. . . Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes from Warner Bros. 1925-1950 Golden Age had a social agenda, it's hard not to look for one in FOX-TERROR. Obviously, Warner intends the title character here to represent the American One Per Cent. The fox has just one thing on his mind: plundering the chickens. The chickens, of course, are meant to represent We, the 99%. The mostly ineffectual "guardian" rooster and "watch" dog stand in here for the U.S. Congress and legal system Constitutionally charged with safe-guarding the 99% from Tyrannical One Per Centers such as Britain's King George III. As FOX-TERROR documents, the Congressional/Rooster/Dog had become the easily bamboozled dumbest among us by the 1950s. Like the little chicken in this cartoon, We the People keep yanking our Congressional/Cop/Courts "Who-are-you-going-to-call? Trust Busters!" alarm chain, but Congress and the Police no longer even bother to answer the calls coming in from the Common Man (or Chicken). Warner appends an optimistic close to this animated short. Few could muster such Hope today.

A sly fox manipulates Foghorn Leghorn into getting Barnyard Dog away from the hen house but his schemes backfire. I love me some Foghorn Leghorn but here the real star is the fox. He's a fun character. Love the racetrack tout routine. Wish I had a yellow plaid suit like that. The tout seems to be modeled after Sheldon Leonard's character from the Jack Benny radio and TV shows. Foghorn is fun but almost seems like a supporting character in his own short. Barnyard Dog is good, as is the little rooster who keeps pulling the alarm at the hen house. This is a pretty funny short but not one of Foghorn's best. The animation's nice and the voicework from Mel Blanc and Daws Butler is great.

"Fox-Terror" has something that I never expected to see: Foghorn Leghorn and Barnyard Dog as friends. In this case, a fox is doing everything possible to keep BD out of the way while he attempts to snatch the chickens, so he gets FL to inadvertently harm BD. Meanwhile, a tiny rooster sounds an alarm but BD never sees the fox and ends up thinking that the little guy is just playing pranks. Until someone takes everything a little too far. Overwhelming? Well, with some of the gags that they pull - namely the suit-changing - you'll never find it bad.OK, so this cartoon was probably a place-holder between the really great cartoons (1957 also saw the release of "What's Opera, Doc?" and "Birds Anonymous"). But it's always a pleasure to see Foggy do his folksy stuff. Worth seeing.

When measuring Foghorn Leghorn shorts by their co-stars, ‘Fox-Terror' comes out a winner, as it features two inspired new characters. First up is the terror of the title, who got his paws on the most incredible plaid suit that shows the same pattern which ever way he turns. The second new character is a tiny panic stricken rooster in charge of pulling the Fox Alarm cord. For once Foghorn and the Barnyard Dog (or ‘Mule' as Foggy affectionately calls him) are not interested in hurting each other at all. The rooster only wants to go fish (figure that) while the dog is very adamant about guarding the chickens for a change (shame he misunderstands that tiny rooster all the time). It is that foxy master of disguise who continually tricks them into hurting each other.This Foghorn feature has a lot more surreal gags than usual. For instance characters change their outfits simply by spinning round (years before Lynda Carter made it hip). This leads to nearly everybody wearing one of those plaid suits and a surprising ending (compared to some other Leghorn shorts I could mention).8 out of 10