Knock Knock

Knock Knock is a 1940 animated short subject, part of the Andy Panda series, produced by Walter Lantz. The cartoon is noted for being the first appearance of Woody Woodpecker, and was released by Universal Pictures on November 25, 1940.

Plot

The cartune ostensibly stars Andy Panda (voice of Sara Berner) and his father, Papa Panda (voice of Mel Blanc), but it is Woody (voice of Blanc) who steals the show. The woodpecker constantly pesters the two pandas, apparently just for the fun of it. Andy, meanwhile, tries to sprinkle salt on Woody's tail in the belief that this will somehow capture the bird. To Woody's surprise, Andy's attempts prevail (comically, the mound of salt placed on Woody's tail is so heavy that he cannot run away), and in an ending very similar to 1938's Daffy Duck & Egghead, Woody is taken away to the funny farm—where his captors prove to be crazier than he is.

Production notes

Like most of the early 1940s Lantz "cartunes", Knock Knock carried no director's credit. Lantz himself has claimed to have directed this cartune, which features animation by Alex Lovy and Frank Tipper, a story by Ben Hardaway and Lowell Elliott, and music by Frank Marsales. Knock Knock was Marsales' final score for Lantz.

As the first appearance of Woody Woodpecker, Knock Knock is also the first cartune to feature Woody's trademark laugh, a gurgling cackle voice artist Mel Blanc had been perfecting since high school. This is also the laugh Blanc used for Happy Rabbit, a predecessor to Bugs Bunny. This cartune is also notable for featuring a very gruesome Woody design, something that was softened by 1942 and later changed into a much more realistic and more easier to animate woodpecker by 1944. This gruesome first Woody design featured Woody with red "vest feathers" (instead of white), buck teeth in some shots, thick ringed legs, a green tail, and a big chin which made him look more like a pelican than a woodpecker.

Censorship

When the short was first showed at The Woody Woodpecker Show, the ending containing the screwball woodpeckers was cut.^{[citation needed]}

References

• Cooke, Jon, Komorowski, Thad, Shakarian, Pietro, and Tatay, Jack. "1940". The Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 4, 2007.]

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