1. Senator Claghorn from Fred Allen's Allen's Alley
2. It features a young June Lockhart as his daughter. Yowzah.

Just fast forward to the June parts and forget the rest; if I wanted to listen to the current guv of GA... I'd just go back to Allen's Alley.

This story is all about an election, and features a fictional character who:

- is called 'Senator'
- frequently references real-life politicians
- has an obsessional allegiance to a regime that unsuccessfully waged an armed insurrection that resulted in more U.S. military deaths than in all other Pre-War-In-Vietnam wars combined

So how could reviewers drag politics into this simple entertainment? It's political correctness gone mad, I tell you! But a review space is for opinions, so whatever.

Still, this is not opinion:

- Audiences of 1947 also were not amused by this - it was a flop, closing in one week:

"'It's A Joke, Son' did a folderoo...'Joke' was very thin and in 3 days got less than $1000."

See the note in 'Variety', near bottom of rightmost column, at:

https://archive.org/stream/variety165-1947-03#page/n81/mode/1up

- Keith Scott, who is listed as an animation historian and voice actor for several notable films, convincingly argues that Senator Claghorn was not the original source for Foghorn Leghorn. He points out that the dialogue for the first Foghorn toon was recorded months before Senator Claghorn's first radio broadcast. The original source was a West Coast radio character that never achieved Claghorn's popularity. After Claghorn became a hit, his mannerisms were added to the toon character. For details, see:

http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-origin-of-foghorn-leghorn-2/

Seriously, Politics, Racism as a Review of an old MOVIE?

I love this movie! Delmar should have made more.
And some of you guys need to just relax and watch a movie for the pure entertainment value of it, and stop judging everything!
You know what they (Senator Claghorn)says;
Go ahead and laugh! It's good for the soul.

It did seem a bit slow in parts, but entertaining overall.

I did observe that there were no blacks in this movie about the South. I guess that didn't seem so strange in 1947, but seems weird in 2012.

It was interesting to see the actual character from which Foghorn Leghorn was taken. A similar thing happened when Olive Oyl was created using ZaSu Pitts. They couldn't do that today without fear of litigation. Just ask Joustin Beaver.

Ironically Delmar was from Massachusetts and also did the voice of the secy of the interior in Well's War of the World to sound suspiciously like FDR..
He did most of his work on radio with Fred Allen where Sen Claghorn was born.

How some of you can drag politics and race into this one is beyond me.. anything to degrade a movie i guess..

A cute movie.

An entertaining one-hour long look into the "Mint Julep Culture" of the South.

And... wow, June Lockhart was so YOUNG in this.

One of the most entertaining and fast-moving comedy films on the Internet Archive! Hilarious, I say! Y'hear me? So turn off your cotton pickin' brain for an hour and just enjoy some good ol', cornball laughs from a slower, less politically correct time. And see where Warner's Looney Tunes snagged their own Foghorn Leghorn cartoon character!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senator_Claghorn

The Civil War has gone through many definitions since the 1860's. The war fought for the tariffs to build the railroads and displace the Indians became a war to end slavery. Reconstruction brought punishment to the South, and by the Spanish American War the Civil War became a reason to celebrate the heroism of all sides. The notion of the Old South grew up in this period and would lead to GONE WITH THE WIND and this comedic character.

Lost in history was the thousands held in jail without charges during the war, Lincoln issuing an arrest warrent for the head of the Supreme Court, shutting down newspapers and jailing reporters for daring to critisize his war. Forgotten is the thousands of freed blacks that fought for the South. Forgotten is the fact the Emancipation Proclaimation freed not one slave. Forgotten is Jeff Davis adopting a black child, while Lincoln called for sending all blacks back to Africa.

Today the definitions have changed yet again. The Confederate flag is seen as treasonous, which no one would dare say up until the 1990's.
Lincoln died before Reconstruction, so he can't be blamed for it.

GONE WITH THE WIND isn't real, but neither are our views today. They will change again. Here we have a satire of the old Southerner, who hell no ain't forgettin'. But in fact, he already has.

I'm very disappointed that this site allows bigotry to grace these reviews. Yes the old south was the home of racism and evil doings but so was the old north. I guess someone missed the Boston protests of forced busing. Racism isn't a regional scourge. It's worldwide and it's partner, bigotry, has no place in these reviews. So many shout for multi-culturalism but when it's a culture they don't like they would "lynch" it's memory from our minds. I suppose these same people would burn copies of "Gone With The Wind" because their attitude reeks of the same foul odor the book burners created. Jim Crow is dead. No wooden stake is needed to keep it from resurrecting.

A thoroughly pleasant and disarming little comedy. Well worth the watch if you are tired of watching what passes for comedy today.

And who doesn't like Foghorn or Claghorn when they say "It's a joke, son!"

If you want to know where the Warner Bros. character of Foghorn Leghorn came from, then I say set y'self down, kick your feet up, grab y'self a tall cool mint julip with a twist of southern word play and allow yourself some light humour in the vein of that lovable loud-mouth cartoon chicken, animated rooster that is... This ain't no Eddie Muphy or Dennis Miller filled with cutting scatalogical joking, just some goofy olde fashion-ed jest jousting, querky quipping and better than average slapschitick done in a style thet requires a palet of a more genteel type to appretiate the suttlah humahs of the day.
The plot has a little different spin than the usual cops-n-robbers or romance and moves along at a good pace.
If you don't get it, you didn't have it son. Just keep your eye on the ball, boy, and you'll to just fine. Get it, ball boy!.. you got better chance at batten cotton, I say cotton than homers son...

It's not all that bad, not all that good.
But it's light entertainment, very light.
For this collection it's above average.

This film which came out in 1947, is a comedy and a vanity film for Kenny Delmar in his only star turn in films. Delmar's Southern blow hard was a hit in Fred Allen's segment "Allen 's Alley" on radio, but this film proves that it could not be sustained in a long form, let alone a visual one. It might have been funny in it's day, but it's day has long passed. Delmar was too young to carry off his part as a much older man (he was 37) in a visual medium, make-up not withstanding. Granted there are still some laughs here, but your sides won't be aching by the film's end. A 22 year old June Lockhart (still active in films as of this writing) is not only easy on the eyes, but she shows talent that did florish later on. A curio for sure, not the least bit a historical mirror of post-war life down South. No lynchings even. However most of the cast and crew would be likely candidates today,I'm sure. Die hard film buffs only.