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, 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. '' (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
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 to 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. 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. The UA-distributed Lantz cartoons featured higher-quality animation and the influence of Dick Lundy (the films' budgets remained the same). 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. Lantz was able to amass enough income to pay off the studio's debts and upgrade the studio, after which time the studio finally reopened with a reduced staff.
Later films The revived Lantz studio's first new project was an animated segment of the feature film
Destination Moon (1950), produced by Lantz's friend
George Pal. In the segment, astronauts are shown an animated
educational film featuring Woody Woodpecker explaining
rocket propulsion. Beginning with
Destination Moon, Woody's voice was assumed by 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. Lantz also began having Stafford supply Woody's laugh due to the court settlement with Mel Blanc, but Stafford was not credited for the role at her request until
Misguided Missile (1958), as she felt audiences might reject a woman performing Woody's voice. She also tried to tone down the character through their voice work to appease Universal's complaints about Woody's raucousness. Lantz signed again with Universal (now Universal-International) in 1950 and began production on two entries that director Dick Lundy and storymen Ben Hardaway and
Henry Wilson Allen had begun before the 1948 layoff. These shorts have no director's credit, as Lantz claimed to have directed them himself.
Puny Express (1951) was the first to be released, followed by
Sleep Happy. These shorts marked a departure from past dialogue-driven shorts. Though Stafford now voiced Woody, her job was limited, as Woody (and other characters) rarely spoke in the first dozen or so shorts. Because of these entries, Woody became popular outside the
English-speaking world, thanks to the lack of a language barrier (
The Pink Panther shorts of the 1960s and 1970s also enjoyed worldwide popularity due to this
pantomime luxury). Nine more Lantz-directed Woody cartoons followed before
Don Patterson became Woody's new director in 1952. The bird was redesigned again, this time by
animator Laverne Harding, who made Woody smaller and cuter, moving his crest forward from its original backward position. The small Lantz Studios logo seen at the start of every cartoon — Woody as an armored knight on horseback carrying a
lance — continued for a while to display Woody with his former topknot. For 1955's
The Tree Medic, one last makeover was given to the woodpecker, making Woody's eye a simple black dot and removing the green/hazel iris he had had since his beginnings, but Woody's eyes were not changed in the cartoon's intros, and they remained green for the rest of the shorts' production run. During this time, the opening was changed as well. Instead of having Woody's name on-screen and Woody pecking a hole in the screen to introduce himself, Woody now pecked his way onto the screen, greeting the audience with his iconic "Guess who?", then carved out his name on either a brown or gray wood background and jumped around the screen while laughing. By 1955,
Paul J. Smith had taken over as the primary director of Woody's shorts, with periodic fill-in shorts directed by Alex Lovy and
Jack Hannah, among others. With Smith on board, the shorts maintained a healthy dose of frenetic energy, while the animation was simplified due to budget constraints. . This cartoon was made several years after
Woody's last redesign. In addition to Stafford providing Woody's voice, which returned the cartoon to being more dialogue-driven again, voice talents during this period were generally split between
Dallas McKennon and
Daws Butler. Several of Woody's recurring costars were also introduced during this era, such as
Gabby Gator (voiced by Butler in an Ozarks voice, a slightly different southern dialect than he used for
Huckleberry Hound). Gabby first appeared in
Everglade Raid (as "Al I. Gator"). Other films paired Woody with a girlfriend, Winnie Woodpecker (voiced by Stafford), and a niece and nephew, Splinter and Knothead (both voiced by
June Foray). Other antagonists that Woody has dealt with were Ms. Meany (voiced by Stafford) and Dapper Denver Dooley (voiced by McKennon).
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.
NBC revived the show in 1970 and 1976. In addition, the woodpecker was no longer dishing out abuse to his foils, but was instead on the receiving end. The first significant short to feature Woody as a serious, put-upon character was 1961's
Franken-Stymied. Woody's popularity had been based on his manic craziness, but by 1961, this had all but been eliminated in favor of a more serious Woody, a straight man trying to do good. This was due in part to Woody's large presence on television, which meant Lantz had to meet the stringent rules against violence for children's television. Though production continued until 1972, the cartoons were a definite notch lower than in the 1940s and 1950s. Woody appeared in new theatrical shorts until 1972, when Lantz closed his studio 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 1987. A year later, Woody made a cameo in
Who Framed Roger Rabbit, voiced by Cherry Davis, near the end of the film. Woody Woodpecker reappeared in the
Fox Kids series
The New Woody Woodpecker Show, which ran on Saturday mornings from 1999 to 2002, voiced by
Billy West. For this series, Woody was redesigned more like his mid-1940s look (1944 to 1949), pushing back his crest and making his eyes green again. Winnie Woodpecker, who had debuted in
Real Gone Woody (1954), became a semi-regular character as Woody's primary love interest. Like Woody, Winnie was redesigned to look almost exactly like Woody did from 1950 until 1972, the obvious differences being that she was a female woodpecker and had blue eyes. Woody's primary antagonist was Wally Walrus, who became Woody's neighbor (Woody lived in a tree house in Mrs. Meany's front yard, and Wally lived next door). Buzz Buzzard often appeared, as did Mrs. Meany and several other older characters. From 2018 to 2022, a new series of
Woody Woodpecker cartoons streamed exclusively for
YouTube, simply titled
Woody Woodpecker. In 2023,
MeTV acquired the broadcast rights to
Walter Lantz cartoons from 1934 to 1972 to air
The Woody Woodpecker Show on Saturday morning on September 2, marking its return on TV after 25 years. . ==Reception==