1948 layoff. These shorts have no director's credit, as Lantz claimed to have directed them himself (despite the fact it has been speculated to be directed by another). Puny Express, released by Universal-International in 1951, was the first to be released, followed by Sleep Happy. These shorts mark

e 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. While Lantz would stop using Blanc's Woody Woodpecker laugh as a stock effect in the early 1950s, Blanc's voice would be heard saying "Guess who?" at the beginning of every cartoon for the duration of the Woody Woodpecker series.
Later films[edit]
Financial problems within United Artists during the aftermath of the Paramount case caused financial problems within the studio, and by the end of 1948, Lantz had to shut his studio down.[6] The Lantz studio did not re-open again until 1950, by which time the staff was severely downsized.
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.[6] 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 Missile, as she felt audiences might reject a woman doing Woody's voice. Stafford also did her best to tone down the character through her 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 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 claimed to have directed them himself (despite the fact it has been speculated to be directed by another). 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. It was because of these shorts that Woody became very popular outside the English-speaking world, thanks to the lack of a language barrier (The Pink Panther shorts of the 1960s and 1970s would also enjoy worldwide popularity due to this pantomime luxury).
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 crest forward from its original backwards position. (The small Lantz Studios logo seen at the start of every cartoon—Woody as an armored knight on horseback carrying a lance—continued to display Woody with his old topknot for a while.) For 1955's The Tree Medic, one last makeover was given to the woodpecker, making Woody's eye a simple black dot and taking away the green/hazel iris he'd had since his beginnings. However, 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 intro was changed as well. Instead of having Woody's name on screen and Woody pecking a hole in the screen to introduce himself, Woody would peck his way onto the screen, say "Guess who?", peck his name on either a brown or gray wood background, and flip and flop around the screen, singing and laughing.
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. With Smith on board, the shorts maintained a healthy dose of frenetic energy, while the animation itself was simplified, due to budget constraints.

rt Wet Blanket Policy who would eventually succeed Wally Walrus as Woody's primary antagonist. In 1947, contract renewal negotiatio

ffy Duck at Warner Bros, and thus Woody's cartoons intended to have a hint of Tex Avery's style and influence in terms of humor, and that what gave Walter Lantz studio its fame. Curiously enough, Avery himself never directed a Woody Woodpecker short when at the Walter Lantz studio.


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 original chief nemesis, Wally Walrus.
The post-war woodpecker[edit]
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 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, 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 through, and Lantz began distributing his cartoons through United Artists.[5] The UA-distributed Lantz cartoons featured higher-quality animation, the influence of Dick Lundy (the films' budgets remained the same).[6] 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.


Wet Blanket Policy, 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"[edit]
In 1947, Woody got his own 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.[citation needed] 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.[7] 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.[citation needed]
"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. (The laugh, in a different recording, was first used for the seminal pre-Bugs Bunny character in Porky's Har