Woody Woodpecker: Being a Woodpecker was not Gay Enough

During a televised interview with Walter Lantz sometime in the 1970s, the fawning reporter said "I have to say that Woody Woodpecker is my favorite cartoon character, and most people I've talked to agree. Why is that?"

Talk about hard-hitting investigative journalism!

I roiled at that.  Woody Woodpecker is the most annoying cartoon character of all time.  I'd rather watch a Scrappy-Do marathon.

Lantz rolled out the anarchic bird in 1940, as a foil for his established character Andy Panda.  He was an ugly, unpredictable psychopath, causig mayhem for its own sake (as opposed to Bugs Bunny, who fights back against aggressors).  Apparently he was popular enough to rate his own song, mostly about his heterosexual prowess:

Though he can't sing a note, there's a frog in his throat
All his top notes come out blurred
He's the ladies' first choice, with a laugh in his voice...and then that annoying ha-ha-ha-HA-ha.

The theatrical cartoons were repeated on tv on the syndicated Woody Woodpecker Show (1958-66), which I remember only vaguely as "too scary to watch."










When  I was a little older, Woody Woodpecker a bottom-of-the-rack selection of Gold Key Comics (1963-78),  not really worth spending my hard-earned 15 cents on.  On the occasions that I did read his comics, I found him domesticated, a single father living in 1960s suburbia (although still talking like it was the 1940s, which I suppose is understandable; I occasionally throw a "radical" into my conversations today).  He was raising his niece and nephew, Knothead and Splinter, distinguishable only by the hair and skirt, guiding them through crises involving bullies, paper routes, and science projects.

There were also globetrotting adventure stories:

The Great Riverboat Race
Ghost of Gold Creek Gulch
Sub-Marooned in Neptunia

Similar to what you would find in the Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig comics a little higher up in the rack, or Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics at the very top, but with some significant, deal-breaker differences.

1. Woody lived in a human world, with only occasional animal characters.  Granted, so did Bugs Bunny, but:










2. No buddy bonding, like Bugs and Porky or Donald and Uncle Scrooge had had on their adventures.  Heck, even the other main Lantz character, Andy Panda, had a boyfriend, Charlie Chicken, with a sort of id-superego, rushing headlong into danger/worrying if he left the stove on sort of dynamic.

3. Woody was daft over dames.  Bugs, Porky, and Donald had girlfriends as foils only, but Woody was obviously daft over dames, throwing himself into a bosomy woman's lap every five seconds.

4. The art was pedestrian, and the stories cliched.

Years later, I learned the slang meaning of "wood," which transformed "woodpecker" into a dirty word.  I don't think it's enough to redeem Woody Woodpecker.

See also: Bugs Bunny Meets the Drag King