Review: ‘[[[Looney Tunes Super Stars: Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety & Sylvester]]]’
Warner Bros. Home Video is sitting on one of the most loved libraries of classic cartoons you could imagine. In many ways, their shorts are superior to Disney’s given the freedom the animators had for decades and the memorable characters generated as a result. At first they released the [[[Golden Collection box sets]]] which were a nice mix of material but they wound that down. Instead, they’ve now opted for a series under the [[[Looney Tunes Super Stars]]] umbrella with the first two releases coming late last year.
While these are welcome discs with cartoons we’ve not previously had available, it is still not the ultimate library we want (and the characters deserve). The two discs — [[[Foghorn Leghorn & Friends: Barnyard Bigmouth]]] and [[[Tweety & Sylvester: Feline Fwenzy]]] – each offer up two hours of cartoons but are a hodge-podge selection.
Foghorn Leghorn was created by Robert McKimson in 1946 and starred in 28 cartoons, good for a two-disc set that would have been complete. Instead, we get nine Foghorn Leghorn shorts plus six cartoons featuring “friends”. These date from the latter part of animation’s golden age, originally released between February 19, 1955 through April 21, 1962. All fifteen remastered shorts can be seen as matted-widescreen versions or the original full screen versions.
Foghorn and his distinctive speech pattern was modeled after Senator Claghorn, a popular character from the Fred Allen radio series. As usual, Mel Blanc handled the voices and made the rooster an oft-imitated classic. Foghorn’s adventures avoided the templating that many of the others experienced although a recurring theme was a rivalry with the Barnyard Dawg/George P. Dog or being sought as a meal by Henery Hawk. The shorts relied less on physical feats as opposed to verbal repartee.
The friends mentioned include Elmer Fudd vs. the Mexican crows Manuel and Jose (directed by the great Friz Freleng); the Goofy Gophers, Mac and Tosh; and even the [[[Honeymooners]]] character pastiches.

















