Well Deserved Praise

Excellent, smart action film.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

. . . before anyone else that the American Character Harbored a Fatal Flaw as Bad as Germany's in the 1930s. These prophetic animators had just lived through an Era in which a Testicularly-Challenged Austrian Corporal plunged the world into a Decade of Chaos by raving and ranting slurs against Minority Groups. The Looney Tuners Witnessed a Nation becoming convinced that "Up" is Down, "Black" is White, and "East" is West simply by seeing one Lying Maniac riling up Stadiums full of Cheering Dittoheads. CROWING PAINS features Foghorn Leghorn bamboozling the gullible U.S. Public--in the person of Henery Hawk--that the Guardians of the Barnyard (Sylvester Cat and Barnyard Dog) are CHICKENS eager to become a Two-McNugget Happy Meal. In a World in which a Seven-Times-Bankrupt Game Show Host turned in as a Tax Cheat by HIS OWN ACCOUNTANT, subject to 4,000 lawsuits (hundreds secretly settled against him, but with thousands still pending), wedded to a Porn Star illegally smuggled into America, financially beholden to America's Two Great Enemies (Russia and China), soliciting further counts of HIGH TREASON Daily on Television while using the U.S. Mass Media as a Brainless Mouthpiece to cast his stones at Everyone Else's Achievements while his own Paper-Thin Glass House remains untouched is illustrated perfectly by ventriloquist Foghorn Leghorn as CROWING PAINS comes to its Sad But True Conclusion.

Once again, Henery Hawk is out to get a chicken and has his sights set on Foghorn Leghorn. Once again, Foghorn points him at another victim. In this case it's Sylvester the cat who, at the start of the cartoon, is about to murder Barnyard Dog (!) before Foghorn saves him. This may be the only time in all their cartoons together that Foghorn does Barnyard Dog a favor. Usually the two are at each other's throats. But I guess this time they have a mutual enemy in Sylvester. Solid voice work from the always-dependable Mel Blanc, who seemed to still be perfecting his Foghorn voice at this time. It would be a little deeper as time goes on. Energetic music from Carl Stalling. The animation is good with well-drawn characters and backgrounds. The Technicolor is always a plus. The short is funny, if not particularly hilarious. It's nice to see Sylvester interacting with characters he doesn't normally share the screen with.

This Looney Tunes cartoon is very entertaining from start to finish. Whilst some of the animation isn't always that great as Foghorn is a little overweight here, the music is good, the gags come by thick and fast and the short essentially is funny.The characters are still their fun and likable selves. While Sylvester is suitably slobbery and Foghorn witty, it is Henery who steals the show, and their partnership is perfect. Barnyard Dog also gives an entertaining performance. The marvellous vocals of Mel Blanc really made Crowing Pains so fun to watch especially, and the story was cool. I admit there is a fair amount of violence and poor Sylvester gets the most of it.All in all, it is fun, helped by the perfect performances from the Looney Tunes characters and most importantly from Blanc. 9/10 Bethany Cox

As far as I know, "Crowing Pains" is the only cartoon in which Sylvester appears alongside Foghorn Leghorn. As is the case in many of Foggy's cartoons, the blustery rooster tells Henery Hawk - a self-proclaimed chicken-hawk (which in this case is not a warmonger who refused to serve in the armed forces) - that another character is a chicken. Believing that Sylvester (who earlier had teased Barnyard Dog) is the chicken, Henery goes after him. Following a series of goof-ups in every direction, Henery decides to wait until dawn to see who crows: Foghorn, Sylvester or Barnyard.It was certainly an interesting trick to cast the screen's most famous slobbery cat with the most famous rooster. Any combination of characters is bound to create a cool situation (Robert McKimson later cast Foggy with Daffy Duck in "The High and the Flighty"). But its probably best that FL and Sly only co-starred this one time; I can't see them as repeated co-stars. Worth seeing.