History WesternAnimation / ChillyWilly

* AngryGuardDog: Mostly averted. Smedley is essentially a guard dog in most of his roles. He is rarely actually angry, mostly calm and determined.
** Played straight in ''The Legend of Rockabye Point'', however.

* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins: For obvious reasons.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: In the short "I'm Cold", in Chilly lives in a village called "Colder'nell"; [[https://productioncode.dhwritings.com/multipleframes_productioncode.php Section V of the Hays Code]] specifically forbade the word 'Hell']].

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Chilly_Willy_pic_1489.jpg]]

* FlatCharacter: Chilly looks cute, but he has very little in the way of personality. Tex Avery cited this as a flaw of the series, hence why he decided to focus more on Chilly's antagonists in his two shorts.

"Rockabye Point" was the most successful film of the series, because the script-writer was veteran ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' storyman Michael Maltese. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short Film, though it lost to "Speedy Gonzales" (1955), a [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Merrie Melodies]] entry starring WesternAnimation/SpeedyGonzales and [[WesternAnimation/SylvesterCatAndTweetyBird Sylvester the Cat]]. Lantz had reasons to continue the series. Avery was replaced by Alex Lovy, who continued the series in an Avery-like format for most of the 1950s. When Lovy left the Lantz studio, Chilly was handled by other directors, such as Jack Hannah and Sid Marcus, before eventually coming full circle and having Paul J. Smith take over as the sole director in 1967. The series ended with its 50th cartoon short in 1972, but only because the studio itself shut down its operations.

Chilly was revived in episodes of "The New Woody Woodpecker Show" (1999-2002) but did not return to prominence. The character was an also-ran in the comic book medium. He headlined nine issues from Creator/DellComics between 1956 and 1962, otherwise only receiving stories in the back pages of magazines featuring WesternAnimation/WoodyWoodpecker as their main star.

[[folder: Theatrical Cartoon Filmography]]

** Played straight in "The Legend of Rockabye Point", however.

* BullyBulldog: The guard dog in "The Legend of Rockabye Point".

* {{Expy}}: Smedley is based on a wolf character Avery developed at MGM, debuting in the WesternAnimation/{{Droopy}} short "The Three Little Pups", who had a Southern Drawl and a calm demeanor. The same character was also the inspiration for WesternAnimation/HuckleberryHound. All three characters were voiced by Creator/DawsButler.

* MusicSoothesTheSavageBeast: The plot of "The Legend of Rock-a-bye Point" concerns a polar bear trying to get fish from a fishing boat, getting the AngryGuardDog off his back by putting him to sleep with a lullaby, while Chilly sabotages him at every turn.

* RoguesGalleryTransplant: Wally Walrus, normally a Woody Woodpecker foe, showed up in the 1961 shorts "Tricky Trout" and "Clash and Carry"- odd, considering he hadn't shown up in a short since 1953!
* ScriptSwap: In "The Legend of Rockabye Point", Chilly puts a clarinet on the sleeping guard dog's mouth, causing it to make noise as he snores and waking him up. The polar bear gets him back to sleep by pulling out the sheet music for "Rock-a-Bye, Baby" and playing it on the clarinet. Chilly then switches the sheet with one for circus music, waking the dog up again.

* BalloonBurstingBird: In ''Fractured Friendship'', Chilly gets [[TheCameo Woody Woodpecker]] to pop a hole in Smedley’s hot air balloon.