Woody Woodpecker

Woody Woodpecker is a cartoon character that appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz Studio and Universal Animation Studio and distributed by Universal Pictures since 1940. Woody's last theatrical cartoon, Bye, Bye, Blackboard, was produced by Walter Lantz in 1972.

Woody, an anthropomorphic woodpecker, was created in 1940 by Lantz and storyboard artist Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, who had previously laid the groundwork for two other screwball characters, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio in the late 1930s. Woody's character and design evolved 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 prolific voice actor Mel Blanc, who was succeeded in the shorts by Danny Webb, Kent Rogers, Dick Nelson, Ben Hardaway, and, finally, Grace Stafford (wife of Walter Lantz).

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. 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 been revived since then for special productions and occasions, as well as for The New Woody Woodpecker Show, a Saturday-morning cartoon television series featuring prolific voice actor Billy West as Woody that aired from 1999 to 2002. In 2017, a live-action/CGI hybrid feature film, Woody Woodpecker, was released theatrically in Latin America, while released direct-to-video in other territories. It was followed by a new series of shorts released via YouTube beginning in 2018. In 2024, a new film, Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp, was released on Netflix.

Woody has a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard. He also made a cameo appearance alongside many other famous cartoon characters in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Woody Woodpecker is the official mascot of Universal Pictures. Woody and his friends are also icons at the Universal Studios Theme Parks worldwide, as well as the PortAventura Park in Salou, Spain, where they remain despite Universal no longer having a financial stake in the park.

Origin

The inspiration for the character allegedly came during producer Walter 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 Lantz and Stafford'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.

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, 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.

right|thumb|Woody Woodpecker and his captive client in [[The Barber of Seville (1944 film)|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 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. 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.

Legacy

thumb|Filmmaker [[David Lynch, surrounded by five Woody Woodpecker dolls, in a 1982 trailer introducing screenings of his 1977 film Eraserhead at the Nuart Theatre]]

Walter Lantz and movie pioneer George Pal were good friends. Woody Woodpecker cameos in nearly every film that Pal produced or directed; for example, during the 1966 sequence in The Time Machine (1960), a little girl drops her Woody Woodpecker doll as she goes into an air raid shelter. In Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975), Grace Stafford cameos, carrying a Woody Woodpecker doll.

Obvious references to "The Woody Woodpecker Song" can be found in the work of at least two noted jazz innovators: specifically, Charlie Parker, a number of whose solos quote it in passing, and Wayne Shorter, whose 1961 composition "Look at the Birdie" — as heard on Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers' Roots & Herbs (recorded in 1961, released in 1970) — has been singled out by both composer/trumpeter David Weiss and Shorter's biographer Michelle Mercer as an ingenious variation on the theme. In addition, a full-fledged cover of the song itself was recorded in 1986 by jazz trumpeter Woody Shaw for his 1987 release, Solid.

In 1983–1984, Catapult musicians Aart Mol, Cees Bergman, Elmer Veerhoff, Erwin van Prehn and Geertjan Hessing (under the pseudonym "Adams & Fleisner") wrote and produced "Woodpeckers from Space" by Video Kids, a synth-pop cover of "The Woody Woodpecker Song". Released on 4 September 1984, the song became a number 1 hit in Spain and Norway. The idea for the song began when the children of Gert van den Bosch (co-founder of Boni Records) asked him if he could produce a record based on Woody Woodpecker, whom they were big fans of. The Woody laugh used in the song was first heard in "Let's Break" by Master Genius in 1983, another Cat Music project. The band lasted from 1984 to 1988.

The Baltimora song "Woody Boogie", released in 1985, notably features a synthesizer replaying Woody Woodpecker's laugh, which is incorporated into the chorus as well as other parts of the song.

Woody was number 46 on TV Guides list of the 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time in 2002 and 2003. 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, American Dad!, South Park, The Fairly OddParents, Family Guy, Seinfeld, Robot Chicken, Three's Company, and Flash Toons.

Like Bugs Bunny for Warner Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega, Mario for Nintendo and Mickey Mouse for Disney, Woody Woodpecker serves as the official mascot of Universal Pictures. In 1998 and 1999, 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 Woody Woodpecker balloon had been a staple of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from 1982 until 1996.

In Brazil, the character is a hugely popular and iconic cartoon character.

Home media

right|thumb|Woody Woodpecker's star on the [[Hollywood Walk of Fame]]

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, which 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.

In 2007, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection, a three-disc DVD boxed set compilation of Walter Lantz "Cartunes". The first forty-five Woody Woodpecker shorts from Knock Knock to The Great Who-Dood-It were presented in the box set in chronological order of release, with various Chilly Willy, Andy Panda, Swing Symphonies, and other Lantz shorts also included. The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection: Volume 2, including the next forty-five Woody cartoons — Termites from Mars through Jittery Jester — was released in 2008. A plain-vanilla best-of release, titled Woody Woodpecker Favorites, was released in 2009, which contained no new-to-DVD material.

Woody Woodpecker shorts were released for the first time on Blu-ray on September 7, 2021; the set was labeled as the "Screwball Collection".

Another majority of his shorts, along with other shorts, was released on The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Golden Age Collection on January 20, 2026.

{| class="wikitable"

!DVD/Blu-ray release name

!Cartoon #

!Release date

| The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection (DVD)

| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|45 Woody cartoons, 30 others

|July 24, 2007

| The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection: Volume 2 (DVD)

|April 15, 2008

| Woody Woodpecker Favorites (DVD)

| style="text-align:center;"|15 Woody cartoons, 5 others

|March 10, 2009

|Woody Woodpecker and Friends Halloween Favorites (DVD)

|style="text-align:center;"| 5 Woody cartoons, 1 other and 1 episode of The New Woody Woodpecker Show

|September 2, 2014

|Woody Woodpecker and Friends - Holiday Favorites (DVD)

|style="text-align:center;"| 1 Woody cartoon, 5 others and 1 episode of The New Woody Woodpecker Show

|October 7, 2014

| The Woody Woodpecker Screwball Collection (Blu-ray)

| style="text-align:center;"|25 Woody cartoons

|September 7, 2021

| The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Golden Age Collection (Blu-ray)

|style="text-align:center;"|8 Woody cartoons, 17 others

|January 20, 2026

Voice actors

;United States

Mel Blanc (cartoons: 1940–1941; archive recordings: 1942–1972; Capitol Records: 1948–1955)
Bernard B. Brown (1941–1947; additional lines and vocal effects)
Danny Webb (1941; Pantry Panic)
Ben Hardaway (1944–1949)
Theodore von Eltz (1947; Sally in Hollywoodland [unaired radio pilot])
Harry Babbitt (1948; "The Woody Woodpecker Song")
Danny Kaye (1948; "The Woody Woodpecker Song" cover)
Gladys Holland (1953; imitating Ga Ga Gazoo in Belle Boys)
Daws Butler (1963–1964, 1969, 1972; Indian voice disguise in Greedy Gabby Gator, imitating Homer's boss in Freeway Fracas, monster sound in Spook-a-Nanny, yelling in Little Skeeter, imitating Floyd Farkle in Pecking Holes in Poles)
Dave Spafford (1991; 63rd Academy Awards)
Billy West (1998–2002; From the Earth to the Moon, The New Woody Woodpecker Show)
Eric Kelso (2001; Universal Studios Japan, Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure)
Dan Castellaneta (2008; The Simpsons (as a parody named "Robby Robin"))
Seth Green (2014; Robot Chicken)
Eric Bauza (2017–present; Woody Woodpecker (2017), Woody Woodpecker (2018), MeTV promotion, Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp)

;Other countries

Katsue Miwa (Japan)
Junko Hori (Japan; DVD dub)
Koichi Yamadera (Japan; home video dub)
Kumiko Watanabe (Japan)
Azusa Ichiba (Japan, 2001; Animation Celebration)
Olney Cazarré (Brazil) 1960s / 1980s
Garcia Júnior (Brazil) 1970s
Marco Antônio Costa (Brazil) 1990s / 2000s
Sérgio Stern (Brazil) 2017–present
Guy Piérauld (France) 1960s–2000
Alessandro Bevilacqua (France, 2017; Woody Woodpecker)
Geertjan Hessing (Netherlands, 1983; "Let's Break") That practice continued with other voice artists.

Filmography

Theatrical cartoons

TV series

{|class="wikitable"

!style="width:30px;"|Series number

!style="width:250px;"|Title

!style="width:100px;"|Broadcast run

!style="width:150px;"|Original channel

!style="width:175px;"|Total # episodes

!style="width:30px;"|Total # seasons

|The Woody Woodpecker Show

|1957–1997

|ABC, NBC, syndication

|113 episodes

|The New Woody Woodpecker Show

|1999–2002

|Fox Kids

|53 episodes

|rowspan="2"|3

|Woody Woodpecker

|2018–2022

|YouTube

|30 episodes

Public service

Let's All Recycle with Woody Woodpecker (1991 – PSA Video)

Other appearances

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988, cameo)
Kids for Character (1996)

Film

In the early 2010s, Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment planned a Woody Woodpecker feature film. John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky (King of the Hill) were in talks to develop a story, In 2013, Bill Kopp was attached to direct an animated feature film with three interwoven stories, but the project was later canceled.

A live-action/CGI hybrid film based on Woody Woodpecker, directed by Alex Zamm and starring Timothy Omundson and Brazilian actress Thaila Ayala, was released theatrically in Brazil on October 5, 2017, and was scheduled for release on April 1, 2018, worldwide. The film had a straight-to-video release in the United States on February 6, 2018. A sequel titled Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp was released on Netflix on April 12, 2024.

Comics

Woody was the star of a number of comic book series published in the U.S. and around the world. The main title, Walter Lantz Woody Woodpecker, ran from 1952 to 1983.

Woody first appeared as a comic book character in 1942, appearing alongside Andy Panda and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in Dell Comics' New Funnies, an anthology comic that featured a number of other Lantz characters.

Walter Lantz Woody Woodpecker became an independent comic book (starting with issue #16 to reflect the earlier appearances in Four Color) in Dec. 1952-Jan. 1953. It ran for 201 issues, published by Dell and then Western Publishing (Whitman/Gold Key), lasting until 1983.

Woody's niece and nephew Splinter and Knothead first made their appearances in the comics, later appearing in the cartoons.

Woody also starred in a short-lived comic strip, syndicated by Consolidated News Features, in the early 1950s.

Maruhon has released a series of pachinko games in Japan.

Woody Woodpecker appears as a park mascot in a Universal Studios themed Minecraft DLC map.

Notes

References

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 on the Internet Movie Database