Let's Watch This: "Barnyard" (2006)

 Hey, everybody, guess what? This is my one hundredth review! That's pretty cool, isn't it? And my one hundredth review should be of something really, really good. So I decided this would be a great opportunity to post my review of an animated movie that I find underrated. That movie is the 2006 animated movie Barnyard.

Alright, let's get this out of the way - male cows do not have udders. In fact, there is no such thing as a "male cow", they are bulls. The filmmakers were very much aware of this, they just thought it'd be funny to have male cows with udders. And, honestly, if you want to bring realism into this movie, cows also can't talk or walk around on their hind legs.

Now that we've addressed the "male cows don't have udders" thing that every single review of Barnyard has to bring up, let's talk about the film itself. Nowadays, this movie is more well-known for the TV series it spawned, Nickelodeon's Back at the Barnyard. In December 2021, I revisited that show, and it made me want to rewatch the movie because I remembered really liking it. And - spoiler alert - the movie still holds up in my opinion.

Barnyard was produced by O Entertainment and distributed by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies. It was directed by Steve Oedekerk, the writer and producer of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Despite doing pretty well at the box office, it received mainly negative reviews from critics. You can find fans of it online, but you have to look very, very hard (and traverse through a jungle of Back at the Barnyard memes).

So why do I like the film? Well, why don't we head down to the farm and see what cows, pigs, and chickens really do when no one's looking? This is Barnyard.

The film begins with a Pat Buttram soundalike singing a cheery song as we see the farm in all of its 2000s CGI glory. The farmer (voiced by Fred Tatasciore) tells his faithful dog, Duke, that he's heading out to the fields. He gets in his truck and drives off.

Trademark of 2000s CGI: the humans are kind of creepy-looking.

Once the farmer leaves, the animals get up on their hind legs and talk. For whatever reason, the animals aren't allowed to do this when humans are around. And the leader of the animals is the wise old cow Ben, voiced by Sam Elliot. He greets Miles, a mule voiced by Danny Glover, and asks him to let him know if he's seen his son, Otis.

Pictured: the coolest cow and mule EVER.

At the moment, Otis, voiced by Kevin James, and his friends are doing a little something that he calls "hill-surfing". It involves standing on a surfboard tied to a block of ice that is currently sitting on a gigantic cliff. Peck the rooster (Rob Paulsen) agrees with me and points out to Otis that it seems incredibly unsafe, but Pip the mouse (Jeffrey "Sheen" Garcia), Freddy the ferret (Cam Clarke), and Pig the creatively named pig (Tino Insana) are on board (no pun intended).

It's kind of weird that all the other animals have names, but the pig is just "Pig".

And I gotta admit, while this "hill-surfing" thing does look incredibly dangerous, the movie also makes it look kind of fun.

After flying through a gusher of oil and a chicken farm (essentially being tarred and feathered, which seems kind of redundant in Peck's case), Otis and his buddies land at the barnyard just in time for the meeting. First, Ben reminds everyone that the purchase of human articles via the gophers' underground market is strictly prohibited... and cue Otis getting a phone call from a gopher. I don't know where a cow got a cell phone (maybe it was from the gophers?).

The gopher is also telling Otis that his Nikes are ready. Hooray for product placement.

Next, Ben informs everyone that it's coyote season. And coyotes are ruthless and desperate creatures, so if the animals don't want to become their next meal, they have to stay inside the perimeter of the fence at all times.

After the meeting, Ben and Otis get into an argument over Otis' being a lazy bum. "If you're trying to groom me to be the big leader, just give it up. It's not me, Pop," Otis claims. Ben warns him that he's not going to be happy if he spends all of his time goofing off. Otis, of course, isn't convinced.

We get a montage of Otis and his buddies having fun, and then Otis meets two cows who are new to the farm. The one with the bow is Daisy (Courtney Cox), Otis' love interest. And the other one is Bessie (Wanda Sykes), who Pip has the hots for. Yes, a mouse having the hots for a cow. Still not as disturbing as Bee Movie's having a bee have the hots for a human, but it's pretty disturbing. Daisy is pregnant - remember that, it's gonna be important later.

Here's a fun fact for you about Bessie - in Back at the Barnyard, it's revealed that she works for
Weird Al Yankovic. Who is apparently a horse in disguise. Yeah, Back at the Barnyard is a pretty
weird show...

Once the farmer goes to bed, the animals have themselves a party. This is a scene that consists mainly of gags - a cow rides a mechanical human as opposed to a mechanical bull, a rooster throws a dart at a picture of Colonel Sanders, and some dogs play poker a la the famous painting.

And just in case you don't get it, they have Pip painting them.

While this is going on, Ben and Otis meet up for Otis' shift of patrolling the barn. I really like this scene, it does a great job of showing that Ben and Otis love each other even though they're very different. Otis tells his dad that he's needed for a big musical number his friends are putting on at the party, but he knows it'd be selfish for him to ask his dad to cover his shift. "Otis," Ben says, "I never thought I was gonna amount to much. I certainly didn't think I'd be in charge of anything. But that all changed one day. It was the day you showed up. I head out into the meadow, and I see this little baby calf, all alone... stumbling around. You know, before you became a nightmare. Well, I took you home that night, and I know it doesn't sound possible, but I looked up into the sky... and I could've sworn I saw the stars dance. At that moment, I knew my place was here, takin' care of things. I guess you helped me realize that. I love you, son."

This movie was clearly influenced by The Lion King, and that's very apparent in this scene. One can't
help but make comparisons to Mufasa's "great kings of the past" speech.

Ben agrees to cover Otis' shift while he does his big production number, which is right after a rap song performed by an incredibly obese mouse ("Biggie Cheese") and a comedy routine from a rooster. But the fun is interrupted by the arrival of two pizza delivery guys. I remember this scene being in a lot of ads for the film. Even if you haven't seen it, if you watched TV in 2006 I guarantee that you heard "DUDE I GOT AN ARM!" at least once.

Little does Otis know that a pack of ferocious coyotes are sneaking onto the barnyard and into the henhouse, led by the vile Dag (David Koechner).

Wile E. Coyote WISHES he was this threatening...

Fortunately, Ben the cow of awesomeness is there to make sure the coyotes don't devour the chickens - while playing a guitar at the same time. Now THAT'S what I call multitasking. Unfortunately, while Ben is tough, and he manages to stop them, the coyotes do a number on him. One of the hens goes to the barn and tells Otis, and Otis immediately runs out to the field to help his dad. But, alas, the coyotes' damage is irreversible - Ben is gone.

Everyone is saddened by the loss of Ben, especially Otis, who thinks it's his fault... and, honestly, it kind of is, but to be fair, even if Otis had been there I'm not sure how much help he would have been, seeing as he and Ben would still be outnumbered and there's no indication at this point that Otis is much of a fighter (and how was Otis supposed to know the coyotes would show up that night?). But now who's going to be the leader? Duke (Dom Irrera) nominates himself, but Miles reminds everyone that Ben intended for Otis to take his place. The other animals are totally on-board with that, because with Otis in charge, they can do whatever they want.

I like Miles. Why wasn't HE in Back at the Barnyard?

Otis, still feeling glum, returns to the barn to discover that it is now for all intents and purposes a three-ring circus. The animals are even having a party in the barn - in broad daylight. "Have you all lost your minds?!" Otis yells. "It's DAYLIGHT! The farmer's gonna be BACK! This is SOOOOOOOOOOOO! OFF! LIMITS!"

But the animals know how to get Otis to join them in their partying... by summoning this thing:

What, exactly, IS that? I have no idea, and neither do the characters. All they know is, it sure can dance.

But, eventually, the farmer shows up and sees what's going on. Miles knocks him out. Otis' first act as leader is to figure out just what, exactly, to do about this situation.

Otis makes a lot of funny facial expressions.

After the farmer comes to and Miles knocks him out again, they drag the unconscious farmer under a tree and attempt to make it look like the "barn animals partying" thing he saw was just a dream he had after getting hit on the head with a branch. But wait! They left his boot by the door! Won't he go over to get it and see... oh, wait, never mind. Miles knocked him out a third time. "WILL YOU... STOP... DOING... THAT?!" Otis demands. To which Miles replies, "Well, unless you get him a blindfold, I'm gonna kick him!"

Next, Otis puts Freddy and Peck in charge of watching the henhouse. There's just one problem with that... Freddy has a constant craving to eat chickens, which extends to his best friend Peck. So basically, this is like having an aardvark stand guard over an ant farm.

Where's Foghorn Leghorn when you need him?

While patrolling the barnyard, Otis comes across the Jersey Cows (S. Scott Bullock, John DiMaggio, and Maurice LaMarche), three cows whose shtick is that they're obnoxious idiots. They see a fat kid by the name of Snotty Boy (Steve Oedekerk himself) tip over another cow, and that makes them MAD!

It's funny rewatching the movie after watching so many episodes of the show - Snotty Boy's role is actually quite small, but in the show he's a recurring antagonist. And yes, he does get pretty grating as a character after a while.

The cows are so ticked off by Snotty Boy's cow-tipping that they decide to sneak over to the house of a couple known as the Beattys (Maria Bamford and Steve Oedekerk) and steal their car. This is another thing that the show took and ran with - the Beattys have small roles in the film, but in the series, Mrs. Beatty is another recurring antagonist, obsessed with proving that the animals can talk and constantly failing at it.

So, yeah. Now we have cows hotwiring a car and driving it. How does a cow know how to drive a car? I dunno, it's an animated movie, just go with it.

Honestly, I still don't find this as ludicrous as the show's constantly having the animals put on clothes
and wigs and immediately fooling everyone into thinking that they're humans.

Otis and the Jersey Cows sneak into Snotty Boy's bedroom and push him out of bed. "THAT'S CALLED BOOOOOOOOOOY-TIPPIIIIIIIING! HAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAA!" Otis shouts as the Jersey Cows laugh their heads off. This is another scene that I recall was used a LOT in ads for the film.

"You should've seen the look on your face when we pushed you out of the bed. That was totally
priceless!"

But as they're driving off, a police car starts pursuing them. To get away, they drive into a cornfield and ditch the car, then make a run for it. For whatever reason, it takes them a while to remember that they're, y'know, COWS, and could easily just ACT LIKE COWS and the police wouldn't suspect a thing.

After returning the Beattys' car and heading back to the farm, Otis starts to feel bad about doing something he knows Ben wouldn't approve of. To make up for it, he decides to watch for the coyotes instead of going into the barn to PAR-TAY. Daisy joins him, and they have a heart-to-heart. Daisy gives us her backstory - she was married, and life was good, but one day a bad storm rolled in. She and Bessie found a place on high ground in the meadow, but her friends weren't so lucky.

What the heck kind of freak farm animal-slaughtering storm was THAT? Was it a tornado or something?

On the bright side, if it was a tornado, then there's a fifty-percent chance that Daisy's friends were all
just whisked away to Oz.

Later, Otis spots the coyotes chasing a rabbit and attempts to avenge his dad. But they're too tough for him, and it doesn't help that Dag really likes to make him feel small. "From here on out, this is the way it's gonna work," he snarls. "We show up. You look the other way. A few animals missing here and there. Hey, it's the natural order of things. It'll be our little secret." And if Otis tries to stop them, they'll slaughter every animal in sight.

"You wanna know why I'm always stealin' chickens from your farm? It's easier than nabbin'
roadrunners, I can tell you THAT much..."

(Sheesh, that's the third Looney Tunes joke I've made thus far. I really need some new material...)

After his run-in with the coyotes, Otis goes to Ben's grave and laments that he's a complete loser. "I don't know what I was thinking..." he moans. "For a minute, I actually thought that I could take your place... but those coyotes? I mean, you would've stood up to them! You wouldn't have backed down! And I was... so afraid... I know I always said that I wasn't you, and... and I'm not... but I wish I was... I can't do it, Pop. I gotta go... I'm sorry..."

Otis decides to leave the barnyard, confessing to Daisy that he wasn't able to fight the coyotes. "I couldn't do anything," he laments. "They're gonna come back tonight, and I can't protect anyone. Everyone here, they all trust me. And I can't protect a single one of them!" Daisy tells him that she believes in him, but it's not enough to boost his confidence.

But what DOES boost his confidence is when the other animals tell him that the coyotes snuck into the barnyard and swiped some of the chickens (and none of the other animals did anything to stop them because... well, to be fair, have you SEEN those coyotes?). They knew that Otis wouldn't be expecting them until tonight - they played him for a sap!

Uh... is that Ben standing next to Duke? Did they just reuse his model for another cow?

Otis marches off to the junkyard where the coyotes live so he can rescue the chickens. Fortunately, they haven't actually EATEN the chickens yet because they "prefer dining at night". He starts to fight them, and initially he does pretty well, but then the coyotes knock him to the ground and dogpile him. Will Otis suffer the same fate as Ben?

No - because his friends show up to help him.

Did you know that coyotes mate for life? I know that's not particularly funny, but if I can't be funny,
I think I should at least try to educational...

As do the Jersey Cows.

I will not question how cows can drive a car. I will not question how cows can drive a car...

So now it's a total free-for-all. Pip defeats one coyote by running into its ear, Otis summons gophers to go Kung Fu Panda on their tails, and Miles continues to be awesome and sics the Tribble with legs from before on them. Dag tries to pounce on Otis from behind, but Peck finally figures out how to crow, alerting Otis of the sneak attack. So Dag's plan is foiled.

Can I just say, right now, that the way Kevin James snarls, "NEVER. COME. BACK." is incredibly awesome?

"And by the way, you don't even look that much like a coyote! COYOTES AREN'T RED!"

Otis uses his golfing skills to send Dag flying. Now the animals just have to get back to the barn before Daisy gives birth. So they steal some motorcycles.

And this movie just became a million times more awesome.

They make it back to the barn just in time. Daisy gives birth to a little baby boy, who she names "Little Ben".

I can't even think of a joke to make about this scene. Some scenes you just can't make jokes about.

Duke asks Otis if he plans on staying around a little longer. "I'll just say this," Otis replies. "As long as I'm still kicking, no animal will be harmed inside that fence!" Everyone cheers, and Otis heads outside, looks up into the sky, and sees - what else? - the stars dancing.

…and then comes the series, where Daisy and Little Ben are suddenly replaced by a new character, Otis has forgotten everything he learned in the movie and has become a complete idiot who can't even spell his own name, and Ben is only mentioned once. Yeah, I have some problems with the show, funny as it is.

What's the Verdict?

Well, I, for one, like Barnyard. I feel like a lot of critics just couldn't get past the whole "male cows with udders" thing and just brushed the film off as yet another dumb animated movie about animals. But this film has a lot of heart to it. The characters are likeable, the jokes are funny, and the emotional moments all work really well. The bond between Otis and Ben is the soul of the movie. And it's got a great cast - I really appreciate how they actually let professional voice actors voice a majority of the characters as opposed to having it be all celebrities like most animated movies do. Yeah, you've got some celebrities like Courtney Cox and Wanda Sykes, but you've also got Rob Paulsen, Cam Clarke, and Fred Tatasciore. And the celebrity voices all do a good job on top of that. I dare say that Otis might be Kevin James' best role, because his performance is wonderful. He really manages to show off some acting chops. And... come on, it has barnyard animals riding motorcycles. You can't call a movie bad if it has BARNYARD ANIMALS RIDING MOTORCYCLES.

So... which is better? The movie or the series? That's a tricky one, because the movie and the series have very different feels to them. The movie is goofy but much more laid-back and not afraid to be sad, tender, or scary. By contrast, the series is a zany comedy with cutaway gags, a flying Bigfoot as a recurring character, and a general sense that the writers cared more about having fun than writing a compelling story. But, for that reason, I think I'd say that the movie is better than the series... but I still like the series. It's a guilty pleasure.

I recommend checking out Barnyard. If you like it, check out the series. And now, to cap of this review, I'd like to give a little preview of what my one hundredth and one review is going to be...

Yes, I'm doing 101 Dalmatians: The Series as my 101th review. Aren't I so clever?