Directed by: Walter Lantz

Starring: Woody Woodpecker, the Cat

Voice Performances: Mel Blanc (Woody Woodpecker), Danny Webb

STORY

Winter is coming, the birds are heading south, and everyone seems to understand that it is time to prepare for the cold months ahead.

Everyone except Woody Woodpecker.

While the other birds migrate to warmer climates, Woody decides he's perfectly happy staying exactly where he is. A warning that he should leave before winter arrives doesn't impress him. Woody is Woody, after all. Rules are suggestions, warnings are invitations to trouble, Everyone except Woody Woodpecker.

Then winter arrives.

Suddenly the landscape is buried beneath snow, food has disappeared, and Woody discovers that confidence isn't particularly filling.

He is starving.

Inside his home, Woody searches desperately for something — anything — to eat. His hunger becomes increasingly ridiculous as ordinary objects begin looking suspiciously like meals.

Then Woody's problems become much worse.

Another hungry creature arrives.

A starving cat.

The cat takes one look at Woody and sees dinner.

Unfortunately for the cat, Woody takes one look at him and begins having essentially the same idea.

Now the situation changes from finding food to avoiding becoming food.

What follows is a wonderfully frantic battle between two desperately hungry characters, each alternately predator and prey. They chase one another, trick one another, attempt to cook one another and transform Woody's home into a battlefield where the only rule is simple:

Don't become somebody else's supper.

The escalating insanity is pure early Woody Woodpecker — fast, aggressive, mischievous and wonderfully unpredictable.

This isn't yet the slightly more polished Woody audiences would come to recognize in later cartoons.

This is the original troublemaker.

Manic.

Relentless.

Operating according to his own peculiar logic.

Eventually, the desperate pair gets something resembling salvation when food finally arrives.

After spending the cartoon trying desperately to eat one another, Woody and the cat suddenly have an actual feast available.

Surely that should solve everything.

Except this is Woody Woodpecker.

And nothing involving Woody is ever quite that simple.

Pantry Panic captures Woody near the very beginning of his extraordinary screen career, when Walter Lantz and his artists were still discovering exactly how crazy their crazy woodpecker could become.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS
ONE OF THE VERY FIRST WOODY WOODPECKER CARTOONS

Pantry Panic arrived remarkably early in Woody Woodpecker's career.

Woody made his screen debut in the 1940 Walter Lantz cartoon Knock Knock, appearing alongside Andy Panda.

He wasn't technically the star.

That didn't last long.

Woody's outrageous personality proved memorable enough that Walter Lantz quickly gave the character his own series.

Woody Woodpecker, released in 1941, became his first starring short, followed by Pantry Panic.

That makes Pantry Panic only the third theatrical cartoon appearance of Woody Woodpecker.

We are watching a cartoon superstar when he was still brand new.

WOODY DIDN'T ALWAYS LOOK LIKE WOODY

Anyone familiar with the later Woody Woodpecker should take a close look at him here.

Early Woody was considerably rougher around the edges.

His design featured exaggerated proportions, a long beak, gangly limbs and an overall wildness perfectly suited to his original personality.

Woody's appearance would gradually be refined as the series continued.

Eventually he became the cleaner, more streamlined character remembered by generations of television viewers.

Pantry Panic preserves the wonderfully unruly original.

MEL BLANC WAS WOODY

That voice comes from one of the giants of animation.

The legendary Mel Blanc provided Woody Woodpecker's voice during the character's earliest period.

Blanc would become one of the most famous voice performers in animation history, associated with an extraordinary collection of characters during his remarkable career.

But before many of those performances became legendary, Blanc was helping Walter Lantz give his crazy new woodpecker a voice.

THAT LAUGH!

You don't need to see Woody Woodpecker to know he's nearby.

You only need to hear him.

Woody's unmistakable laugh became one of animation's most recognizable sounds and an essential part of the character's identity.

The laugh was present during Woody's earliest appearances and perfectly captured his manic personality.

Woody didn't simply enter a scene.

He announced himself.

THE FAMOUS LAUGH CREATED A LEGAL WRINKLE

Mel Blanc's association with Woody did not simply disappear when he stopped regularly voicing the character.

Recordings of Blanc's famous laugh continued to be associated with Woody, and the use of that vocalization eventually became part of a legal dispute between Blanc and Walter Lantz.

The matter was ultimately settled.

It is a fascinating reminder that a few seconds of sound can become as valuable and identifiable as the visual character itself.

WALTER LANTZ — AN ANIMATION PIONEER

Woody Woodpecker came from the studio of Walter Lantz, one of the major figures in American animation history.

Lantz's animation career stretched back into the silent era, long before Woody existed.

Over the decades, Walter Lantz Productions created numerous animated characters, but Woody became the studio's enduring superstar.

Eventually Woody Woodpecker became virtually synonymous with the Walter Lantz name.

WOODY WASN'T CREATED TO BE SWEET

That is part of what makes early Woody so much fun.

He's loud.

He's selfish.

He's aggressive.

He's mischievous.

And he seems capable of creating absolute chaos simply because chaos might be entertaining.

Later versions of Woody would become somewhat more controlled and sympathetic.

The early Woody?

Not particularly.

In Pantry Panic, hunger only makes his worst instincts more extreme.

WHO IS THE VILLAIN?

That's a surprisingly difficult question.

The cat wants to eat Woody.

That certainly sounds villainous.

Except Woody is perfectly willing to eat the cat.

Predator becomes prey.

Prey becomes predator.

Then they switch again.

Neither character occupies the moral high ground for very long.

That constantly reversing relationship gives Pantry Panic much of its wonderfully deranged energy.

WHEN HUNGER BECOMES THE JOKE

Food — or more precisely, the complete absence of it — drives virtually the entire cartoon.

Animation allows hunger to become increasingly surreal.

Ordinary objects can suddenly resemble food.

Characters can imagine impossible meals.

And two starving creatures can survive things that would instantly end any live-action dinner dispute.

Reality exists only until the next joke requires something else.

CARTOON PHYSICS RULE THE HOUSE

Woody Woodpecker's world operates according to one of animation's greatest principles:

If it's funny, it's possible.

Bodies stretch.

Objects transform.

Characters survive impossible injuries.

The normal rules governing anatomy, physics and common sense disappear whenever a better gag comes along.

Pantry Panic embraces that freedom enthusiastically.

AINTOID: WOODY WAS BORN IN KNOCK KNOCK

Before Woody had his own cartoon series, he appeared in the Andy Panda short Knock Knock in 1940.

Woody arrives as an irritating troublemaker determined to torment Andy Panda and his father.

He wasn't supposed to be the established star of the picture.

But audiences noticed him.

The supporting character had stolen enough attention to earn another appearance.

Soon he had his own series.

AINTOID: FROM SUPPORTING PLAYER TO STAR

Woody's rise happened remarkably quickly.

Knock Knock introduced him in 1940.

By 1941, he was headlining his own cartoons.

That speed tells us something important about theatrical animation.

Studios were constantly searching for characters audiences wanted to see again.

When one connected, filmmakers moved fast.

Walter Lantz had found his star.

AINTOID: WOODY BECAME AN OSCAR-NOMINATED STAR

Woody's career didn't stop with theatrical cartoon popularity.

Woody Woodpecker cartoons would eventually receive Academy Award recognition, and the character's fame expanded far beyond the movie screen.

Even “The Woody Woodpecker Song” received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.

A crazy laugh had become part of American popular culture.

AINTOID: THE SONG MADE HISTORY

“The Woody Woodpecker Song” became a major popular hit in 1948.

Its famous use of Woody's laugh helped make the character recognizable even to people who weren't sitting in a theater watching one of his cartoons.

Woody had become more than an animated character.

He had become a sound people instantly recognized.

AINTOID: FROM MOVIE THEATERS TO TELEVISION

Woody Woodpecker was born as a theatrical cartoon character.

Audiences originally encountered Woody shorts in movie theaters, where cartoons were part of a larger program of entertainment.

Then television changed everything.

The Woody Woodpecker Show brought Woody and other Walter Lantz characters into American homes, introducing the theatrical cartoons to entirely new generations.

Walter Lantz himself became part of the program, appearing in live-action segments that helped explain animation to viewers.

AINTOID: WALTER LANTZ LIVED TO SEE WOODY BECOME AN ICON

Unlike some animation pioneers whose characters vastly outlived them before achieving their greatest cultural recognition, Walter Lantz had the opportunity to watch Woody remain popular across decades.

The character moved from theatrical shorts into television and merchandising while remaining closely identified with his creator's studio.

Woody wasn't simply one successful cartoon.

He became Walter Lantz's legacy.

AINTOID: AN EARLY WOODY PRESERVED

That is what makes Pantry Panic such a treasure for Absolutely Toons.

This isn't simply a Woody Woodpecker cartoon.

It is Woody before decades of television exposure.

Before the later redesigns.

Before generations of children knew the laugh.

Before Woody Woodpecker became an institution.

He's still new.

Still evolving.

Still wonderfully unruly.

And already unmistakably Woody.

META TAGS

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DATE RELEASED

November 24, 1941

COUNTRY RELEASED

United States