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ANIMATOR BREAKDOWN: "A Fractured Leghorn" (1950)
🕑 Added 2020-09-18 22:34:50 +0000 UTCIf you are unable to access the Google Drive link, click here.
Previously exclusive to the $10 level, here is an animator breakdown video on a favorite among many—A Fractured Leghorn, directed by Bob McKimson.
Like last week's installment of The Leghorn Blows at Midnight, there is no known documentation on voice recording session dates for Warners cartoons that began production in 1948. However, judging from the production number listed on the draft, the story conference with the directors and animators (known as a "jam session") would have occurred between June and October 1948. (The jam session for Chuck Jones’ 8 Ball Bunny [#1123] took place June 28, while the story conference for Jones’ Chow Hound [#1132] occurred October 15.)
The ASCAP cue sheet that lists the music cues used in the film is dated October 21, 1949, which would have been approved after the score was recorded. Only two licensed songs are used in the cartoon—"By a Waterfall" from the 1933 WB James Cagney-Joan Blondell musical Footlight Parade and "A Solid Citizen of the Solid South" from the 1946 WB musical The Time, The Place and The Girl. The latter tune plays underneath the main title credits and underscores many of the scenes featuring Foghorn, a Southern barnyard rooster himself.
The cartoon was released as a "Merrie Melodie” almost a year later on September 16, 1950. The version seen here is from the re-issue, issued to theaters under the “Blue Ribbon” banner on April 19, 1958.
(Thanks to Michael Barrier, Mike Butler, Andrew Gilmore, and Yowp for their help.)
