Around the Tree With Woody

Ink and paint departments were pretty anonymous in the Golden Age of Cartoons. They did top work, though. I especially admire dry-brushing work in the various studios, especially MGM.

Here’s an example from Walter Lantz’s The Screwdriver, a 1941 cartoon where Woody Woodpecker drives an authority figure crazy. You can see some of the drybrush work in one scene where Woody demonstrates speeding to a cop. There are also outlines of wheels; outlines find their way all through the cartoon.

Mel Blanc supplies all the voices (okay, there are only two characters), while Alex Lovy and Ralph Somerville are the credited animators. Bugs Hardaway and Jack Cosgriff are responsible for the story. Woody soon outlived authority-figure heckling, taking on stronger challengers like a hungry cat, a pal-sy wolf and Buzz Buzzard as wonderfully portrayed by Lionel Stander.