The Henpecked Rooster

This is coming from someone who isn't a big fan of Herman or his cartoons, don't hate them, just not crazy about them. Henpecked Rooster is not a great cartoon and has faults, one of the weaker ones. The cartoon is rather low on laughs in both dialogue(none of the dialogue stands out here) and gags, the only funny part really is the ending. The animation is very flatly coloured and limited in backgrounds(the character designs for the roosters are odd-looking, Herman is fine though). And while she is a character that you are supposed to hate from the very beginning I still found Henry's wife a truly insufferable character especially with the grating voice.

The music is superb however, it's very sly and characterful and the use of instrumentation and articulation is clever and synchronises with the visuals very well indeed, the standout being the ending. The ending is the funniest and cleverest Henpecked Rooster gets, and it is pretty hilarious and one of the better and more original endings to any Herman cartoon. What makes Henpecked Rooster good is that the story agreed is one of the least predictable of them. By general cartoon standards it is nothing special at all, but while the stories for most of the Herman cartoons are painfully formulaic Henpecked Rooster tries to be different, and while not quite for a general cartoon for a Herman cartoon it works. Enjoyable too is the interplay between Herman and Henry and their character dynamics, they work very strongly together, Herman is more likable than usual and Henry is an easy character to feel sympathy for, the sympathy lessons when he gets his own back but when he has the sort of wife he has his actions are completely understandable. Arnold Stang and Jack Mercer do fine jobs with the voice acting.

In conclusion, not great but for a Herman cartoon it's watchable. 6/10 Bethany Cox