Professional Moldy Fig/Curmudgeon
If we can have all the Walter Lantz cartoons in this thread how's about calling it "General Walter Lantz cartoons thread"?
Needless to say, though, Woody's take on "The Barber of Seville" is a masterpiece of opera-themed animation; we shouldn't miss "The Pied Piper of Basin Street" and "Abou Ben Boogie" (the sheik boogie-woogie); and of course, one of Tex Avery's late masterpieces, "Sh-h-h-h"...
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."
I'm cool with changing the name (how does one do that exactly?)
Woody's cross country ski-scene from Ski for Two always stands out to me. It's an excellent marriage of scenery and music, and goofily over the top.
Classic Woody is my favorite Screwball Squirrel character ever.
unpaid intern of the stars
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I absolutely agree. Daffy Duck and Donald Duck were pretty good when they were depicted as screwballs, but they are usually depicted with other personalities (with Daffy being more of a Straw Loser to Bugs or being a Cloud Cuckoo Lander, and Donald typically having a Hair-Trigger Temper). I think Woody in particular is the only character that comes to mind that has consistently been portrayed as having screws loose, and puts up one heck of a fight when put up against other adversaries.
A lot of the original shorts had some truly hysterical gags pulled off with him. One memorable one in particular, Wild and Woody, has Woody (who in this short was the new town sheriff) defeat Buzz Buzzard (an outlaw with a pretty high body count of former sheriffs) by blowing him up with a box of TNT when Buzzard was stuck in a stove. Buzzard's ghost (still reeling from the explosion and was stumbling around in a dazed manner) comes out and is about to board an elevator with an angel inside...only for Woody (dressed as a doorman) to redirect him to another elevator nearby with Satan waiting for him!
A gag like that would likely never fly today but good lord that was absolutely hysterical. xD
Speaking of Woody, I've heard rumors over the past few years Illumination Entertainment was working on an animated film for him. I wonder if that will ever get anywhere or it will gestate in Development Hell (no pun intended)...
Edited by Yeow95 on Dec 3rd 2018 at 10:16:00 AM
has a clue, but it's usually not the correct one 0.55% of the time
Yeah, we're still waiting for anyone to tell us something new about that Woody Woodpecker movie from Illumination Entertainment. Preferably from someone actually working on it, namely the co-creator and voice of Eek! The Cat.
Professional Moldy Fig/Curmudgeon
Here's one of the best Swing Symphonies: "Abou Ben Boogie" (the sheik boogie-woogie)...
Be warned - you'll never get the tune out of your head
...
And here's "The Pied Piper of Basin Street", with trombone playing by the great Jack Teagarden...
Oh, and yes: Woody's great performance of "Largo al factotum".
edited 9th Feb '16 4:27:53 PM by Aldo930
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."
My first exposure was probably from the 90's cartoon. I don't remember too much about that show, though. Also, I like his older designs more than the (heavily advertised) new designs because those new ones make him look too... cute I guess?
First trailer is out... in Portuguese, because Brazilians Love Woody Woodpecker. Okay.
Yeah, it was about time for Woody to go on the list of cartoon characters ruined by live action movies . . . unless it can pull a Paddington and end up being good.
Cause looking at the trailer it seems to scream my favorite quote from the character: "I'm a necessary evil!"
I have no intention to watch that trailer since that one preview shot just screams "MEDIOCRE."
So if it's all the same, I'd much rather sit here twiddling my thumbs waiting for updates regarding the fully-animated Woody Woodpecker movie by Illumination and Bill Kopp, thank you very much.
This one's directed by the director of Inspector Gadget 2, in the case you needed to know.
Ah, so "less than mediocre" then. All righty.
Actually, it's kinda funny. Earlier this morning, I was brainstorming an idea for a Woody Woodpecker short film that had Woody demanding revenge for a Captain Ersatz version Donald Trump over $10, only to realize said guy is now the President.
Suffice it to say, it'd be one jab at Trump after another, including jabs at his cronies like Vladimir Pootin' (see what I did there?) and Steve Bannon (who isn't the Grim Reaper, but is the Reaper's third cousin twice removed).
But yeah, it's kind of gone into a tangent, so whatever. 
With that piece of info, my caustious optimism took a nose dive to blind cynicism.
Yeah, don't like the idea of that short given how one of my main concern with live action take on cartoon characters is how hard they try to be relevant. Especially with the Hannah Barbara films.
Technically for what it's worth, I envisioned my idea as being fully animated without any live action.
But yeah, probably not worth going any further than it already has.
That guy
Looks like shit, tastes like failure.
Your momma's so dumb she thinks oral sex means talking dirty.
I try to maintain a cautious optimism about these things, but the animation here is incredibly jarring. The CGI Woody looks terribly out of place.
I've said it in other threads, but for the conflict to work here Woody should be in conflict with other cartoon characters. This is not to say his opponents need to be animated, they just need to be cartoonish, or the tone of the film itself needs to have a sense of heightened reality (as in Who Framed Roger Rabbit).
I'm still waiting until Illumination finally makes a trailer for their future Woody Woodpecker film.
Not an evil Thievul
Yeah, I'm not really feeling this either unless there's some hidden depth to it that we haven't seen yet.
"Lucian, don’t be afraid, we’ll make it through this."
Okay for some reason I saw the live action movie and it sucked. Honestly don't know why I even bother announcing that since we all knew it was going to suck. Seriously its everything wrong about The Smurfs and Alvin & The Chipmunks. Oh god why couldn't it have been a surprisingly good film like Paddington.
Why oh why did I watch this film . . . oh right I need something to watch that doesn't need my full attention as I create edits on Fire Pro. But my point still stands that its a betrayal to the character.
I still have some old Woody shorts on old VCR tapes, which I grew up with.
As a character, Woody walks on a thin line between being funny and being too much of a jerk. So I can't say that he's my favorite. Still, you gotta love his versions of songs like "Largo al factotum" and "The Sleigh a la Russe" and "Bring back my Bonnie to me".
edited 9th Mar '18 9:24:40 AM by Kickisund
Just when you thought it was over...
Universal 1440 and Alex Zamm are giving Woody Woodpecker the Mickey Mouse 2013 treatment...
Pray for Woody...
It's about time. That style makes even more sense for a character like Woody than it does for Mickey.
Meanwhile, I'm just over here waiting for Felix the Cat to get a revival for his 100th.
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
Professional Moldy Fig/Curmudgeon
Yes, it has the same director as the movie, but it still sounds a helluva lot better than the movie.
Wally Walrus and Buzz Buzzard will be in this, and so will Chilly Willy and Andy Panda. Already it's better than the movie.
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."
, : Not sure if we should be happy about this. A) The director of that godforsaken movie is still involved and B) those stills look cheap AF like here
◊ and there's even a glaring case of Off-Model-itis going on here.
◊
(Plus, they're still using that design from the 50's and 60's that rubs me the wrong way. I still argue that this is the definitive Woody design.
)
As I said, pray for Woody...
Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Mar 17th 2024 at 2:52:46 PM
A classic cartoon that's more or less dropped off the face of the Earth in recent years. Created for Universal in 1940 by Walter Lantz and storyboard artist Ben "Bugs" Hardaway (who contributed to the creation of Bugs Bunny, and who he's named after; Hardaway also replaced Mel Blanc as the voice of Woody, though his best known voice is probably Grace Stafford, Lantz's wife)to replace Oswald the Lucky Rabbit as their star character, he was a screwball character of the first order who, like both Bugs and Daffy over at WB, was refined and toned down quite a bit over the years. A number of animation greats such as Shamus Culhane, Alex Lovy, and Dick Lundy all worked on Woody over the years, and the great Hugh Harman (of MGM's Harman-Ising fame) directed an installment in the 50's.
Share favorites, discuss the character, the late-90's series, what have you. Feel free to discuss any Universal cartoons, if you like, such as Andy Panda, Chilly Willy, the Swing Symphonies, etc.