Mar 10 2009
Woody Woodpecker was a Woman
I don’t think I’ve seen a Woody Woodpecker cartoon aired in reruns in quite some time. When I was a kid watching the local cartoon show hosted by a man who reminded you of a used car salesman, Woody would appear at least once in the rotation of cartoons.
I’m just not sure Woody is as memorable as many of the other cartoon characters from that era and some of his antics can be downright obnoxious, much like the early Daffy versus the victimized egotistical Daffy of later cartoons.
Now come to find out, Woody was voiced by someone with no woody.
Originally Mel Blanc, the master of cartoon voices, created Woody’s voice but then could not continue because of his other contract with Warner Bros–he was required to stick with Bugs and the gang. Blanc is responsible for the famous Woody laugh which was turned into a canned sound effect repeatedly used throughout the cartoons and in the Woody Woodpecker Song. This eventually led Mel Blanc to sue Woody, er, Walter Lantz, the owner of the animation studio that produced the Woodpecker features.
Without Mel Blanc, in steps Woody Woodpecker’s character designer Ben “Bugs” Hardaway. Hardaway was a storyboard artist for the Lantz studio. He continued to fill the role of Woody’s voice until…
Someone anonymously slipped their audition tape in to apply for the new voice of Woody Woodpecker–or so the story goes. This was the start of the fifties decade and Grace Stafford was chosen to voice the cartoon bird. Grace Stafford happened to be Walter Lantz’s wife–the wife of the studio owner. She apparently slept her way to the top (if you consider voicing a red cartoon bird the top).
The claim is that Walter Lantz chose her on talent alone because he did not know it was her when he listened to her audition tape. I’m not sure I buy into that story. More likely she begged her husband for the role and they developed the story later to make it seem like favoritism wasn’t involved.
Whatever the case, Woody Woodpecker was a woman. Grace Stafford was not credited for Woody’s voice until 1958 because she thought, and maybe rightly so, audiences would not accept a woman as the voice of a pecker.
No! I would have never known. Still, I haven’t seen an episode of Woody Woodpecker in, what, five years.