Release Date:

February 11, 1956

Main Character(s):

Foghorn Leghorn, Weasel

Summary:

After having harassed the shaggy guard dog by fooling him into believing the Weasel’s around, Foghorn Leghorn finds himself being taken off by the actual Weasel when he arrives, and the dog refusing to help him. Foghorn decides to team up with the Weasel to get rid of the dog, only for the dog, who is very skilled in whittling, to always be a step ahead of them.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1383 and was released as a Looney Tune.

The cartoon was given a Blue Ribbon reissue.

This cartoon is notable for having a different dog as Foghorn’s antagonist instead of Barnyard Dawg. This dog speaks in a Southern accent, has a hobby of whittling, says one-liners of his own, and is voiced by Lloyd Perryman of the group “Sons of the Pioneers” (the group actually sung together in a few earlier Warner cartoons such as “Egghead Rides Again” and “A Feud There Was”).

This is the second appearance of the Weasel and the only time he appears without Dawg.

This is also the official start of McKimson’s new unit. While Keith Darling had animated for him for a while, he had become a fully-fledged animator starting in 1955. Ted Bonnicksen would become the head animator of the new McKimson unit starting with this cartoon, with George Grandpre (who wouldn’t be credited until “Mixed Master” released two months later) having joined in the previous cartoon (“Too Hop to Handle”). Russ Dyson was in the unit for about a year before he was arrested and had committed suicide.

This is also the last cartoon where McKimson did some animation himself (although uncredited for doing so).

Richard H. Thomas did both the layouts and backgrounds.

The title is a pun for “whistle stop”.

The animator draft for the cartoon can be viewed here.

Favorite Scene:

The attempt for the Weasel to drop a dynamite stick on the dog while tied to a balloon, only for the dog to foil it by carving a toothpick and attaching it to a paper airplane to burst the balloon.

What Happens in This One:

After the title card and credits are shown across a camera pan, the Weasel is shown walking on all four’s on a telephone pole and licking his lips loudly. In the chicken yard, the snoring dog is whittling in his sleep while sitting under the whistle labeled “Weasel Alarm” (animated by Russ Dyson).

Foghorn walks along scatting to “Camptown Races” before commenting, “It sure, I say, it’s sure quiet around here. You could here a caterpillar sneaking across a moss bed in tennis shoes. Sneakers, that is”. He laughs while continuing on his way before stumbling across the dog. Disgusted, Foghorn remarks, “Now, just look at that dog! Sound asleep at his post when he’s suppose-, I say, when he’s supposed to be guarding us chickens!” Spotting the weasel alarm behind him, Foghorn gets an idea. He blows the alarm, waking the dog up and causing him to tunnel underground. When he emerges and starts running around, Foghorn begins shouting, “Help! Weasel! Weasel in the chicken yard! Sic ‘em, boy! Boy! Go get ‘em, boy!” (animated by Keith Darling)

The dog’s running causes a chicken in the way to jump up in fright before he turns his head around in mid-run when Foghorn shouts, “No, no, boy! Over here! Over here!”, causing him to crash into several milk jugs before running in the direction Foghorn was pointing towards. Foghorn continues giving him mis-directions, getting the dog to run through a clothesline, smack into a tree, go through a haystack, and then through a pipe that gets gradually smaller before he comes out the other end, with his torso briefly extended (animated by George Grandpre). Foghorn paints a fake small entrance on the fence, “Here, boy! Quick! In here!” The dog bashes into it headfirst, rendering him slightly dazed. Foghorn then gets him to come to, “Wake up, boy! Wake up!”, to which the dog lets out a confused, “Huh?” Foghorn tells him, “You’re having a nightmare, boy! What if some marauding weasel was to swoop down on us chickens while you’re asleep at the switch!? A fine, I say, a FINE kettle of fish!”, before leaving (animated by Darling). Figuring he was tricked, the dog takes out his whittling knife and remarks, “Hmm. Like my old pappy used to say, ‘There’s a polecat in the henhouse!’” (animated by McKimson)

Foghorn laughs to himself, “Now, that dog knows this ain’t the month for weasels! There’s no ‘R’ in July!” The Weasel, who’s been tunneling into the ground, stops upon sensing something, and then tunnels further before coming out and smelling chicken. Upon seeing Foghorn, he slurps loudly and runs after him. Foghorn, who’s again scatting to “Camptown Races”, is suddenly grabbed by the Weasel, carrying him off by foot as he screams, “Help! Help! Get him, dog! Help! Mountain lion! Bobcat! Coyote! Help!” (animated by Dyson) Unwilling to help the rooster who just tricked him, the dog, whose gone back to his whittling, puts on earmuffs in order to not listen to Foghorn’s screaming, “What the hen feathers! I never could hear no weasel with all that hooting and hollering going on!” He then looks up in annoyance when Foghorn continues, “Hey, dog! (animated by McKimson) Help!” before Foghorn grabs a tree branch, causing him to get free of the Weasel’s grasp before he starts talking incoherently (animated by Dyson).

The Weasel stops running upon realizing he’s no longer carrying Foghorn off. Foghorn then sees what it was that abducted him, “Huh? (chuckles) Why, it’s no-, I say, it’s nothing but a scraggly little old lint-picking weasel!” He then turns his head in the dog’s direction and is annoyed with his lack of helpfulness, “Huh! Lot of help I got from that no-account dog. Supposing it had been a saber-toothed tiger!” The Weasel comes back and starts gnawing on Foghorn’s leg before Foghorn slaps him off, “Now, cut-, I say, cut that out, boy! What you’re after is a nice eatin’ chicken, right?” The Weasel nods and replies with several “Yeah!”’s before running off. Having been knocked onto the ground from the Weasel’s running, Foghorn yells, “No, no, boy! Come back here!” The Weasel chases a chicken around the yard as the dog has been whittling a mallet shape with a sphere on its right end. As the chicken runs past him, the dog remarks as he cuts the sphere off the mallet and then whittles the mallet off of the wood, “Fool hens! Make more fuss than a hog with his snout caught in a knothole!” The Weasel rolls around on the sphere like a ball (animated by Dyson up to here) before he is clobbered with the dog’s mallet. The dog then uses said mallet to hit the sphere behind the Weasel like a game of croquet, sending the Weasel flying towards Foghorn, who’s looking for him. Foghorn wonders, “Now, where’d that boy go?”, before the Weasel flies right into his right knee, causing Foghorn to jump up and down while screaming in pain. He then scolds, “Confound it, boy! I’ve been trying to tell ya. To get, I say, to get at those chickens, ya gotta get rid of that DOG first!” before offering, “And I’m-a gonna help ya. I like a sneaky, little old underhanded weasel like you!” (animated by Darling)

In a tree, Foghorn has the Weasel tied to a balloon and holding a match and a dynamite stick in his respective hands. With a bellows, Foghorn reminds, “Now, when ya get right over the target, you know what to do”. The Weasel confirms with several “Yeah!”’s before Foghorn uses the bellows to blow him towards the dog, “And AWAY WE GO!” Once the Weasel is near the still-whittling dog, Foghorn whispers to him, “Light it, boy! Light it!” The Weasel looks at both the match and dynamite a few times before shrugging, to which Foghorn clarifies, “Go on, boy!” Responding with a few “Yeah!”’s, the Weasel attempts to do so, but is unable to light the match, despite numerous tries (animated by Dyson). The dog carves a toothpick and puts it on the nose of a paper airplane he folds before sending it into the air towards the Weasel while saying to himself, “When I get to thinking of vittles, I think of hog jowls, and grits, and pork gravy. Mm. And drippings, apple squeezings, chickering juice, mm-mm, oh” (animated by Ted Bonnicksen). The paper airplane with the toothpick bursts the Weasel’s balloon causing him to fall (animated by Dyson) and land on a teeter board that had a rock on the other end, propelling said rock into the air. The dog lights a match of his own and offers it to the Weasel, “Light, cousin?” The Weasel replies with numerous “Yeah!”’s while he lights the fuse of the dynamite. The rock then comes back down and sends the Weasel flying back towards the tree, where the dynamite blows up on him and Foghorn (animated by Bonnicksen).

Hidden under respective haystacks with numerous weapons, Foghorn and the Weasel sneak along before the latter bumps into the former. Foghorn peeks out of his haystack to scold, “Be c-, I say, be careful, boy! Watch where you’re going!” They continue sneaking along and go up to the dog, who’s sitting on a barrel and whittling some sort of hand shape on top of the next wood he’s carving. Noticing the two haystacks that weren’t there before, the dog confides, “Hmm (animated by Grandpre). Like my grandma used to tell me, you can’t be sure what’s in the pickle barrel until you get the lid off’n it”. He uses the hand on the wood to pull the switch that turns on the hay-baling machine he was sitting in front of, the “ACME All-Purpose Farm Implement” (animated by McKimson). Initially oblivious to the claw from the machine picking up first the haystacks- leaving their respective weapons in full view-, then the Weasel, and then two pieces of straw on his head, Foghorn soon realizes the dog is on to them when the latter comes up to him with a smirking expression, “Pay attention, boy! Now when I come at him with a crowbar, you spring the bear trap. Then I’ll pull the pin out of the hand grenade and you pin him down with mortar fire. And then I’ll, a-and you and we…. (chuckles nervously)”. The claw then picks Foghorn up (animated by Darling) and after he is dropped in, the camera pans across to show him going through the machine. A small gray-colored haystack comes out, followed by the Weasel nude except for a pair of orange underwear with green polka dots along with his head fur still being intact, and then a large white-colored haystack followed by Foghorn completely featherless and wearing only purple underwear with yellow flowers. Defeated, they take their respective bales and leave while carrying them (animated by Grandpre). Foghorn remarks, “Fortunately, I always keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency!” (animated by Dyson) After the iris-out closes, the Weasel, wearing his baled-fur around his torso walks across the black screen slurping hungrily at another potential meal before running off (animated by Bonnicksen).

Where Can I Watch It?

At toontales.net!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕