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 from his initial appearance 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. The accent has similarities to that of another Mel Blanc voice: Yosemite Sam (a near-strictly Friz Freleng character); and even more similar to the sheriff character (also considered a precursor to Sam) 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" 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.
Foghorn Leghorn was shown to have a more villainous side in the film Coyote vs. Acme as the ACME Corporation's corrupt CEO that allows malfunctioning products to be sold to toons as a means to test and improve products meant for humans.
"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).
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."
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 Dawg.
"Foggy" and others
Another recurring theme throughout the cartoons includes the attempts of the naive and diminutive Henery Hawk to catch and eat a chicken, with Foghorn usually tricking him into believing that he is another animal and that Dawg is a chicken. Another frequently used storyline concerns Foghorn's efforts to woo the widowed hen Miss Prissy, usually by babysitting her son the studious Egghead Jr., or on one occasion in Strangled Eggs, an adopted Henery Hawk.
Filmography
Golden Age appearances (1946–1964)
All of these 29 shorts from 1946 to 1964 were directed by Robert McKimson.
↑Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p.170. ISBN0-8050-0894-2.
↑"Tyson". Behind The Voice Actions. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
↑Foghorn Leghorn Boomerang. YouTube. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. 2004. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
