A Broken Leghorn

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

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.

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.

I do like Foghorn Leghorn a lot, but A Broken Leghorn while decent in its own way is not one of his best. The cartoon is too short, the story is formulaic(like a lot of Foghorn's cartoons) and the landslide gag I agree was very predictable. Also, while the little rooster is amusing, his character design does have a tendency to be a tad unattractive, and some of the pace could have done with a kick. That said, the animation mostly is not bad, I did like the colours, how Foghorn Leghorn was drawn and the background art had its fluidity. The music gives the cartoon some energy, and the dialogue with Foghorn's faring best is witty and funny. There are some gags that do work, especially the why the chicken crossed the road one. Mel Blanc excels with the vocals too. So overall, it was decent, but something was missing. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Broken Leghorn, A (1959)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Old McDonald's Farm is the setting for this Merrie Melodies short, which features the ugly Prissy delivering a baby rooster who wants to steal Foghorn Leghorn's job. This is a pretty good short with some jokes that work extremely well and others that fall flat on their face. To me the best sequence in the film is the "why the chicken crossed the road" because of the rather violent thing that happens to Foghorn. I won't spoil what happens to him but when it does you can't help but feel his pain. Other jokes like the shotgun don't work but overall this is a mildly entertaining film.