Walter Lantz Keeps On Going

Walter Lantz finally shut down his cartoon studio in 1972, even though he said at the time there was still international demand for his shorts. Evidently, theatres didn’t care how bad the cartoons were. Woody Woodpecker was a wasted shell of himself and the less said about the Beary Family, the better.

Apparently, Lantz considered getting out of the cartoon business in 1962 but changed his mind. That’s what he told columnist Joan Dew in the Valley Times of North Hollywood. This short piece was published on April 20, 1963. As Lantz still had a contract with Universal-International, it’s doubtful the studio would have closed.

The Woody creation story hadn’t yet morphed to include the “honeymoon” claim, which was as real as any of Lantz’s cartoon characters. The “udder” story about the Lantz studio showed up in a New York newspaper in March 1931, so he’d been telling it a long time.

Walter Lantz Retired Once--For Two Weeks
At 63, Walter Lantz has as much energy as his precocious offspring, Woody Woodpecker.
He retired a year ago; and his retirement lasted all of two weeks. "I couldn't stand it," he says, "so I returned to work."
In addition to actively supervising his bustling studio, which turns out several dozen motion picture cartoons a year, he is an enthusiastic golfer, a world traveler and a talented painter.
HE LOST many of his landscapes in oil when his home burned in the Bel Air fire. He has painted 15 since then and decided to have them appraised in case of fire or theft. "I've never been so astonished," he told me, "as I was when the appraiser valued them at $200 to $500 each.
"I paint from colored slides my wife and I take when we travel. Our maid has never thought much of me as a painter, and she doesn't hesitate to tell me so. But she gave me one compliment recently. I had completed a scene from Holland of a windmill. She saw it and said, 'Mr. Lantz, that one isn't bad. I recognize it. It's Van de Camp's.' "

WALTER'S wife is Grace Stafford, a former actress, who is the voice of Woody Woodpecker.
"When AFTRA went on strike a couple of years ago, Gracie was on strike against me," Walter laughed. "I punished her by making her pick up her own dinner tabs."
Walter entered the cartoon industry at its inception. The year was 1916 and he worked under the late Gregory La Cava. But it wasn't until 1940 that Woody, his most famous character, was born. Walter was living at Lake Sherwood, Calif., and a pesky woodpecker almost destroyed the roof of his home. "That $200 roof bill became the best investment of my life," he says.
Since Walter's cartoons are made especially for motion pictures, each six-minute short must be approved by the Johnson Office and awarded a Purity Seal before being released to distributors.
"THAT'S NOT as simple as it sounds," he pointed out, "because of the requirements involved. For example, if we're going to show a cow, we must draw a skirt on it. Children are not supposed to see the udders."
"You can't be serious," I said.
"Oh, yes," he laughed, "then when it gets to the theater, they put it on the bill with something like 'Lolita.' "
Although Walter and his wife have no children of their own, they are god parents to many. For 10 years they have been sponsors of a Sherman Oaks Little League baseball team and they founded the Woody Woodpecker Foundation, which gives financial aid to boys' clubs throughout the country.
"Associating with youngsters keeps me young," says Walter. "I'm producing a new television show this fall that will combine my motion picture cartoons with an educational format. In order to know what will be interesting to kids, you have to know how they think, and learn the trick of entering their world."
Walter seems to have mastered the trick. I don't know a child who gets more of a kick out of life than he does. In fact, when we parted, it was much like a scene from a Walter Lantz cartoon. He hopped into his sleek '63 Corvette Sting Ray, gunned the motor and raced away.