Crowing Pains
| Crowing Pains | |
|---|---|
| Looney Tunes (Foghorn Leghorn/Henery Hawk/Barnyard Dawg/Sylvester) series | |
 The original opening title card, taken from Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6. This scene also appears near the end of the short. | |
| Directed by | Robert McKimson |
| Produced by | Edward Selzer (uncredited) |
| Story by | Warren Foster |
| Voices by | Mel Blanc |
| Music by | Carl Stalling |
| Animation by |
Fred Abranz (uncr.)[1] John Carey Izzy Ellis Manny Gould Anatolle Kirsanoff (uncr.)[1] Charles McKimson |
| Layouts by | Cornett Wood |
| Backgrounds by | Richard H. Thomas |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 12, 1947 (USA) |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 7 minutes |
| Language | English |
Crowing Pains is a cartoon in the Looney Tunes series that was released in 1947. The cartoon, directed by Robert McKimson, stars Henery Hawk, Sylvester, and Foghorn Leghorn and the Barnyard Dawg, all of whom are voiced by Mel Blanc. This is also McKimson's first short to feature Sylvester.
This cartoon was long believed to be in the public domain, however, the cartoon was in fact renewed on August 5, 1974 by United Artists (which then owned the pre-1948 Merrie Melodies catalogue).
It is featured, fully restored (including original titles), on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6.
Plot
Sylvester is sneaking to the doghouse in a bush. he tries to steal the bone, but the Barnyard Dawg grabs the paw and looks inside the bush to see Sylvester with a flower in his mouth and several more flowers on his head. After Sylvester deliberately whacks Barnyard Dawg on the head with his dog food dish, Barnyard Dawg gives chase and chases Sylvester on the wall and jumps over a branch, only to get caught by the leash and hangs from the branch by the leash. Sylvester is about to cut the leash with an axe, but Foghorn grabs the blade and Sylvester whacks too hard and vibrates as he goes by the fire wood, and the branch breaks and Barnyard Dawg gets hit on the head and walks off. When Foghorn is telling Sylvester "Let's bury the hat- I say- let's bury the hatchet, but not in anyone's head, boy!" while Sylvester is trying to speak, Sylvester angrily yells "Ah, SHADDAP!" and whacks Foghorn on the head with the bladeless axe and leaves as Foghorn sees stars and still holds the blade. after Henery tells Foghorn that he is a chicken, Foghorn convinces Henery that Sylvester is a chicken. Foghorn sticks Henery in an egg and places it under Sylvester. Sylvester wakes up, thinking he's laid the egg and has become a mother, sings "Rock A Bye Baby" to it then hides the egg when he sees Foghorn coming and Foghorn congratulates Sylvester for laying the egg, only Sylvester realizes that cats can't lay eggs ("Hey, tom cats can't be mothers! Cats don't lay eggs! There's something screwy here!) and Sylvester attempts to detach himself from this egg that suddenly follows him and attaches itself to him and that literally scares Sylvester out of his wits when he thinks the egg is possessed by a ghost. He runs from it and literally does all sorts of things including running into the dog house belonging to the Barnyard Dawg. The dog pulls the cat out and stomps all over him and walks off. Henery, still in the egg, runs into the dog, which causes the dog to trip and fall over. The dog looks at the egg and then at the camera. the scene fades to a mother duck, with her ducklings, who says to herself "Presto, and he lays an egg. And to think for fifteen years I've been doing it the hard way". The egg/Henery finally discovers Sylvester's hiding spot (a barrel), and he starts to burrow himself into Sylvester's skin, presumably for "mock incubation" reasons.
Reaching a breaking point, Sylvester comes close to literally smashing the egg with a mallet. Just as the egg is about to be smashed, Henery busts out of the egg and yells "STOP!" to which Sylvester, in a classic "wild take" scene, literally yanks his head up and down by his ears and grabs his tail and literally yanks on it, causing his head to literally pop up and down on his shoulders because Sylvester thinks he's crazy. Henery, seeing enough, clobbers Sylvester with a mallet and drags him off. Sylvester wakes up and asks "Say, what's the big idea?!" and Henery warns the "chicken" to not give him any trouble and Sylvester realizes that he's been part of a trick and he leaps up and shows Henery that the actual chicken, is Foghorn himself. Foghorn replies, insulted by the accusation "If I was a roost- I say -if I was a rooster, I hope to be struck by--" but gets interrupted when he almost literally gets struck by lightning and decides to "put it another way. Way, that is,"and an argument arises between Sylvester, Foghorn, and Barnyard Dawg as they accuse each other of misleading Henery Hawk.
Finally, Henery decides the only way to settle the matter is to see who crows at dawn, and they all agree with Foghorn alone. Sylvester has his mouth open because he typically always has his mouth open, looking dumbfounded but Barnyard Dawg thinks Sylvester is crowing and walks off after hearing enough and Henery mistakes this for the sound of the rooster and he drags Sylvester away. However, it turns out that Foghorn was crowing, and he shows a book on ventriloquism. Foghorn tells the audience "You gotta- I say -you gotta keep on your toes. Toes, that is!" just before the cartoon irises out.
Edited version
When this cartoon aired on The WB, the part where Barnyard Dawg is hanging from a tree branch by his leash and Sylvester, armed with an axe, is about to swing it at him, was cut.[2] The cartoon jumps from Barnyard Dawg chasing Sylvester to Foghorn telling Sylvester, "Let's bury the hatchet, but not in anyone's head".
References
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Crowing Pains. |