounds similar to that of Blanc's Yosemite Sam. Both parts of the name also suggest the association with "Senator Claghorn."

Contents

Appearances

External links

Appearances

★ Walky Talky Hawky

★ Crowing Pains

★ The Foghorn Leghorn

★ Henhouse Henery

★ The Leghorn Blows at Midnight

★ A Fractured Leghorn

★ Leghorn Swoggled

★ Lovelorn Leghorn

★ Sock-a-Doodle-Do

★ The Egg-Cited Rooster

★ Plop Goes the Weasel

★ Of Rice and Hen

★ Little Boy Boo

★ Feather Dusted

★ All Fowled Up

★ Weasel Stop

★ The High and the Flighty

★ Raw! Raw! Rooster!

★ Fox Terror

★ Feather Bluster

★ Weasel While You Work

★ A Broken Leghorn

★ Crockett-Doodle-Do

★ The Dixie Fryer

★ Strangled Eggs

★ The Slick Chick

★ Mother Was a Rooster

★ Banty Raids

★ Pullet Surprise

★ Cock-A-Doodle Duel

External links

★ The Foghorn Leghorn Fan Club

★ Foghorn Leghorn quotes...