A Broken Leghorn

Here's my problem...I like Foghorn Leghorn but I hate the characters he is constantly lumbered to work with. They are all crap. Give us a Foghorn Leghorn and Bugs/Daffy team-up. All these chicken hawk stories down on Old MacDonald's farm are boring.

In this one old Miss Prissy is a hen who never lays an egg until Foghorn tries to make her feel better by nicking someone else's and puts it in her nest. Well the egg hatches and a chick is born. A rooster chick who is determined to take Foghorn's place.

Foghorn tries to off the little chick in various ways, all backfiring of course, before being kicked off the farm by Old MacDonald. Foghorn is funny, the rest isn't.

Robert McKimson's 'Broken Leghorn' is a late entry into the Foghorn Leghorn series and it shows. A lumpy, ugly and largely unfunny cartoon, 'Broken Leghorn' is one of the rooster's lesser films. Beginning with Foghorn making a gallant gesture to stop the other chickens taunting the austere Miss Prissy, 'Broken Leghorn' pulls a u-turn when a newly hatched rooster drives Foghorn to repeatedly attempt infanticide. It's a nice (if slightly harsh) little idea but there's so much wrong with the execution. For one, the baby rooster is obviously a feeble recreation of Henery Hawk but unattractively designed and nowhere near as amusing. The gags are often painfully predictable (the landmine gag in particular) and even Mel Blanc's voice characterization seems a little off as if even he could tell the cartoon was a dead loss just by reading the script. With none of the energy of the best Foghorn cartoons, 'Broken Leghorn' is a disappointingly lifeless entry in the series.

This cartoon finally proves that Foghorn Leghorn does live on Old Macdonald's farm, where the egg business is booming. Except for Prissy, of course. Foghorn takes pity on ‘old square bridges' and sticks another hens' egg under her. As luck would have it, this egg hatches a cute little baby rooster ready to take over Foghorn's job. In fact, this chick's head is so large, it's a wonder it ever fitted into such a tiny egg.

Foghorn senior tries out several tricks (disguised as instructions in the ancient art of roostery) to get rid of the young clucker. Lesions include eating corn, searching for worms, how to learn patience and most important of all: why the chicken crossed the road. But the little one instinctively sees through every dirty trick and knows how to counter them.

The young rooster turns out to be so much trouble for Foghorn that he has no time for the Barnyard dog at all. There is another variation on the old blown off beak bit (usually reserved for Daffy), and that always works. I guess in the end the Leghorn did get broken after all.

6 out of 10

Poor Foghorn Leghorn. That blustery yokel of a rooster always tries to be the most important character on the farm, but someone always outsmarts him. Usually, Henery Hawk and Barnyard Dog enjoy this luxury, but "A Broken Leghorn" features neither of them. Instead, there's a newborn rooster who Foghorn thinks is going to replace him. Sure enough, every attempt to eliminate the little guy results in Foghorn getting maimed somehow.

OK, so we can probably predict what sorts of things are going to happen to FL, but it's neat seeing how for some reason he always finds a reason to keep going (sort of like Wile E. Coyote). A pretty funny cartoon.

Roostery. Foghorn makes up neater words than Stephen Colbert does.

This "Looney Tunes" short from 1959 called "A Broken Leghorn" is one that was well done and fun to watch as it's like a new baby roster is waiting in the wings on the farm to replace the top bird! Set on "Old Macdonald's Farm" where eggs are being hatched however the elder Miss Prissy hen is having trouble hatching however a clever plan from Foghorn shows an egg that hatches a baby roster.

And the little guy has in his mind he's going to take over the farm and do jobs being done by Leghorn, so Foghorn trains the little guy on basic things like road crossings and searches only nothing goes as planned as the training is a rough go for Foghorn proving the title really lives up to it's name! Overall well done memorable cartoon.