Life of Lantz

Walter Lantz always strikes me as a decent enough man, even though his cartoons left a lot to be desired as time went on.

He had an extremely long career, turning out inventive live action/animation combinations during the silent era, then being handed Oswald the rabbit from the hands of Charles Mintz and given a cartoon studio to run by Universal. He manoeuvred through the Golden Age, striking upon his own raucous cartoon character during the height of their popularity, then successfully managing to re-package his cartoons for television, complete with insightful little segments about how cartoons were made.

As the theatrical era wound down, Lantz set up charitable groups to help young people. He even went to Vietnam to meet with soldiers, not exactly something animation studio heads are known to do.

Here’s a full-page profile in the Motion Picture Exhibitor of May 8, 1957. He was soon to embark on a TV career, hosting a half-hour show a la Walt Disney.

Walter Lantz: Dean Of Cartoonists
Producer Walter Lantz, dean of the animated film cartoonists, is going strong in his 41st year of motion picture production.
Lantz broke into the animated cartoon business in 1916, at age 16, he got a job with the late Gregory LaCava in New York, when the cartoon industry was in its infancy. At that time, Lantz was an ambitious art student without professional experience. For the old-timers who remember such early, and jerky, film cartoons as The Katzenjammer Kids, Happy Hooligan, Krazy Kat, and Mutt And Jeff, Lantz played a prominent part in the films’ production.
Later, the J. R. Bray studio offered Lantz a better deal than the $10 a week he was making with LaCava, and he started making films for Bray. Among the best-known cartoons which Lantz created and directed for Bray were Pete The Pup, Dinky Doodle, and the most famous of them all, Colonel Hezza Liar [sic].

In these early films Lantz conceived the idea, which has been copied many times, of combining animation with live action. And, to cut costs, Lantz usually played the actor’s role himself. That was in 1922. Today the producer enjoys many a chuckle as he sees himself cavorting on a television screen when the late shows reel off the old cartoons. In Hollywood, the “Lantz Luck” is a well-known phrase. His “luck,” however, really started in 1928 when he traveled across the country for a short vacation in Hollywood and Carl Laemmle offered him the job of running Universal’s animated film cartoon department. Lantz stayed with Universal until he decided to form his own company at the time that Universal was considering closing out its own cartoon department. The two got together and set up a deal whereby Lantz would produce cartoons on his own and Universal would handle the distribution. For the past two decades, this arrangement has been mutually profitable.
Today, Lantz owns his own ultra-modern studio in the heart of Hollywood. Staffed by a creative group of artists and technicians, it turns out 13 cartoons a year for Universal release. Seven of the 13 films are Woody Woodpeckers.
In keeping with the “Lantz Luck,” there never would have been a celluloid Woody Woodpecker if it hadn’t been for Lantz’ wife, former actress Grace Stafford. To capsule a long story, a real woodpecker was driving Lantz crazy some years ago by knocking holes in the producer’s mountain cabin. Completely exasperated, Lantz finally got out his gun and was about to blast the noisy and destructive bird when Grace interceded with the observation that the woodpecker would make a good cartoon character.
So, the woodpecker’s life was saved and Lantz used him as a model for today’s Woody Woodpecker who, from his first public screening, zoomed to stardom and has remained popular ever since, to such a degree that when one thinks of Walter Lantz he automatically is reminded of this top cartoon character, the ace of the producer’s menagerie of mirth and merriment. Woody has been the star as well as the top money-maker of the stable since his creation a decade ago, and it appears that his popularity will not wane for many more years to come.

Lantz had quality people on his staff over the years. In a 1954 photo accompanying the article, you can see Mike Maltese in the front left, Don Patterson standing at the front right and Tex Avery in the back right. In the ‘40s, he hired good radio actors to supply voices when Blanc became tied to Warners, including Jack Mather, Will Wright, Walter Tetley and Lionel Stander. In the ‘50s, he brought in Daws Butler and June Foray and actually put their names on the screen.

A few of the Lantz cartoons I like:

Mars (1930). Weird things can happen in the early Lantz sound cartoons. In this one, Oswald the Rabbit ends up on Mars where bizarre combination creatures exist. The short boots along at a merry pace. Oswald sings and plays his theme song; mercifully, he’s not doing a Mickey Mouse falsetto.

Woody Woodpecker (1941). The closest thing to a Warners cartoon. Mel Blanc’s voice is all over the place as Woody and Dr. Horace N. Buggy are both nutcases, though without the energy of the early, screwed-up Daffy Duck.

Abou Ben Boogie (1944). The second of the Miss X cartoons. Pat Matthews animates a marvellous dancing camel as well as the sexy harem girl. Fine brassy score from Darrell Calker, who did good work on the other Swing Symphonies.

Musical Moments From Chopin (1947) Calker wasn’t only adept at swing, he was an excellent classical arranger. A drunken horse (again, Pat Matthews) and little living flames highlight this cartoon. Another classical cartoon, The Bandmaster (1947) has another fine score from Calker and more great animation from Matthews of a drunk on a high wire with pink elephants. Matthews gets my vote as the most unsung animator of the Golden Era.

Real Gone Woody (1954). The addition of writer Mike Maltese from Warner Bros. could even improve the tepid direction of Paul J. Smith. He puts down Guy Lombardo, parodies Johnny Ray and satirises the school sock-hop culture. We get a switch on his cake gag from Rabbit Hood.

The Legend of Rockabye Point (1955). Tex Avery directed four shorts for Lantz. This one has variations on Avery’s theme of “Don’t-make-noise-to-disturb-other-character,” including a gag with a clarinet and sheet music. Avery’s other Chilly Willy short, I’m Cold (1954), includes an even more laconic version of his Southern wolf at MGM with solid scenes. Dal McKennon supplies a good voice for the Old Salt.

Things went downhill from here, with increasingly lacklustre characters, one after another. There was nothing innovative. Gabby Gator? Inspector Willoughby? The Beary Family? Mrs. Meany? Did anyone laugh at them? Smile, even? Still, Lantz remained in business, keeping a loyal crew employed into the early ‘70s and supplying theatres with something, albeit watered-down slapstick.

Lantz complained endlessly about the lack of money he was getting from theatres to turn a profit. Despite that, he lived a comfortable lifestyle. He did find the money to come up with many enjoyable cartoons at his own studio, and was responsible for some entertaining shorts reaching back to his days with Dinky Doodle for the Bray studio in the ‘20s.

Walter Lantz was recognised over the years for his accomplishments. And deservedly so.

Eyes of Lantz

Abou Ben Boogie gets a load of Miss X as Darrell Calker’s brassy score plays in the background of this 1944 cartoon from the Walter Lantz studio.

In the first part of the scene below, there’s movement in every frame. Gravity (follow-through action) moves Miss X’s clothes in one frame, then her drawing holds in the next frame while Abou’s eyes combine and enlarge. The action alternates like that.

You’ll notice the eyes throb in a way; they pull back in a bit, then extend.



Miss X is on a held cel as Abou looks up and down, blinks twice, and his eyes pull back in. That part is animated on ones and twos.



Pat Matthews animates the dance scenes and they’re truly well done. Director Shamus Culhane uses only solid colour in the background in a number of places and, for whatever reason, has cycle animation of Miss X strutting, but you can only see the upper third of her body.

There are dopey, cross-eyed characters as well, so you know Bugs Hardaway had to be involved in the story.

Unfortunately, Abou Ben Boogie was the second and final of the Miss X cartoons. She was too much for the censors.

Buzz Buzzard Take

Buzz Buzzard is apparently talking to us but all we hear is unintelligible noises that don’t match the mouth movements at the start of Wet Blanket Policy (1948). I can only guess this was done so we can hear the lyrics to the “Woody Woodpecker Song,” added to the soundtrack at the last minute according to the internet.



The scene is animated by an uncredited Pat Matthews. He hears a sucker coming. Here are some frames from the take.



Walter Lantz’s cartoons were being released by United Artists at this time and until the money dried up, they never looked better. Disney’s Ken O’Brien is credited as an animator on this short, along with veteran Les Kline. The great Fred Moore, Ed Love and La Verne Harding (as well as Matthews) were also providing top animation for the studio. And Lantz had the great fortune to hire Lionel Stander, who gave lots of villainous expression to Buzz Buzzard’s voice. Within a year, the money ran out and the studio shut down, with most of the talent scattering away for good before it re-opened.

Boogie Woogie WACs

Pat Matthews was known for his sexy girl characters at the Walter Lantz studio, especially his animation on “Miss X” in a pair of 1944 releases.

But there’s a nice little walk cycle of three women in uniform in Lantz’s Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company “B”, released three years earlier in 1941.

Whether Matthews was responsible, I don’t know. His son told animation blogger Kevin Langley that Matthews worked on Pinocchio but got caught at the Disney strike, which started in late May 1941, and went to work for Walter Lantz. This Lantz cartoon was released in early September, so it is possible the scene is Matthews’. I honestly don’t know who else at Lantz might have animated it. (Late note: a comment below points out the cycle is re-drawn from Scrub Me Mama With a Boogie Beat, released at the start in 1941. It’s unlikely, then, that Matthews animated this).

There are 36 drawings in this strut cycle. All but two of them are animated on twos, the other two drawings are one frame each to give a bit of a hitch in the walk. Here is a middle drawing, followed by two extremes.



They don’t look like much, do they? Ah, but here’s where the magic of animation comes in. Add the in-betweens and you get something pretty neat.



Alex Lovy and La Verne Harding get screen credit for animation. Danny Webb, who was in the army and on the other side of the U.S. from Hollywood when this cartoon was released, is the frog-voiced sergeant. My guess is the black vocalists who sing the title song provide some of the character voices as well.

It’s unfortunate there are a couple of stereotype clichés in this short and mangled Amos-and-Andy English (though not as bad). It’s not a great cartoon but you can enjoy Darrell Calker’s fine brassy score. Oh, and the Boogie Woogie WACs.

The Almost Return of Miss X

Pat Matthews left his mark at the Walter Lantz studio by animating a couple of cartoons with “Miss X,” Lantz’ equivalent to Red in the Tex Avery cartoons at MGM. Miss X waving her butt while dancing in see-through pantaloons was a bit much for theatre owners, even during the WW2 years, and Lantz dropped her from his cartoon roster.

Matthews left Lantz around 1948 to work at UPA. Besides theatrical cartoons and TV commercials, UPA made industrial shorts; that’s how the studio got its start. One of them was The Sailor and the Seagull, a 1949 short for the U.S. Navy to sell sailors on reenlistment. This was before UPA decided limited character movement was the right movement; the short features lovely, flowing animation that you can find in its earliest theatrical shorts for Columbia.

There’s a dream sequence which feature Miss X-ish harem girls. Were they animated by Matthews? I’d like to think so. He should have been at UPA at the time.

Here are some frames. I wish the resolution was better than this.



There’s an inside joke at the end of the cartoon. It features the names of UPA staffers, likely some of the ones who worked on this cartoon. Matthews’ name isn’t among them, though.



Bobe Cannon was a director, Willie Pyle and Jack Schnerk were animators, Bill Hurtz was a designer, Jules Engel got credited for color, Herb Klynn was eventually the studio production manager who later founded Format Films. There are no credits on this cartoon.

It also features some early cartoon voice work by Daws Butler as the seagull and a few other characters. The McGinty character in the frames above is played by John T. Smith, using the same “What, no gravy?” voice heard later in Chow Hound from Warner Bros.

Blackout Borscht

Starving Woody Woodpecker wolfs down some “Blackout Borscht” from a taxidermist cat that wants to kill him. Here are some reaction drawings.



Don Williams is the only credited animator in Woody Dines Out, directed by Shamus Culhane, but of course there were others.