Model Sheet Monday: Foghorn Leghorn

It’s Model Sheet Monday again and today’s model sheet is actually from Chuck Jones studios. It’s a breakdown of some construction notes for one of my favorite characters in the Looney Tunes world; Foghorn Leghorn! One of my favorite quotes Foghorn used to say was: “”That boy’s about as sharp as a bowling ball” And it’s SO descriptive. Just love it.

Here’s a list of more great quotes from Foghorn over the years along with a number of Foghorn cartoons!

Big, boisterous and really not afraid of much, Foghorn was particularly adept at torturing the dog in on the farm, and in turn being tortured by Henery Hawk (both model sheets to come later) which I never got tired of.  I particularly liked when Foghorn would whack the dog with a 2×4 and then run and the dog would choke on the rope.

Here’s the first cartoon Foghorn was ever in called “Walky Talky Hawky” in 1946 directed by Robert McKimson

I always thought that these were Robert McKimson’s best cartoons. Here’s a much more refined one from 1959 some years later.

Here’s a list of great quotes from Foghorn over the years along with a number of Foghorn cartoons!

From Wikipedia:

The character of Foghorn Leghorn was directly inspired by the popular character of Senator Claghorn, a blustering Southern politician played by Kenny Delmar who was a regular character on the Fred Allen radio show. The rooster adopted many of Claghorn’s catch phrases, such as “That’s a joke, ah say, that’s a joke, son.” Delmar had based the character of Claghorn upon a Texas rancher who was fond of saying this.^[1]

A leghorn is a breed of chicken, and foghorn describes the character’s loud, overbearing voice.

According to Leonard Maltin the character’s voice was also patterned after 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.^[2] The voice has similarities to that of another Mel Blanc voice: Yosemite Sam (a strictly Friz Freleng character).

Here’s some more about this week’s model sheet star Foghorn Leghorn, from our ol’ friend Wikipedia!