History WesternAnimation / WoodyWoodpecker

* GooGooGetup: In "Baby Buzzard", Buzz reads an ad in the newspaper saying that Woody is starting a babysitting service for rich and famous couples. Buzz dresses himself in a bonnet and booties and acts like a baby as part of his plan to get Woody to babysit him so he can rob his house when he's not looking.

* JustForPun: Every single title of each short used this trope.

Despite this setback, his theatrical serials are still fondly remembered by classic animation fans and he is still the official mascot of Universal Studios to this day.[[note]]Though the position was stolen from him by ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'''s Fievel from the late 1980s into the 1990s. Just when it seemed he had earned it back, Creator/IlluminationEntertainment's mascots - [[Franchise/DespicableMe the Minions]] - snatched it from him in the 2010s.[[/note]] The series lingered in a state of hiatus for several years until a new CG feature-length Woody Woodpecker feature was made by Universal in 2017, getting a theatrical release in Brazil and getting a direct-to-video and Netflix release in the US. A new Website/YouTube-exclusive webseries revival of the character was also released in late 2018.

In fact, Woody was so popular among theatergoers that he managed to have a much longer track record than most theatrical cartoon series, his run lasting all the way up to 1972, straight into UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation, about 30 years in work [[note]] although Lantz's studio briefly shut down in 1949 and reopened in 1950[[/note]], lasting even after his competition had long since faded away and/or branched out to television — this is due to the fact that the Woody Woodpecker cartoons were made on much lower budgets than most animation studios worked with at the time to begin with, so the series had little problems adjusting to the rise of UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation with rising production costs and the fallout of popularity with theatrical cartoons. It helped matters that the bird even had a hit TV series which debuted in the 1950s, guest-starring Walter Lantz in live action segments, running at the same time he was still appearing in theaters. In fact, Lantz claimed the reason he stopped making Woody shorts was not because they weren't popular, but rather because theatrical shorts had become completely unprofitable by that point!

Then the series then took another change in direction when ex-Creator/{{Disney}} veteran Dick Lundy arrived at Lantz, and starting with ''Bathing Buddies'' as his first Woody short, took over direction of the series from 1947 to 1949. While his cartoons [[LighterAndSofter lack the brutal comedy]] and richer personalities of the previous shorts, Lundy's shorts received a considerable upgrade not only in terms of animation and design, but also faster timing, resulting in classics like "Solid Ivory," "Smoked Hams", "Banquet Busters" and "Wet Blanket Policy." After the end of the 1940s and the brief shutdown and reopening of the Lantz studio between 1949 and 1951, Woody Woodpecker was gradually softened as a character to downplay his previous heckler persona and play up more childlike, heroic qualities in him instead (with in and out returns to his previous qualities, if in much subdued form). Despite these changes, the series stayed extremely popular among theatergoers.

Fortunately, matters improved when Lovy quit the studio and [[Creator/ShamusCulhane James "Shamus" Culhane]], an established [[Creator/FleischerStudios Fleischer]] and Disney animator, took over directorial duties, and improved the shorts considerably over Lovy's--the animation and staging got notably better with the aid of animation greats such as Creator/GrimNatwick and Emery Hawkins (although the shorts were still hampered by sloppy inkers and bad inbetween work), Woody's characterization became clearer, and the gags and pacing were improved, with the series starting moving away from being a WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes clone to being more of a chase and slapstick cartoon in the vein of series like ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'', resulting in classics like ''WesternAnimation/TheBarberOfSeville'', ''Who's Cookin Who'' and ''Chew Chew Baby''. Also of note is was Culhane often abandoning the traditional storybook like watercolor backgrounds of earlier shorts in favor of minimalist, flat colored backgrounds--a very unique concept for shorts of the time. The only genuine criticism of his works would be that Woody was more prone to acting like a {{Jerkass}} than he did in the past.

However, the series got off to a rocky start, and it's easy to see why -- in Walter Lantz and Alex Lovy's attempts to imitate the fast paced slapstick of directors like Creator/TexAvery and Creator/BobClampett, they missed the mark -- the gags were often very derivative and juvenile (particularly the abundance of wordplay humor), the timing was floaty and mushy, and the animation, due in part to bad inkers and lousy inbetween work, was some of the sloppiest of any cartoon from the Golden Age. Lovy's haphazard direction and even pacing often undermined many gags, and kept the series from establishing a true identity for itself--and after the first couple shorts, Mel Blanc was forced to step down from the role of the Woodpecker upon getting an exclusive contract to Warner Bros cartoons, prompting Lantz to replace him with other voice actors, eventually settling on Ben Hardaway for years. Fortunately, matters improved when Lovy quit the studio and [[Creator/ShamusCulhane James "Shamus" Culhane]], an established [[Creator/FleischerStudios Fleischer]] and Disney animator, took over directorial duties, and improved the shorts considerably over Lovy's--the animation and staging got notably better with the aid of animation greats such as Creator/GrimNatwick and Emery Hawkins (although the shorts were still hampered by sloppy inkers and bad inbetween work), Woody's characterization became clearer, and the gags and pacing were improved, with the series starting moving away from being a WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes clone to being more of a chase and slapstick cartoon in the vein of series like ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'', resulting in classics like ''WesternAnimation/TheBarberOfSeville'', ''Who's Cookin Who'' and ''Chew Chew Baby''. Also of note is was Culhane often abandoning the traditional storybook like watercolor backgrounds of earlier shorts in favor of minimalist, flat colored backgrounds--a very unique concept for shorts of the time. The only genuine criticism of his works would be that Woody was more prone to acting like a {{Jerkass}} than he did in the past.

During this time, director, animator and writer Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, fresh off of working on WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes, arrived at Lantz's studio and began work there, and with his help, Lantz created a brand new star in an attempt to give his studio the kick in the pants it needed badly — initially appearing as the villain of the Andy Panda short ''Knock Knock'' in 1940 ([[PoorlyDisguisedPilot with Andy himself playing a minor role compared to him]]), Woody Woodpecker was an [[BreakoutCharacter instant success]] -- [[CompositeCharacter being a hybrid]] of Classic WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck's [[ThePrankster troublemaking]], [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} eccentric]] and over the top persona with the wiseacre attitude of WesternAnimation/BugsBunny, and initially combined with the vocal talents of Creator/MelBlanc, the character quickly earned his own series the following year, starting with 1941's "WesternAnimation/TheCrackedNut".

In the late 1930s, Walter Lantz's then-prime series, ''WesternAnimation/OswaldTheLuckyRabbit'', [[SeasonalRot was running out of gas]]. Besides the gradual decline of the series, he was facing competition from [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes the Warner Bros. distributed cartoon studio operated by Leon Schlesinger—aka Termite Terrace]], which was on the rise with stars like WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck (and eventually, WesternAnimation/BugsBunny), and the already widely popular Creator/WaltDisney was finding phenomenal success [[WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts with his Grade-A lineup of short subjects]] as well as [[WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs his recent feature length film]]. And on top of that, Lantz had just split his studio from directly working with Universal in order to remain independent from them save for distribution, leaving Lantz to have to front his own cash to make his cartoons. In order to keep his studio afloat, Creator/WalterLantz quickly attempted to make successors to Oswald, among them being the character Andy Panda. While Andy was mildly popular, he wasn't the mega hit star Lantz needed badly. Fortunately, things were just about to get better.

* CloningBlues: The episode ''Two Woodys, No Waiting''.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Catchphrase}} Guess who?]]]]

-->-- '''Woody Woodpecker's''' CatchPhrase, and his very first lines of dialogue.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/woody_2.png]]

* OffModel: Very, very frequent in the pre-Shamus Culhane and Dick Lundy shorts, and even in those shorts the artists would sometimes take liberties with how they draw the characters time and time again. "The Screwball" notably has Woody with his buck teeth in one scene, even though that part of his design had been abandoned already.
** In the opening of "Smoked Hams", Woody's pillow inexplicably disappears for a few seconds!

Despite this setback, his theatrical serials are still fondly remembered by classic animation fans and he is still the official mascot of Universal Studios to this day.[[note]]Though the position was stolen from him by ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'''s Fievel from the late 1980s into the 1990s. Just when it seemed he had earned it back, Creator/IlluminationEntertainment's mascots - [[WesternAnimation/DespicableMe the Minions]] - snatched it from him in the 2010s.[[/note]] The series lingered in a state of hiatus for several years until a new CG feature-length Woody Woodpecker feature was made by Universal in 2017, getting a theatrical release in Brazil and getting a direct-to-video and Netflix release in the US. A new Website/YouTube-exclusive webseries revival of the character was also released in late 2018.

''Woody Woodpecker'' is an iconic cartoon star, the mascot and [[BreakthroughHit most successful cartoon series]] of the Creator/WalterLantz and Creator/{{Universal}} studios, from his [[BreakoutCharacter breakout debut]] in the WesternAnimation/AndyPanda short "WesternAnimation/{{Knock Knock|1940}}" [[note]]Although ''WesternAnimation/TheCrackedNut'', released the following year, was the debut of his own series.[[/note]], in [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation 1940]], to the end of his theatrical run in [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation 1972]], lasting for 198 shorts, supplemented by appearances in comics, merchandise, a long-running TV anthology show, a short-lived contemporary TV revival, and a [[Film/WoodyWoodpecker live-action/CGI feature film]] and a late 2018 Website/YouTube revival, thus establishing him as an animation {{Long Runner|s}}. In 2020, the character turned 80 years old and a second season of the You Tube series was released. In 2022, a third season was released, nine episodes were released on the YouTube channel and one on the Facebook page.

%% "The Screwdriver" has Woody openly mocking and harassing a police officer, as well as getting away with it in the end by having the cop thrown in the nuthouse. This is odd, considering UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode rules explicitly forbid {{Karma Houdini}}s, particularly when it came to mocking the law.

%% * 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.
%% Due to Fox Kids policies, Woody was not allowed to peck people on the head. However, they ''did'' manage to sneak in Woody pecking someone's head once in a blue moon.

* GagDub: A poster on Website/YouTube, who has also done several Looney Tunes gag dubs (no longer on Website/YouTube, however) was apparently making a gag dub series using footage of the older Woody Woodpecker cartoons. For unknown reasons, he has ceased production of them for a long time now. Here is the trailer for it: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=290w4Ec08O8]]
%% * 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.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Andy Panda stops appearing after the first season. In fact, in the season 3 finale "Class Dismissed", Woody doesn't even consider him to home school Knothead and Splinter.

* DigitalDestruction: The two DVD sets suffer from some nasty DVNR damage, terrible color correction issues, as well as some digital compression issues.

''Woody Woodpecker'' is an iconic cartoon star, the mascot and [[BreakthroughHit most successful cartoon series]] of the Creator/WalterLantz and Creator/{{Universal}} studios, from his [[BreakoutCharacter breakout debut]] in the WesternAnimation/AndyPanda short "WesternAnimation/{{Knock Knock|1940}}" [[note]]Although ''WesternAnimation/TheCrackedNut'', released the following year, was the debut of his own series.[[/note]], in [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation 1940]], to the end of his theatrical run in [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation 1972]], lasting for 198 shorts, supplemented by appearances in comics, merchandise, a long-running TV anthology show, a short-lived contemporary TV revival, and a [[Film/WoodyWoodpecker live-action/CGI feature film]] and a late 2018 Website/YouTube revival, thus establishing him as an animation {{Long Runner|s}}. In 2020, the character turned 80 years old and a second season of the You Tube series was released. In 2022, a third season was released.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: * The 1971 cartoon ''The Reluctant Recruit'' has Woody tricked into joining the Foreign Legion. There are two errors in the cartoon:

* AlliterativeName: Take a wild guess.

''Woody Woodpecker'' is an iconic cartoon star, the mascot and [[BreakthroughHit most successful cartoon series]] of the Creator/WalterLantz and Creator/{{Universal}} studios, from his [[BreakoutCharacter breakout debut]] in the WesternAnimation/AndyPanda short "WesternAnimation/{{Knock Knock|1940}}" [[note]]Although ''WesternAnimation/TheCrackedNut'', released the following year, was the debut of his own series.[[/note]], in [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation 1940]], to the end of his theatrical run in [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation 1972]], lasting for 198 shorts, supplemented by appearances in comics, merchandise, a long-running TV anthology show, a short-lived contemporary TV revival, and a [[Film/WoodyWoodpecker live-action/CGI feature film]] and a late 2018 Website/YouTube revival, thus establishing him as an animation {{Long Runner|s}}. In 2020, the character turned 80 years old and a second season of the You Tube series was released.