Foghorn Leghorn, “A Broken Leghorn” (1959)
Filed under: Animation, 1950s, Animation Series, Color, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, U.S.A., Warner Bros.,
Foghorn Leghorn, “A Broken Leghorn”
Directed by: Producers:John Burton Sr.
Animated by:George Grandpré
Tom Ray
Music by:Milt Franklyn
Treg Brown
Studio: Release date:26/09/1959
Running time:6 min
Synopsis
The cartoon opens with three hens gossiping about Miss Prissy, who has failed to produce any eggs. Foghorn Leghorn decides to help her out by placing another hen’s egg in her nest. When the egg hatches, Foghorn Leghorn is affronted when he discovers that the chick is a rooster. Worried that he is about to replaced, Foghorn spends the rest of the cartoon trying to trick the chick into getting himself killed. Each time, he fails, and ends up injuring himself. He finally barges into the farmer’s house and announces that it’s either him or the chick. The final scene shows Foghorn being driven away in the back of a truck, resigned to his fate that it is the young rooster who will stay.
The cartoon enacts a bizarre reverse Oedipal complex in which the father is jealous of the son and attempts to murder him. The cartoon also implicitly places value on the female function of reproductivity through the hens’ taunting Miss Prissy for her failure to produce eggs.
References:
IMDb. “A Broken Leghorn”. IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052651/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt.