Friday, August 14, 2009

Being a Dog... That's a Paddlin'.

This is why the YouTube compilation video was invented: someone put together a collection of scenes where Foghorn Leghorn paddles the Barnyard Dawg's ass. This gag was in the first Foghorn cartoon ("Walky Talky Hawky") and became a staple of the series.



I've always found the Foghorn/Dog conflict funny because it's different from most cartoon conflicts. Usually it's predator vs. prey, or some variation on the idea. (Foghorn Leghorn, of course, was conceived as a twist on the predator/prey formula, a huge prey stalked and eventually beaten by a tiny predator, Henery Hawk.) But these guys don't want to eat each other, or even kill each other; they just want to cause each other as much humiliation as possible. That's why the paddling gag works so well: there is absolutely no point to it except for Foghorn to amuse himself by beating up the dog. It's part of what made Foghorn Leghorn a pleasingly amoral series at a time when most big cartoon series were coming down on the side of good and right (antagonist loses, protagonist wins).

12 comments:

Sue said...

I love that clip. I watched it when I was younger...

Anonymous said...

Foggy spooking the dog with a deranged clown head and then painting his tongue green is the best variation of any cartoon gag ever.

I'm more than a little pissed off that Foghorn has been shafted on the DVD's... in favor of F***ing Bosko. If I want to watch Mickey Mouse, I'll watch Mickey Mouse, not his racist minstrel show duplicate.

Thad said...

Is the title of this post a reference to Jasper Beardley?

Michael Jones said...

Has the dog ever been given a name?

Ricardo Cantoral said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ricardo Cantoral said...

Micheal: He never had a name in Mckimson's cartoons.

Ricardo Cantoral said...

Thad: Damn Straight !

Jaime J. Weinman said...

For me the issue of the dog's name is like the name of the frog in One Froggy Evening. He may have a name outside the cartoon (or in other incarnations, since McKimson used the design elsewhere), but in these cartoons he's just "the dog."

Ricardo Cantoral said...

Jamie:

He was only given a name by Warner Marketing. As Anon posted, he was dubbed "Barnyard Dawg". Mike Fontanelli told me this.

Thad said...

He's called just "Dawg" on a few modelsheets. And you know what the frog's real name is according to an episode of The Bugs Bunny Show? Enrico!

Ricardo Cantoral said...

"Coming up next, Enrico the Frog !" XD

I didn't know that was called Dawg though. Ever noticed that in the Foghorn cartoons he had a new york accent but in Daffy Duck Hunt he had country accent being in the suburbs ? There are some pretty frickin' weird things in Mckimson cartoons.

ramapith said...

Everyone's right: he was "Dawg" on a few model sheets, but "George P. Dog" on others, and "Barnyard Dawg" according to Warner Marketing—not that I mind, as it makes sense and the spelling jibes with the earlier sheets.