My Censored Cartoon Can Beat Up Your Censored Cartoon: The Drawn and Quartered Father's Day Special, Episode Three: Little Boy Boo and Feather Dusted (The Name's Bond. Father/Son Bond [or, Generation Vexed])

Naughty Neighbors still will not be shown today, as there has been some confusion over whether or not this is a porno. While we sort out this hot, wet, and sticky mess, please enjoy something more wholesome.

Director(s): Robert McKimson

Summary (for both): Foghorn Leghorn tries to be a good father figure to Miss Prissy’s son, a baby chick who would rather read books and flex his STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills than play sports and be like what constituted a normal boy back in the mid-1950s.

“Little Boy Boo” sees Foghorn Leghorn actually go over to Miss Prissy’s henhouse to propose marriage to her, but Miss Prissy will only accept it if Foghorn can prove that he can be a good father to her son (with the comedy coming from Egghead, Jr. not being like other boys his age because he always finds a way to demystify the childlike wonder of a father/son baseball game or hide and seek with mathematical equations and scientific theory put into practice and Foghorn Leghorn being flummoxed by it). 

In contrast, “Feather Dusted” sees Foghorn Leghorn, in Miss Prissy’s eyes, as a bad influence on her son. She tells Egghead, Jr. to sit and read his books and Foghorn takes it upon himself to “cure” Egghead, Jr. of this, as he sees that it’s Miss Prissy raising her son to be a “pantywaist.” Nice to see that some things haven’t changed. There are a lot of people online who lament that today’s children don’t have it as good as the ones who grew up in the 1970s to around the 1990s and possibly the early 2000s because those childhoods...I guess involved more messiness and chaos disguised as “fun,” when really, there were kids back then like me who just weren’t feeling it and would like to just read with occasional breaks for toys, games, and TV/movies. Yes, I did try bike-riding and roller-skating, but I just couldn’t handle falling and getting scraped up. If I wanted that, gym class was readily available at my local elementary, middle, and high schools. Besides, as I said in a previous post (or maybe it was a comment section on YouTube that focused on Looney Tunes cartoon reviews and wasn’t a reaction video or one for a British comedy [with or without Noel Fielding. Four months later and the crush is still there. Not that I’m complaining...]), I do see Gen Z and younger kids out and about, having the kind of childhood that tail-end Boomers (called “Generation Jones,” believe it or not. I think my mom is part of that, as she was born in 1962 and the Gen X start year is 1964, which is sadly when the Looney Tunes cartoons really started to fall off in quality), Gen Xers, Xennials (or MTV Generation kids), and Gen Yers had. Yes, there have been some sociopolitical changes, but the most changes I’ve seen are with technology, entertainment, parenting, and some people being more mindful about the world around them and at least trying to improve things.

Fun Facts: They’re pretty mundane, from what the Looney Tunes Fandom Wiki is giving me. “Little Boy Boo” is obviously the first cartoon to feature Egghead, Jr., and have Miss Prissy speak more lines than just her trademark, “Ye-eeesss.” “Feather Dusted”...yeah, about the most interesting thing the Looney Tunes Fandom Wiki is giving me is the fact that MeTV aired an unreleased restored print of this short on Toon in With Me three years ago (February 2023) and this version was included on the first volume of the Looney Tunes Collector’s Vault Blu-ray (more on that later in the “Availability Uncut” section).

Letterboxd Says The Darndest Things: Speaking of generational differences and how much the world has changed for better and worse, these reviews for “Little Boy Boo” and “Feather Dusted” (the latter moreso than the former) really show that people these days can’t look at anything without diagnosing characters with neurodivergencies or coding them as being on the LGBTQ spectrum. Not to denigrate people on both of those spectra (LGBTQ and neurodivergent/autism), but I believe in the creator of a work being the one who calls the shots on how they intended a character to act or a story to play out (though interpretations from viewers are welcome if the creator or creators do a bad job of it and won’t admit to doing so. It’s the reason why Showgirls has been reassessed as a campy, secretly intelligent satire of how sleazy and sexist the entertainment industry can be for women when before, it was just hailed as a terrible movie). If Egghead, Jr. is supposed to be a nerd who doesn’t say anything, doesn’t like sports, and would rather read thick, scientific tomes and come up with mathematical formulae for hide and seek, baseball, paper airplanes, pirate LARPing at the lake, and croquet, then that’s who he is in the eyes of Robert McKimson and short writer for both “Little Boy Boo” and “Feather Dusted,” Tedd Pierce.

Since I found most of these reviews embarrassing, I’m not going to put them up this go-around (I may start featuring “Letterboxd Says the Darndest Things” a little less frequently than usual), but I will put up this one review from “Feather Dusted” that drove me to come to this decision:

foghorn mercilessly bullies his gay autistic stepson for 7 minutes, which involves calling him a homophobic slur and dressing up like a native american. idk maybe it's because i can see some of my younger self in this kid, but i just felt bad for this poor little egghead character

Thanks a lot, dr00de (the person who did...this). It’s not like Egghead, Jr. suffered much from this. He fought back with resourcefulness (his intellect and STEM interests) and just the fact that Foghorn Leghorn was in over his head through it all added to it. Also, where does it say that Egghead Jr. is Foghorn’s stepson? The “gay” and “autistic” labels, as I said before, are open to interpretation, even though McKimson and Pierce had no intention of making him this way (and probably weren’t familiar with either back in the 1950s), but the “stepson” label is way off, if you assume that Foghorn immediately broke up with Miss Prissy after the wedding on “Of Rice and Hen” (okay dr00de, may have had a point there, since Foghorn and Miss Prissy did get married in a Foghorn Leghorn short, but I was under the assumption that Egghead, Jr.’s father is a rooster named Egghead, Sr., who ended up going out to slaughter, since Miss Prissy is a widow. How could Foghorn Leghorn be Egghead, Jr.’s stepson if he and Miss Prissy’s marriage was dissolved before Egghead, Jr. was hatched? Also, when has “pantywaist” been branded a homophobic slur? I thought that was just for a male who’s not considered “manly” or “rough and tumble.” You can be a straight male and be like that, ya know.

On a lighter note, Tim Brayton (the one whose Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies reviews are tough, but fair. I may not agree with some of them, but he at least goes through why a certain short may be good or bad) had this to say about “Little Boy Boo”:

Though I have groused about them in the past and will undoubtedly do more of it in the future, credit's due to Robert McKimson and Tedd Pierce for at least knowing how to keep Foghorn Leghorn going. Every time the formula even hints that it might be getting stale, they change it up: in this case, by adding Egghead Jr, a character who only made three appearances in the classic era of the Looney Tunes, which is another sign of how they didn't want anything to go stale, maybe. He is, at any rate, a great curveball, creating a brand new type of antagonist for Foghorn to grow frazzled against: one who can't be flim-flammed and Foghorn knows it. The result barely feels like a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon (not least because there aren't any Southern-fried euphemisms in this one), but as a cartoon about a loudmouth who grows increasingly distressed at how he's getting outwitted without even seeing how it happens, this is some very fine stuff. Fast-paced, an exceptionally wide variety of gags, and Foghorn's indignant expressions are captured with great cartoon caricature by the animators. Also, there are some fantastic jokes hanging in the background paintings of Foghorn's windy shack, waiting for an attentive viewer to glance over at them.

The Channel(s): CBS, ABC, and Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends (FOX version) for “Little Boy Boo”; ABC, Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends (FOX and syndicated versions), The WB, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and MeTV for “Feather Dusted.”

Part(s) Edited/Video Comparison: Today, I’m doing something crazy and combining the “Part(s) Edited” and “Video Comparison” entries just to make it easier (and because I’m always looking for new ways to make the blog engaging and interesting).

For “Little Boy Boo,” CBS, ABC, and the FOX version of Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends cut the following:

ABC and FOX Merrie Melodies...: Foghorn Leghorn teaching Egghead, Jr. how to play baseball was cut to remove Foghorn showing Egghead, Jr. a baseball bat and asking him what the bat is used for. Despite thinking a baseball is edible and not being familiar with the general game of baseball, Egghead does know what a baseball bat is used for — and demonstrates by hitting Foghorn Leghorn on the head with the bat.

Bat Scene -- Uncut Version

Bat Scene -- Edited Version (as seen on ABC and FOX)

CBS: An earlier edited version that aired on The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show left in the bat part (I don’t know why. This feels like something they’d cut as well), but cut the part near the end where Foghorn sees Egghead, Jr. mixing chemicals on the “Tiny Tot Chemistry Set — Harmless,” thinks Egghead, Jr. is making “sodie pop” (while there are kids’ educational toys that do teach kids how to make slime and candy [I do remember the candy-making ones were around when I was a kid. The slime ones are more popular today, possibly to cut down on childhood obesity, though not messy houses], the “Tiny Tot Chemistry Set” seems to me like one of those 1950s ones where it’s obvious that it’s dangerous, but no one cared back then), shakes the test tube, and gets blown up, which is what drives Forghorn to return Egghead, Jr. to Miss Prissy and announce that he’s not going to marry her after all because he can’t handle being Egghead, Jr.’s stepfather.

Chemistry Set Scene -- Uncut Version

Chemistry Set Scene -- Edited Version (as seen on CBS)

In contrast to “Little Boy Boo,” “Feather Dusted” had one scene cut, but more channels cut the same scene, and a few cut different things within the scene.

Uncut Version: 

After playing “Cops and Robbers” with Egghead, Jr. goes pear-shaped when Egghead literally blows the whistle on Foghorn, leading to his off-screen arrest, trial, arraignment, and incarceration, Foghorn Leghorn tunnels out of prison and tells Egghead, Jr. that they “...should play something less confining.” That game: an attack on Fort Paleface by Foghorn Leghorn (as an American Indian warrior) and Egghead, Jr. as Daniel Boone, whose toy gun fires real bullets (which Foghorn learns the hard way when he pulls the cork).

The common edited version on ABC, both versions of Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends (syndicated and FOX), Cartoon Network, and Boomerang cut the entire “Fort Paleface” fades out after Foghorn tunnels out of prison and tells Egghead, Jr. that they should play something less confining. 

The WB left in most of the scene, but cut off before Foghorn pulls the cork on Egghead, Jr./Daniel Boone’s “toy” gun. 

Meanwhile, MeTV once aired a version where the only thing cut was the establishing shot of the scene after “Cops and Robbers” turns all too real, where we can see a banner that reads, “Fort Paleface.” 

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s):

For “Little Boy Boo”:

Cutting Egghead, Jr. hitting Foghorn Leghorn in the head with a baseball bat to demonstrate that he does know what it’s for, despite never playing baseball a day in his budding life kills the joke and causes a continuity error, at least the way I re-enacted the edit, making it look like Egghead, Jr. knew that it was used for hitting the baseball, despite that he made it clear that he knows nothing about the game (for God’s sake, he ate a baseball).

Cutting Foghorn Leghorn foolishly mishandling chemicals and paying for it by getting blown up is another censor-made continuity error, as how would the hide-and-seek scene result in Foghorn being in full-body bandages and using a crutch to walk as he’s telling Miss Prissy that he’s calling off the engagement to marry her?

For “Feather Dusted”

• Cutting the entire “Fort Paleface” part (as seen on ABC, both versions of Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends, Cartoon Network, and Boomerang) was the scene I remember seeing most back when Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons ruled the children’s TV airwaves. I definitely remember seeing the edited version on Cartoon Network, but I also saw it on ABC’s The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show. Don’t know if Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon aired this uncut (or at all), since I have no memory of seeing this on Nickelodeon. If they can air “Crockett-Doodle-Doo,” which also has Native American stereotyping, then surely this would have passed muster, edited or otherwise.

• The WB’s edited version: While I applaud that they aired some of the “Fort Paleface” scene, I don’t like that all they found offensive was the gun violence. Surely, The WB would have done what the commonly-edited version did (cut off after Foghorn escapes prison and go straight to the pirate part).

• The MeTV edited version: Same sentiment as The WB version: I applaud that some of the sequence was left uncut and that the MeTV censors actually recognized that racial slurs against white people exist and can be just as hurtful as the ones for people of color, but I don’t like that the shot of the “Fort Paleface” banner got cut. Fortunately, MeTV reinstated the scene and its all-animation spin-off channel, MeTV Toons has aired it uncut from the word “go”.

Availability Uncut: “Little Boy Boo” was on more physical home media releases than “Feather Dusted,” and both were even shown on the same releases.

Home Media Release Title	Year of Release	Type of Release (VHS, DVD, etc)	Has “Little Boy Boo” Only	Has “Feather Dusted” Only	Has Both Shorts
The Looney Tunes Video Show (volume 5)	1982 (international); 1986 (United States release)	VHS	No	Yes	No
The Looney Tunes Video Show (volume 16)	1984 (international release only)	VHS	Yes	No	No
Warner Bros. Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24 Karat Collection: A Salute to Mel Blanc (had this tape)	1985	VHS	Yes	No	No
Warner Bros. Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24 Karat Collection: Foghorn Leghorn’s Fractured Funnies (had this tape)	1986	VHS and Beta	No	Yes	No
Classic Looney Tunes: Foghorn Leghorn	1990	VHS (UK release only)	Yes	No	No
Classic Collection (WHSmith Exclusive Video)	1995	VHS	No	Yes	No
Looney Tunes Collection: Foghorn Leghorn	1996	VHS (UK release only)	No	No	Yes
Looney Tunes Special Bumper Collection (volume 3)	1996	VHS (UK release only)	Yes	No	No
Looney Tunes: The Collector’s Edition (volume 4: Daffy Doodles)	2000	VHS	Yes	No	No
Foghorn Leghorn: Beware of the Dog (not the actual title, but with the way the VHS cover is, it looks like it could be)	2003	VHS (UK release only)	No	No	Yes
Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s (volume 2, disc 1, part of The Bugs Bunny Show)	2009	DVD	No	Yes	No
Looney Tunes Super Stars: Foghorn Leghorn & Friends: Barnyard Bigmouth	2010	DVD	Yes	No	No
Looney Tunes Super Stars 3-Pack	2013	DVD	Yes	No	No
Looney Tunes Super Stars Family Multi-Feature	2014	DVD	Yes	No	No
Looney Tunes Collector’s Vault (volume 1)	2025	Blu-ray	No	No	Yes

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Both “Little Boy Boo” and “Feather Dusted” are available, as of this writing, on iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, and Tubi and both used to be on the Boomerang app until 2024. “Little Boy Boo” was on HBO Max (and its short-lived “Max” rebrand) from 2020 to 2022, then brought back from 2024 to 2025. Meanwhile, “Feather Dusted” wasn’t available on HBO Max (or “Max”) in any country.

So, Who Won?: “Feather Dusted” has the least egregious and most popular censorship cut (fading out after the “Cops and Robbers” game to the pirate game), “Little Boy Boo” is more popular, considered the funnier of the two, and has more releases on home media. So, as much as I love these two, I’m giving this one to “Little Boy Boo.”

‘Til next time: Stay Looney and Be Happy! Merrie, that is!

Post-Credit Stinger: “My Censored Cartoon Can Beat Up Your Censored Cartoon” will be back for Father’s Day 2027 with “Strangled Eggs,” “A Broken Leghorn,” and “The Slick Chick.”