Woody Woodpecker is a cartoon character created by American animators Walter Lantz and Ben "Bugs" Hardaway. He appeared in theatrical short films produced by Walter Lantz Productions and Universal Pictures' animation studio from 1940 until 1972. The character, depicted as an anthropomorphic pileated woodpecker, evolved significantly in design and personality over the course of his series' run, from an insane bird with an unusually garish appearance 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 prolific voice actor Mel Blanc, who was succeeded in the shorts by Danny Webb and four others.
Woody's cartoons were first broadcast on television in 1957 under the title The Woody Woodpecker Show, bookended by new live-action/animated hybrid footage of Woody and Lantz. Since his theatrical series ended upon the closure of Lantz's studio in 1972, the character has been revived for special productions and occasions; as well as for a Saturday-morning cartoon television series called The New Woody Woodpecker Show, which aired from 1999 to 2002. His recent appearances include a 2017 live-action/CGI hybrid feature film released theatrically in Latin America and direct-to-video elsewhere; a new series of YouTube shorts launched in 2018; and 2024's Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp on Netflix.
Woody is the official mascot of Universal and has a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard. He was also one of many famous cartoon characters to make cameo appearances in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Woody and his friends are also icons at the Universal Studios Theme Parks worldwide, as well as the PortAventura Park in Spain, in which Universal formerly had a financial stake.
Origin The character was co-created in 1940 by producer Walter Lantz and animator Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, the latter of whom previously laid the groundwork for Woody's fellow screwball characters Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio in the late 1930s. The inspiration for Woody's character allegedly came during Lantz's honeymoon with his wife, Grace, in June Lake, California in 1940, a dubious story given the fact that Woody's first appearance predated the Lantz couple's honeymoon. A noisy acorn woodpecker outside their cabin kept the couple awake at night, and when heavy rain started, they learned that the bird had bored holes in their cabin's roof. Walter and Gracie told Dallas attorney Rod Phelps during a visit that Walter wanted to shoot the bird, but Gracie suggested that her husband make a cartoon about the bird, and thus Woody was born. According to Lantz's biographer Joe Adamson, however, Ben Hardaway and L.E. Elliott had written a story where Andy Panda and his father, Papa Panda, experienced roof troubles caused by a rainstorm. Lantz took one look at the storyboard and found it "too expensive". He needed a roofing problem that was easier to animate, and suggested a pesky bird like a woodpecker (a couple of Lantz's 1930s cartoons, including the 1936 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon Night Life of the Bugs, had featured incidental woodpeckers). Woody shares many characteristics in common with the pileated woodpecker in terms of both physical appearance as well as his characteristic laugh, which resembles the call of the pileated woodpecker. These similarities are the result of the artistic license of the creators and have caused much confusion within the birding community among those who have attempted to classify Woody's species.
In the short Dumb Like a Fox (1964), a museum offers a 25-dollar reward to anyone who captures a campephilus principalis (ivory-billed woodpecker), which is Woody Woodpecker himself.
History Early years Woody Woodpecker first appeared in the short Knock Knock on November 25, 1940. The cartoon ostensibly stars Andy Panda and Papa Panda, but it is Woody who dominates. The woodpecker constantly pesters the two pandas, apparently just for the fun of it. Meanwhile, Andy tries to sprinkle salt on Woody's tail, believing that this will capture the bird. To Woody's surprise, Andy's attempts prevail, and Woody is taken away to the psychiatric hospital but not before his captors prove to be crazier than he is.
The Woody of Knock Knock was designed by animator Alex Lovy. Woody's original voice actor, Mel Blanc, stopped performing the character after the first three cartoons to work exclusively for Leon Schlesinger Productions (later renamed Warner Bros. Cartoons), producer of Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies after signing a loyalty contract. At Leon 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 initially been applied to the prototype of Bugs Bunny, in shorts such as those above 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. Once Warner Bros. signed Blanc to an exclusive contract, Woody's voice-over work was taken over by Danny Webb, followed by Kent Rogers and Dick Nelson, and Ben Hardaway later became Woody's voice after Rogers was sent to the army during World War II and would voice the woodpecker for the rest of the decade. This makes Woody Woodpecker one of the very few cartoon characters initially voiced by Mel Blanc to be voiced by someone else during Blanc's lifetime. Despite this, Blanc continued to voice Woody on a Mutual Network radio show and in recordings for Capitol Records from 1948 until 1955,Ohmart, Ben; Mitchell, Walt (2012). Mel Blanc: The Man of a Thousand Voices. BearManor Media. . P.108. while his laugh would continue to be used in the shorts until 1951.
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 starred in several films. The character's brash demeanor was a natural hit during World War II. His image appeared on US aircraft as nose art and on 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 1943 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), which it lost to the MGM Tom and Jerry cartoon The Yankee Doodle Mouse. Woody Woodpecker's debut also marked a change in directing style for Walter Lantz studio, since the character was heavily inspired by Tex Avery-created Looney Tunes character Daffy Duck at Warner Bros, and thus Woody's cartoons tended to have a hint of Tex Avery's style and influence in terms of humor, and that's what gave Walter Lantz studio its fame. Avery himself never directed a Woody Woodpecker short while at the Walter Lantz studio.
Animator Emery Hawkins and layout artist Art Heinemann streamlined Woody's appearance for the 1944 film The Barber of Seville, directed by James "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 original chief nemesis, Wally Walrus.
Woody's wild days were numbered, however. In 1946, Lantz hired Disney veteran Dick Lundy who previously directed a few Andy Panda cartoons to now direct Woody's cartoons. Lundy rejected Culhane's take on the series and made Woody more defensive; the bird no longer went insane without a legitimate reason. Lundy also paid more attention to animation, making Woody's new films more Disney-esque in their design, style, animation, and timing. One of Lundy's last film for Disney was the Donald Duck short Flying Jalopy. This cartoon is played much like a Woody Woodpecker short, 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 Wet Blanket Policy (1948), who eventually succeeded Wally Walrus as Woody's primary antagonist.
In 1947, contract renewal negotiations between Lantz and Universal (now Universal-International) fell through, and Lantz began distributing his cartoons through United Artists.Adamson, Joe (1985). The Walter Lantz Story. New York: Putnam Books. The UA-distributed Lantz cartoons featured higher-quality animation and the influence of Dick Lundy (the films' budgets remained the same). 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. Despite the Disney style added for the later cartoons, Woody's cartoons still try to maintain a good dose of slapstick and madcap humor from the pre-Lundy cartoons.
"The Woody Woodpecker Song" In 1947, Woody got his theme song when musicians George Tibbles and Ramey Idriss 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 Wet Blanket Policy (1948), and it became the first and only song from an animated short subject to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1948, but it lost out to "Buttons and Bows". Lantz soon adopted the song as Woody's theme music.
"The Woody Woodpecker Song" and the Woody Woodpecker cartoons extensively used Woody's famous laugh, upsetting the man who created it, Mel Blanc. He first used the laughter, in a different recording, for the seminal pre-Bugs Bunny character in 1938's Porky's Hare Hunt. Although Blanc had only recorded three 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. Although Lantz stopped using Blanc's Woody Woodpecker laugh as a stock effect in the early 1950s, Blanc's voice was still heard saying "Guess who?" at the beginning of every cartoon for the duration of the Woody Woodpecker series.
Financial impasse/hiatus Financial problems at United Artists during the aftermath of the Paramount case—which forced movie distributors to end the practice of block booking, or selling shorts and features to theaters in packages—affected Lantz. The revenues Lantz received from UA's distribution of his cartoons were much lower than his returns had been from Universal. Once the Lantz studio hit its loan debt cap of $250,000 at the Bank of America, Lantz was forced to shut the studio down. He began a series of staggered layoffs in December 1948 until work on the final 1940s Lantz short, the Woody cartoon Drooler's Delight, was finished at the otherwise shuttered studio in early 1949.