A noisy acorn woodpecker outside their cabin kept the couple awake at night, and when heavy rain started, they learned that the bird had bored holes in their cabin's roof. The inspiration for the character allegedly came during producer Walter Lantz's honeymoon with his wife, Grace, in June Lake, California in 1940, a dubious story given the fact that Woody's first appearance predated Lantz and Stafford's honeymoon. Woody and his friends are also icons at the Universal Studios Theme Parks worldwide, as well as the PortAventura Park in the Salou, Spain, where they remain despite Universal no longer have a financial stake in the park. Woody Woodpecker is the official mascot of Universal Pictures. He also made a cameo appearance alongside many other famous cartoon characters in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Woody has a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard. That was followed by a new series of shorts released via YouTube beginning in 2018. In 2017, a live-action/CGI hybrid feature film, titled simply Woody Woodpecker was released theatrically in Latin America, while released direct-to-video in other territories.
The character has been revived since then for special productions and occasions, as well as for The New Woody Woodpecker Show, a Saturday-morning cartoon television series featuring prolific voice actor Billy West as Woody that aired from 1999 to 2002. Lantz produced theatrical cartoons longer than most of his contemporaries, and Woody Woodpecker remained a staple of Universal's release schedule until 1972 when Lantz finally closed down his studio. Woody Woodpecker cartoons were first broadcast on television in 1957 under the title The Woody Woodpecker Show, which featured Lantz cartoons bookended by new footage of Woody and live-action footage of Lantz. Woody was originally voiced by prolific voice actor Mel Blanc, who was succeeded in the shorts by Danny Webb, Kent Rogers, Dick Nelson, Ben Hardaway, and, finally, Grace Stafford (wife of Walter Lantz). Woody's character and design evolved over the years, from an insane bird with an unusually garish design to a more refined-looking and acting character in the vein of the later Chuck Jones version of Bugs Bunny. Woody, an anthropomorphic woodpecker, was created in 1940 by Lantz and storyboard artist Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, who had previously laid the groundwork for two other screwball characters, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, at the Warner Bros. Woody Woodpecker is an animated character that appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz Studio and distributed by Universal Pictures between 19.
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