Walter Lantz AutographsWalter Lantz was born on April 27, 1900 in New Rochelle, New York. As a child, he studied art at home through correspondence courses. At sixteen, he moved to New York City and landed a directing position at the John R. Bray Studios. In 1924, he showcased his first cartoon creation, "Dinky Doodle." Oswald the RabbitIn 1927, Brat Studios went bankrupt and Lantz set out for Hollywood. He found another directing position at Charles B. Mintz, working on the "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" cartoon series for Universal Studios. Universal decided to produce Oswald without the assistance of Mintz in 1929. According to legend, Lantz won ownership of the new studio from Universal president Carl Laemmle in a poker game. Lantz ran out of stories for the Oswald character so he came up with new ones - Andy Panda, Wally Walrus, Chilly Willy, among others. Andy Panda went over particularly well with the public. Andy was the starring character for him in 1939-1940. Wood WoodpeckerIn 1940 Lantz and actress Grace Stafford were married. A noisy woodpecker disrupted their honeymoon with it's rat-a-tat-tat pecking. Grace mentioned to her husband that a woodpecker might be a good cartoon character, especially since one hadn't been done yet. Mel Blanc was the voice of Woody for the first three cartoons. Even after Blanc left, his voice was still used for Woody's distinctive laugh (Ben Hardaway was doing the new voice work). Blanc sued Lantz for a half a million dollars and lost. Lantz and Blanc reached an undisclosed settlement to avoid appeals. In 1950. Lantz was looking fo a new voice for Woody. His wife Gracie wanted the job, but Walter was against it because he believed Woody need a male voice. Through anonymous auditions, Gracie won the job. With Gracie's voice, Woody became less feisty and more friendly, even cute. Because of this Lantz and his team of animators redesigned the character to suit the new voice. The Woody Woodpecker ShowMany baby boomers have fond memories of Lantz from his 1950's television series, "The Woody Woodpecker Show." It was revived by NBC in 1970, but Lantz was forced to edit out some of the good old fashioned violence that Woody was known for and make him the victim instead of the aggressor. In other words, a lot of the fun was sucked right out of poor old Woody. He died on March 22, 1994, in Burbank, CA. Gracie died two years earlier. AutographsWalter Lantz signed a great deal of autographs both in person and through the mail while he was alive, and his autographed material is relatively inexpensive because of that. Considering that he was a giant in his field, his autographs are probably under under priced. Signed photos list for around $100. Signed copies of "The Walter Lantz Story" by Joe Adamson show up on eBay often and they usually close at around $40 which is probably a safe investment. In my collection, I have a signed Walter Lantz Productions payroll check.
These have been showing up regularly on eBay and dealer's catalogues for the last few years. Like all bank checks, they are finite in number and the supply will eventually be exhausted as they all get filed away in collections. Today, they can be bought for under $20. I also have an unused Woody Woodpecker greeting card from the Walter Lantz estate. It is signed on the front in gold ink by Walter Lantz. On the inside it reads (printed) "Greetings from Walter and Gracie Lantz."
|
A little later, Woody Woodpecker showed up in an Andy Panda short, "Knock Knock." The public took a liking to Woody, so Lantz decided to give him his own series.
He would use part of the show to explain how cartoons were made. It ran in 1957 and 1958 on ABC and was in syndication until 1966.
