Selling the Woodpecker Way

Walter Lantz played a waiting game that surely paid off.

Various theatrical cartoon studios gradually inked deals in the 1950s to get their old—and in some cases, almost worthless—animated shorts on television. Lantz worked out a TV distribution deal in February 1955 Matty Fox of Motion Pictures for Television for 149 of his black-and-white shorts.¹ KNXT alone paid a quarter of a million dollars to air them.²

But Lantz had cartoons that were more valuable: shorts in colour featuring his number one star, Woody Woodpecker, one of animation’s A-listers. Lantz waited for the right deal. And he got it. Kellogg’s, through its ad agency Leo Burnett, closed a $7,000,000 deal in June 1957 with ABC to sponsor five shows in the 5 to 5:30 p.m. half-hour—and one of the them was The Woody Woodpecker Show.³ It was a 104-week, non-cancellable contract.

Lantz was ecstatic. He proclaimed the deal “is more than any exhibitor will ever give.” And he claimed the TV series wouldn’t take away from theatrical releases, saying the show would “make people more conscious of cartoons. I don’t see how they can do anything but make people want to see more of our characters in theaters.”⁴

Woody made his TV show debut on October 3, 1957. Lantz decided to steal an idea from the Disneyland Show. If Walt Disney could host a TV show, Walt Lantz could host a TV show. Said Weekly Variety in reviewing Lantz’s small screen debut: “He’s a pleasant man, but hardly a polished performer, though since when do kids need the kind of polish adults demand in adults?”⁵

Agreed. Lantz was a little stiff and forced, but there is some charm in his interaction (though not on screen together) with his cartoon star. Reviews can be nice, but dollars are better for a cartoon studio that had been struggling financially for at least a decade and had to shut down for over a year. Kellogg’s sponsorship of Woody brought all kinds of publicity and cross-promotions (which translated into $$$$), like the ad you see below.



Broadcasting magazine reported on April 14, 1958:

Motorola Joins Kellogg Contest
Motorola, Inc. retailers are participating in the Kellogg Co.’s multi-million dollar “Woody Woodpecker Picture Puzzle” contest involving a tie-in deal with Corn Flakes and offering high fidelity portables as merchandise prizes. The contest, starting in mid-April, is being promoted on seven Kellogg tv programs (Woody Woodpecker, Superman, Buccaneers, Sir Lancelot, Wild Hickok, Name That Tune, House Party) and the hi-fi units will receive audio and visual mention during the commercials. Hi-fi dealers will use Woody Woodpecker point-of-sale and window displays to tie in with the national promotion and appliance store traffic will be directed to Corn Flakes boxes for entry blanks and details. First prize is $2,000 cash and a portable hi-fi in fibre glass. 700 other hi-fi units also will be awarded. Reportedly 17 million direct-mail pieces will be sent to consumers.

Kellogg’s decided to drop ABC for the 1958-59 season and buy time on individual stations on a syndicated basis.⁶ The line-up of shows was modified to include Hanna-Barbera’s new half-hour cartoon series The Huckleberry Hound Show (The Quick Draw McGraw Show was added to the “Kellogg’s Network” for 1959-60). Woody Woodpecker and his sidekick Walter Lantz remained. Why? Because Woody sold cereal. Here’s an example:

Capsule case history: Bob Simpson, the local Norfolk sales manager for the Kellogg Co., working with Mike Schaffer, merchandising and promotion director of WAVY-TV, set up a special merchandising campaign to supplement an extensive tv spot schedule on that station. The schedule consisted of sponsorship of three local kid shows: Quick Draw McGraw, Mondays, 5-5:30 p.m.; Woody Woodpecker, Tuesdays, 5-5:30 p.m.; and HuckleberryHound, Thursdays, 5-5:30 p.m. Result: WAVY’s efforts secured a major breakthrough for distribution of Kellogg’s cereals in the local Belo Chain Stores, one of the largest chains in the area. “We have had the best sales increase in the Norfolk market in many years,” Simpson told WAVY. In a letter to Mike Schaffer, C.P. Davidson, division sales manager for Kellogg, wrote “Business in the Norfolk market certainly shows the extra sales help we’ve been getting is definitely paying off. We hope to increase our programing on WAVY.⁷

Kellogg’s was looking to expand its syndicated cartoon tie-in even further. A deal with Hank Saperstein at UPA to sponsor a half hour Mr. Magoo show fell apart in September 1960. The cereal maker was expected to keep the woodpecker show in the fold⁸ but Screen Gems managed to sell Leo Burnett on a brand-new, half-hour Yogi Bear series and Kellogg’s decided to drop Woody in January 1961.⁹

Perhaps Lantz should have seen it coming. Hanna-Barbera characters increasingly became part of the Kellogg’s world, with its characters adorning cereal boxes (and Snuffles selling dog biscuits for the company). Hanna-Barbera was capable of churning out dozens of new cartoons for TV while Lantz had to rely on a comparative small number of used theatricals. The studio had won an Emmy for a series sponsored by Kellogg’s (Huck). And Screen Gems had costumed versions of its Kellogg’s-sponsored characters making promotional appearances all over the U.S., creating a possible spill-over advertising effect.

Lantz still had a theatrical release schedule with Universal, so he continued to make new cartoons for movie houses, and license his characters for comic books and Golden Records. And he re-inked with Kellogg’s in 1963 to put Woody back on TV¹⁰ with 185 stations airing the old cartoons, along with “Woody’s Newsreel,” “Around the World With Woody” and a three-part “History of Aviation” starting the week of January 16, 1964.¹¹ He even came out with a limited animation “Spook-A-Nanny” TV special with a Kellogg’s contest tie-in (winners and honorable mentions were named in six different classes of cities based on size).¹²

Woody became part of the Saturday morning line-up on NBC for two seasons starting in the fall 1970 and appeared on television off and on after that, even having an extended run on Canada’s YTV in the ‘90s when he wasn’t on the air in the U.S.

Lantz’s show ran into few problems while on the small screen. One was in 1961:

Iowa State U.’s WOI-TV Ames got its programming knuckles rapped in the State House last week because it telecast Woody Woodpecker instead of President Kennedy’s Feb. 15 news conference. Asked rapper Rep. William Denman (D-Des Moines): “What kind of distorted minds think it’s more important to broadcast Woody Woodpecker than the President of the U.S.?”¹³

There was one other problem: censorship. Black stereotypes? Nope, can’t air that. Characters drinking? Nope, can’t air that. Making light of the mentally ill? Nope, can’t air that. No wonder Lantz put the Beary Family on the air. The cartoons were innocuous. And lousy.

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1 Daily Variety, Feb. 14, 1955, pg. 2^↩
2 Daily Variety, Oct. 17, 1955, pg. 92^↩
3 Broadcasting, June 17, 1955, pg. 39^↩
4 Motion Picture Daily, Dec. 11, 1957, pg. 2^↩
5 Weekly Variety, Oct. 9, 1957, pg. 28^↩
6 Weekly Variety, June 25, 1958, pg. 27^↩
7 Sponsor, July 11, 1960, pg. 56^↩
8 Weekly Variety, Sept. 21, 1960, pg. 29^↩
9 Weekly Variety, Oct. 19, 1960, pg. 23^↩
10 Sponsor, March 18, 1963, pg. 53^↩
11 Daily Variety, Jan. 1, 1964, pg. 25^↩
12 Broadcasting, Nov. 23, 1964, pg. 50^↩
13 Weekly Television Digest, Feb. 20, 1961, pg. 6^↩