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The Folks behind the Toons

Walter Lantz

Walter Benjamin Lantz was born on April 27, 1899, in New Rochelle, New York. The child of Italian immigrants, Lantz became fascinated with cartoons after seeing Winsor McCay's animated short, Gertie the Dinosaur.

Lantz worked as an auto mechanic in his young adulthood and often created elaborate drawings for the garage’s bulletin board. A wealthy customer was so taken by these drawings that he offered to finance Lantz's studies at the Art Students League of New York. This patron also helped him land a job as a copy boy at the New York American; Lantz worked at the newspaper and attended art school at night.

By the age of 16, Lantz was working in the animation department of International Film Service studio under director Gregory La Cava. Lantz then worked at the John R. Bray Studios on the Jerry on the Job series. In 1924, Lantz directed, animated and even starred in his first cartoon series, Dinky Doodles (which included animated retellings of Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood).

After moving to Los Angeles in 1927, Lantz was hired by Charles B. Mintz as a director on the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon series for Universal Pictures. Lantz went on to become an independent producer, supplying cartoons to Universal instead of merely overseeing the animation department. He won the intellectual property rights for Oswald Rabbit in a poker game and continued to produce and direct numerous Oswald shorts for Universal.

During this time, Lantz recruited New York animator Bill Nolan onto his team. Nolan had previously worked on Felix the Cat and is the artist credited with perfecting the ‘rubber hose’ style of animation. This was a more fluid, somewhat undulating, type of animation where characters and objects are in constant motion. Rubber hose style animating went on to be a trademark of Lantz’s work throughout the 1930s and much of the 40s.

As Oswald the Lucky Rabbit became less popular, Lantz and his crew began churning out new characters they hoped would catch on. This included Meany, Miny and Moe (three knucklehead chimps), Baby-Face Mouse, Snuffy the Skunk and Doxie the Dachshund. Yet it was Andy the Panda who stood out and resonated with audiences.

Andy Panda would become Lantz's headline star up through the 1940s. One Andy Panda short introduced a particular wacky woodpecker who would drastically change Lantz’s career.

As the story goes, Lantz was on a lovers’ retreat with his fiancee, actress Grace Stafford. The couple were bothered by a woodpecker who would wake them up early in the morning rattling away at the roof. Stafford suggested Lantz use it as inspiration for a cartoon and Woody Woodpecker would go on to debut in the 1940 Andy Panda short, ‘Knock Knock.’

Herein Andy and his father, Papa Panda, are bedeviled by an unnamed madcap woodpecker who is pecking away at their cabin. The unhinged character was a huge hit with audiences and Lantz quickly produced subsequent shorts featuring him, naming him Woody.

Woody was much like the popular Loony Tunes character, Daffy Duck, only with the craziness dialed up. The woodpecker was altogether manic, with some shorts even concluding with Woody having to be carted off to an insane asylum. The legendary Mel Blanc provided the voice acting for Woody, blathering on in a hyperactive stream of words, hoots and hollers.

After Blanc accepted an exclusive contract with Warner Brothers, other voice actors stepped in to imitate Blanc’s original performance, including Danny Webb Kent Rogers, Dick Nelson and Ben Hardaway (although Woody’s laugh and many of his noises were reused recordings of Blanc).

Audiences loved Woody and the character would star in numerous shorts throughout the 1940s and 50s. Woody transitioned to the small screen in 1957 with the premier of his own series, The Woody Woodpecker Show.

Lantz married Grace Stafford in 1941. It was Lantz’s second marriage; he was previously married to and had a child with Doris Hollister. Lantz and Grace stayed together for the rest of their lives.

In 1948, the Lantz studio created a hit Academy Award-nominated song entitled ‘The Woody Woodpecker Song.’ The song was featured in the short film Wet Blanket Policy. Mel Blanc sued Lantz for half a million dollars, claiming that Lantz had used his voice in various Woody Woodpecker cartoons without permission. The judge ruled for Lantz, saying that Blanc had failed to copyright his voice or his contributions. Although Lantz won the case, he paid Blanc in an out-of-court settlement and Lantz began searching for a new voice for Woody Woodpecker.

Grace Stafford had offered to voice Woody, but Lantz turned her down believing that the character needed to be voiced by a male actor. Grace auditioned for the role anonymously and won the role. She would go on to act as the primary voice actor for Woody throughout the late 1940s and into the 60s.

Around the time that Grace Stafford began voicing Woody, the character’s appearance and behaviors were altered to make him cuter, less crazed and more of a heroic character.

Herein, Woody would offer face off against a number of recurring adversaries. This included Buzz Buzzard, Wally Walrus and Smedley The Dog.

New ownership transformed Universal into Universal-International and the studio altered many of its company policies. The new management insisted on owning licensing and merchandising rights to Lantz's characters (particularly Woody Woodpecker). Lantz refused and withdrew from the parent company by the end of 1947, releasing 12 cartoons independently through United Artists. Lantz’s production firm struggled following its departure from Universal and briefly shut down in 1949.

Production resumed in 1951 when Lantz was able to persuade director Tex Avery to leave Warner Brothers and come to work for him. Avery, Lantz and Paul J. Smith developed a new character, a penguin named Chilly Willy, who stared in the shorts, I'm Cold and The Legend of Rockabye Point.

Avery also directed the shorts Crazy Mixed Up Pup, and Sh-h-h-h-h-h for Lantz. Both Crazy Mixed Up Pup and The Legend of Rockabye Point were nominated for an Academy Award (the two losing out to Warner’s Speedy Gonzales).

With cartoons transitioning to television, theatrical shorts became less in demand and Lantz’s studio was one of the last solely producing animated shorts for the silver screen. Lantz eventually gave in and began making television shows beginning with the Woody Woodpecker Show. Many of the theatrical shorts he produced were broadcasted on the show, including cartoons featuring Andy Panda and Chilly Willy. Lantz himself appeared at the beginning of the show to introduce the shorts, similar to how Walt Disney would appear in episodes of the Micky Mouse Show.

The Woody Woodpecker Show ran from 1957 to 1960 and was later rebroadcasted as a Saturday morning cartoon series (albeit with Lantz’s appearances removed).

Lantz went into semi-retirement in the late 1960s and spent much of his time contributing to various charities. He entertained the troops during the Vietnam War and visited hospitalized veterans. He also visited hospitals throughout California and drew pictures to entertain the younger patients.

Lantz served on the advisory board of the National Student Film Institute throughout the 1980s and, in 1993, he established a $10,000 scholarship and prize for animators in his name at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita. Lantz died at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California from heart failure on March 22, 1994, at age 94. His ashes were interred beside his wife Gracie who had passed away two years earlier.

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