Woody Woodpecker, from the opening title sequence for the 1951 short Puny Express.

Woody Woodpecker is an animated cartoon character, an anthropomorphic woodpecker (modeled after the Pileated species) who appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz animation studio and distributed by Universal Pictures. Though not the first of the "screwball" characters that became popular in the 1940s, Woody is perhaps the most indicative of the type.

Woody was created in 1940 by storyboard artist Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, who had previously laid the groundwork for two other "screwball" characters, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, at the Schlesinger/Warner Bros. studio in the late 1930s. Woody's character and design would evolve over the years, from an insane bird with an unusually garish design to a more refined looking and acting character in the vein of the later Chuck Jones version of Bugs Bunny. Woody was originally voiced by Mel Blanc, the voice actor who voiced Bugs Bunny and most of the other Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies characters. Blanc was succeeded as Woody's voice by Ben Hardaway and later by Grace Stafford, wife of Walter Lantz.

Walter Lantz produced theatrical cartoons longer than most of his contemporaries, and Woody Woodpecker remained a staple of Universal's release schedule until 1972, when Lantz finally closed down his studio. The character has only been revived since then for special productions and occasions, save for one new Saturday morning cartoon, The New Woody Woodpecker Show, for the Fox Network in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

Woody Woodpecker cartoons were first broadcast on television in 1957 under the title The Woody Woodpecker Show, which featured Lantz cartoons bookended by new footage of Woody and live-action footage of Lantz. Though less popular today, a repackaged version of The Woody Woodpecker Show is still frequently seen in television syndication. Woody has a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 7000 Hollywood Blvd. He also made a cameo alongside many other famous cartoon characters in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Film and TV history

Early years

The early version of Woody Woodpecker, as seen in the 1941 short Pantry Panic, directed by Alex Lovy .

According to Walter Lantz's press agent, the idea for Woody came during the producer's honeymoon with his wife, Gracie, in Sherwood Lake, California. A noisy woodpecker outside their cabin kept the couple awake at night, and when a heavy rain started, they learned that the bird had bored holes in their cabin's roof. Gracie suggested that her husband make a cartoon about the bird, and thus Woody was born. The story is questionable, however, since the Lantzes weren't married until after Woody made his screen debut. Their standard story that the bird's cry inspired Woody's trademark "Ha-ha-ha-HAA-ha!" is also questionable, as Mel Blanc had already used a similar laugh in earlier Warner Bros. cartoons such as Elmer's Candid Camera.

Woody Woodpecker first appeared in the film Knock Knock on November 25, 1940. The cartoon ostensibly stars Andy Panda and his father, Papa Panda, but it is Woody 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, and Woody is taken away to the funny farm -- but not before his captors prove to be crazier than he is.

The Woody of Knock Knock is a truly deranged-looking animal. His buggy eyes look in different directions, and his head is all angles and sharp points. However, the familiar color scheme of red head and blue body is already in place, as is the infamous laugh: "Ha-ha-ha-HAA-ha!". Woody is perhaps the best example of the new type of cartoon character that was becoming popular in the early 1940s -- a brash, violent aggressor who pesters innocents not out of self defense, but simply for the fun of it. Woody's original voice actor, Mel Blanc, would stop performing the character after the first four cartoons to work exclusively for Leon Schlesinger Productions, producer of Warner Bros' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. At Schlesinger's, Blanc had already established the voices of two other famous "screwball" characters who preceded Woody, Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. Ironically, Blanc's characterization of the Woody Woodpecker laugh had originally been applied to Bugs Bunny's predecessor, "Happy Rabbit", in shorts such as the aforementioned Elmer's Candid Camera, and was later transferred to Woody. Blanc's regular speaking voice for Woody was much like the early Daffy Duck, minus the lisp. Woody's voice-over work was taken over by Ben Hardaway, who would to voice the woodpecker for the rest of the decade.

Audiences reacted well to Knock Knock, and Lantz realized he had finally hit upon a star to replace the waning Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Woody would go on to star in a number of films. With his innate chutzpah and brash demeanor, the character was a natural hit during World War II. His image appeared on US aircraft and mess halls, and audiences on the homefront watched Woody cope with familiar problems such as food shortages. The 1943 Woody cartoon The Dizzy Acrobat was nominated for the 1944 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), which it lost to the MGM Tom and Jerry cartoon The Yankee Doodle Mouse.

Woody Woodpecker and his captive client in The Barber of Seville (1944), directed by Shamus Culhane.

Animator Emery Hawkins and layout artist Art Heinemann streamlined Woody's appearance for the 1944 film The Barber of Seville, directed by Shamus Culhane. The bird became rounder, cuter, and less demented. He also sported a simplified color scheme and a brighter smile, making him much more like his counterparts at Warner Bros. and MGM. Nevertheless, Culhane continued to use Woody as an aggressive lunatic, not a domesticated straight man or defensive homebody as many other studios' characters had become. The follow-up to The Barber of Seville, The Beach Nut, introduced Woody's chief nemesis Wally Walrus.

The post-war woodpecker

Woody's wild days were numbered, however. In 1946, Lantz hired Disney veteran Dick Lundy to take over the direction chores for Woody's cartoons. Lundy rejected Culhane's take on the series and made Woody more defensive; no longer did the bird go insane without a legitimate reason. Lundy also paid more attention to the animation, making Woody's new films more Disneyesque in their colors and timing. One thing worth noticing is that Lundy's last film for Disney was the Donald Duck short Flying Jalopy. This cartoon is played much like a Woody Woodpecker short, right down to the laugh in the end. It also features a bad guy named "Ben Buzzard" who bears a strong resemblance to Buzz Buzzard, a Lantz character introduced in the 1948 short Wet Blanket Policy who would eventually succeed Wally Walrus as Woody's primary antagonist.

In 1947, contract renewal negotiations between Lantz and Universal (now Universal-International) fell though, and Lantz began distributing his cartoons through United Artists. ^[1] The UA-distributed Lantz cartoons featured higher-quality animation, the influence of Dick Lundy (the films' budgets remained the same). ^[2] Former Disney animators such as Fred Moore and Ed Love began working at Lantz, and assisted Lundy in adding touches of the Disney style to Woody's cartoons.

Wet Blanket Policy (1948), directed by Dick Lundy, introduced Woody's new adversary Buzz Buzzard and featured Woody's Academy Award-nominated theme song, "The Woody Woodpecker Song".

"The Woody Woodpecker Song"

In 1947, Woody got his own theme song when musicians George Tibbles and Ramey Idriess wrote "The Woody Woodpecker Song", making ample use of the character's famous laugh. Kay Kyser's 1948 recording of the song, with Harry Babbitt's laugh interrupting vocalist Gloria Wood, became one of the biggest hit singles of 1948. Other artists did covers, including Woody's original voice actor, Mel Blanc. Lantz first used "The Woody Woodpecker Song" in the 1948 short Wet Blanket Policy, and became the first and only song from an animated short subject to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song. ^[3] Lantz soon adopted the song as Woody's theme music, and due to the song's popularity, Woody Woodpecker fan clubs sprang up, theaters held "Woody" matinées, and boys got the "Woody Woodpecker" haircut.

The "The Woody Woodpecker Song" and the Woody Woodpecker cartoons made extensive use of Woody's famous laugh, upsetting the man who created it, Mel Blanc. Although Blanc had only recorded four shorts as the voice of Woody, his laugh had been recorded as a stock sound effect, and used in every subsequent Woody Woodpecker short up until this point. Blanc sued Lantz and lost, but Lantz settled out of court when Blanc filed an appeal.

Later films

The lower revenues Lantz received from UA, in contrast to Universal, caused financial problems within the studio, and by the end of 1948 Lantz had to shut his studio down. ^[2] The Lantz studio did not re-open again until 1950, by which time the staff was severely downsized and the quality of the cartoons compromised.

Beginning with the 1950 feature film Destination Moon, which featured a brief segment of Woody explaining rocket propulsion, Woody's voice was taken over for this and following films by Lantz's wife, Grace Stafford. According to the Lantzes, Stafford slipped a recording of herself into a stack of audition tapes, and her husband chose her without knowing her identity. ^[2] Lantz also began having Stafford supply Woody's laugh, possibly due to the court case with Mel Blanc. Nevertheless, Stafford was not credited for her work at her own request until 1958 with the film Misguided Missle, as she felt audiences might reject a woman doing Woody's voice. Stafford also did her best to tone down the character through her voicework, to appease Universal's complaints about Woody's raucousness.

Lantz resigned with Universal (now Universal-International) in 1950, and began production on two Woody Woodpecker cartoons that director Dick Lundy and storymen Ben Hardaway and Heck Allen had begun before the 1948 layoff. These shorts have no director's credit, as Lantz claims to have directed them himself. Puny Express, released by Universal-International in 1951, was the first to be released, followed by Sleep Happy. These shorts marked a departure from the dialogue-driven shorts of the past. Though Stafford now voiced Woody, her job was limited, as Woody (as well as the rest of the characters) rarely spoke in the first dozen or so shorts.

Nine more Lantz-directed Woody cartoons followed, before Don Patterson became Woody's new director in 1953. The bird was redesigned once again for these new cartoons, this time by animator LaVerne Harding. Harding made Woody smaller, cuter, and moved his top-knot forward from its original backwards position. This version of the character is still used today as Woody's official look.

By 1955, Paul J. Smith had taken over as primary director of Woody's shorts, with periodic fill-in shorts directed by Alex Lovy and Jack Hannah, among others. This era would also introduce several of Woody's recurring costars, most notably Gabby Gator, who first appeared in Southern Hospitality (1960). Other films paired Woody with a girlfriend, Winnie Woodpecker, and a niece and nephew, Splinter and Knothead, both voiced by June Foray. The domestication of Woody Woodpecker was complete.

Woody in 1961's The Bird Who Came to Dinner, directed by Paul J. Smith.

Woody in the television era

As Lantz was struggling financially, Woody's longevity was secured when he made the jump to television in The Woody Woodpecker Show on ABC. The half-hour program consisted of three theatrical Woody shorts followed by a brief look at cartoon creation hosted by Lantz. It ran from 1957 to 1958 then entered syndication until 1966, only to be revived by NBC in 1970. NBC forced Lantz to edit out much of the violence of the cartoons, which Lantz did reluctantly. Woody continued to appear in new theatrical shorts until 1972, when Lantz closed his studio's doors due to rising production costs. His cartoons returned to syndication in the late 1970s. Lantz sold his library of Woody shorts to MCA/Universal in 1985. Universal repackaged the cartoons for another syndicated Woody Woodpecker Show in 1988. In that same year, Woody made a brief cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, voiced by Cherry Davis, near the end of the film. In 1995, Woody appeared in a Pepsi commercial with NBA star Shaquille O'Neal.

Woody Woodpecker reappeared in the FOX Kids series The New Woody Woodpecker Show, which ran on Saturday mornings from 1999 to 2002. The series featured the first new Woody cartoons to be produced in over 20 years, and returned the character's design to the Dick Lundy/Emery Hawkins version of the late 1940s. Woody's voice is now provided by voice actor Billy West. The original Woody Woodpecker Show also continues to run in syndication, and Woody and Winnie both appear as costumed characters at Universal Orlando, Universal Studios Japan and Universal Studios Hollywood.

Legacy

Walter Lantz and movie pioneer George Pál were good friends. Woody Woodpecker makes a cameo in every film Pal either produced or directed.

Woody was number 46 on TV Guide's list of the 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All-Time in 2002. He came in at number 25 on Animal Planet's list of The 50 Greatest Movie Animals in 2004. The character has been referenced and spoofed on many later television programs, among them The Simpsons, The Fairly Oddparents, Family Guy and Seinfeld.

A song on The Beach Boys' 1967 album Smiley Smile featured a song entitled "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony)". Also, the first song on the 2007 Dan Deacon album Spiderman of the Rings is entitled "Wooody Wooodpecker" and makes extensive use of the characters trademark laugh.

Woody Woodpecker is the mascot for the Universal Studios Theme Parks. In 1998, Woody appeared on the nose of the Williams Formula One Team, and in 2000, he became the official team mascot of the Honda Motorcycle Racing Team. A balloon featuring the character has long been a staple of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Video and DVD releases

A handful of non-comprehensive Woody Woodpecker VHS tapes were issued by Universal in the 1980s and 1990s, usually including Andy Panda and Chilly Willy cartoons as bonuses. A few were widely released on VHS in the mid-1980s by Kid Pics Video, an American company of dubious legality, who packaged the Woody cartoons with bootlegged Disney cartoons. In the early 2000s, a series of mail-order Woody Woodpecker Show VHS tapes and DVDs were made available by mail order through Columbia House. However, following complaints about censorship (the cartoons included featured varying amounts of censorship, from restored and intact prints to severely cut TV edits), the series ended after fifteen volumes rather than the planned twenty. Previously, the Woody Woodpecker cartoon most widely available on legal home video is Pantry Panic (1941), as that cartoon has fallen in to the public domain.

On July 24, 2007, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection, a three-disc DVD box set compilation of Walter Lantz "Cartunes". The first forty-five Woody Woodpecker shorts - from Knock Knock in 1940 to The Great Who-Dood-It in 1952 - were presented on the box set in chronological order of release, with various Chilly Willy, Andy Panda, Swing Symphonies, and other Lantz shorts also included. ^[4]

Voice artists

• Mel Blanc (1940-1941)
• Ben Hardaway (1942-1949)
• Grace Stafford (1950-1985)
• Cherry Davis (1988)
• Billy West (1999-2002)

Filmography

Theatrical cartoons

See List of Woody Woodpecker theatrical cartoons

TV series

• The Woody Woodpecker Show (1957-1958, ABC: new interstitial footage bookending theatrical cartoons)
• The Woody Woodpecker Show (1970, NBC: new interstitial footage bookending theatrical cartoons)
• The New Woody Woodpecker Show (1999-2002, FOX)

Other appearances

• Destination Moon (1950, segment)
• Spook-a-Nanny (1964, TV special)
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988, cameo)

Other media

• Woody Woodpecker made a cameo appearance in a 1995 Pepsi commercial with Shaquille O'Neal.
• In The Simpsons episode "A Tale of Two Springfields", Todd's woodpecker mimics Woody Woodpecker's legendary laugh.
• In the seaQuest DSV episode "Daggers", the malfunctioning vidlink on the seaQuest bridge shows repeats of Woody Woodpecker.
• In The Fairly Oddparents episode "Class Clown", when Cosmo was a woodpecker and he was hit on the head by an acorn, he laughs, similar to that of Woody Woodpecker.
• Woody was number 46 on TV Guide's list of the 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All-Time in 2002.
• Woody Woodpecker came in at number 25 on Animal Planet's list of The 50 Greatest Movie Animals in 2004.
• In the Family Guy episode "I Take Thee Quagmire", one scene shows Quagmire chiseling his name in the wall and laughing, similar to that of Woody Woodpecker. He also does it at the end of the episode, except he chisels his catchphrase "Giggity Giggity Goo".
• In 1967, The Beach Boys album Smiley Smile featured a song entitled "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony)".
• In the Seinfeld episode "The Mom and Pop Store", Elaine wins a radio contest so her boss Mr. Pitt can be one of the holders of a Woody Woodpecker balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
• In the Beavis and Butthead episode "Top O' the Mountain", Butt-head states that he has a "Woody Woodpecker" (which would be slang for erection), and Beavis imitates Woody's laugh.
• In an episode of Inspector Gadget, when Inspector Gadget discovers birds (really workers for a MAD agent in one episode only) and finds a woodpecker, Inspector Gadget does a Woody Woodpecker laugh.
• Dan Deacon, an absurdist/electronic composer from Baltimore, used several variations on Woody Woodpecker's laugh for "Wooody Wooodpecker," the first track off Deacon's highly acclaimed 2007 album, Spiderman of the Rings.
• In Fowl Play, a 1994 episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the Rangers defeated Rita Repulsa's Peckster monster, and Zack, the Black Ranger, was getting ready for a date with Angela, his girlfriend. It turns out that the "date" was actually taking some children to see a Woody Woodpecker Film Festival, much to Zack's chagrin.
• In the 3-2-1 Penguins! video The Cheating Scales of Boolamanka, Zidgel the penguin has his hair colored red and asks seven-year-old Michelle Conrad what she thinks of the "redhead" look. She says, "Nah, too woodpecker." He then makes a feeble attempt to imitate Woody Woodpecker's laugh and subsides when others give him weird looks.

Video games

Several video games of Woody Woodpecker were released for Sega Mega Drive, Sega Dreamcast, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PC, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance.

• Woody Woodpecker #1, Woody Woodpecker #2, and Woody Woodpecker #3 (1994) for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer
• Férias Frustradas do Pica-Pau (1996) for Sega Mega Drive and Sega Master System (made by Tec Toy, sold only in Brazil)
• Woody Woodpecker Racing (2000) for Dreamcast, PlayStation, PC, and GBC
• Woody Woodpecker: Escape from Buzz Buzzard Park (2001) for GBC, PC and PS2
• Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure (2001) for GameCube
• Woody Woodpecker in Crazy Castle 5 (2003) for GBA

Mattel purchased the rights for a Woody Woodpecker Intellivision game, and Grace Stafford recorded new dialog for the game, but it was never completed nor released. [1]

Additionally, a series of pachinko games has been released in Japan by Maruhon.

References

1. ^ Adamson, Joe (1985). The Walter Lantz Story. New York: Putnam Books. Pg. 161
2. ^ ^{a b c} Adamson, Joe (1985). Pg. 172-175
3. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040958/trivia
4. ^ http://homevideo.universalstudios.com/title.php?titleId=3200

External links

• Official Universal Pictures Woody Woodpecker site
• Woody Woodpecker at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
• Woody Woodpecker profile at the Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia
• Watch Woody Woodpecker in the public domain Pantry Panic (1941)

• Woody Woodpecker Gazette (temporarily down, access this alternate URL)

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