Woody Woodpecker is an animated cartoon character, an anthropomorphic acorn woodpecker who appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz animation studio and distributed by Universal Pictures. Though not the first of the screwball characters that became popular in the 1940s, Woody is perhaps the most indicative of the type.

Woody was created in 1940 by 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. cartoon studio in the late 1930s. Woody's character and design would evolve 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 was originally voiced by prolific voice actor Mel Blanc, who was succeeded by Ben Hardaway and later by Grace Stafford, wife of Walter Lantz.

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. The character has been revived since then only for special productions and occasions, save for one new Saturday morning cartoon, The New Woody Woodpecker Show, for the Fox Network in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

Woody Woodpeckercartoons 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 has a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 7000 Hollywood Boulevard. He also made a cameo alongside many other famous cartoon characters in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

According to Walter Lantz's press agent, the idea for Woody came during the producer's honeymoon with his wife, Gracie, in Sherwood Lake, California. A noisy woodpecker outside their cabin kept the couple awake at night, and when a heavy rain started, they learned that the bird had bored holes in their cabin's roof. As both Walter and Gracie told Dallas attorney Rod Phelps during a visit, Walter wanted to shoot the thing, but Gracie suggested that her husband make a cartoon about the bird, and thus Woody was born. The story is questionable, however, since the Lantzes were not married until after Woody made his screen debut. Also, their story that the bird's cry inspired Woody's trademark "Ha-ha-ha-HAA-ha!" is also questionable, as Mel Blanc had already used a similar laugh in earlier Warner Bros. cartoons such as Elmer's Candid Camera.

Woody Woodpecker first appeared in the film Knock Knockon November 25, 1940. The cartoon ostensibly stars Andy Panda and his father, Papa Panda, but it is Woody who steals the show. The woodpecker constantly pesters the two pandas, apparently just for the fun of it. Andy, meanwhile, tries to sprinkle salt on Woody's tail in the belief that this will somehow capture the bird. To Woody's surprise, Andy's attempts prevail, and Woody is taken away to the funny farm — but not before his captors prove to be crazier than he is.

The Woody of Knock Knock, designed by animator Alex Lovy, is a truly deranged-looking animal. His buggy eyes look in different directions, and his head is all angles and sharp points. However, the familiar color scheme of red head and blue body is already in place, as is the infamous laugh: "Ha-ha-ha-HAA-ha!". Woody is perhaps the best example of the new type of cartoon character that was becoming popular in the early 1940s — a brash, violent aggressor who pesters innocents not out of self defense, but simply for the fun of it. Woody's original voice actor, Mel Blanc, would stop performing the character after the first four cartoons to work exclusively for Leon Schlesinger Productions (Later renamed Warner Bros. Cartoons) , producer of Warner Bros.' Looney Tunesand Merrie Melodies. At Schlesinger's, Blanc had already established the voices of two other famous "screwball" characters who preceded Woody, Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. Ironically, Blanc's characterization of the Woody Woodpecker laugh had originally been applied to a Bugs Bunny prototype, in shorts such as the aforementioned Elmer's Candid Camera, and was later transferred to Woody. Blanc's regular speaking voice for Woody was much like the early Daffy Duck, minus the lisp. Once Warner Bros. signed Blanc up to an exclusive contract, Woody's voice-over work was taken over by Ben Hardaway, who would voice the woodpecker for the rest of the decade. To complete the connection full circle, Hardaway, who had also worked under Schlesinger at Warner Bros., was the designer of the Bugs Bunny prototype that Blanc supplied the aforementioned laugh for. Haradaway's nickname around Termite Terrace (the ramshackle building where the Looney Tunes were originally produced) was "Bugs," and the bunny prototype's first model sheet was labeled "Bugs' Bunny"--the apostrophe was later dropped.

Audiences reacted well to Knock Knock, and Lantz realized he had finally hit upon a star to replace the waning Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Woody would go on to star in a number of films. With his innate chutzpah and brash demeanor, the character was a natural hit during World War II. His image appeared on US aircraft and mess halls, and audiences on the homefront watched Woody cope with familiar problems such as food shortages. The 1943 Woody cartoon The Dizzy Acrobatwas nominated for the 1944 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), which it lost to the MGM Tom and Jerrycartoon The Yankee Doodle Mouse.

Animator Emery Hawkins and layout artist Art Heinemann streamlined Woody's appearance for the 1944 film The Barber of Seville, directed by Shamus Culhane. The bird became rounder, cuter, and less demented. He also sported a simplified color scheme and a brighter smile, making him much more like his counterparts at Warner Bros. and MGM. Nevertheless, Culhane continued to use Woody as an aggressive lunatic, not a domesticated straight man or defensive homebody, as many other studios' characters had become. The follow-up to The Barber of Seville, The Beach Nut, introduced Woody's chief nemesis Wally Walrus.

Woody's wild days were numbered, however. In 1946, Lantz hired Disney veteran Dick Lundy to take over the direction chores for Woody's cartoons. Lundy rejected Culhane's take on the series and made Woody more defensive; no longer did the bird go insane without a legitimate reason. Lundy also paid more attention to the animation, making Woody's new films more Disney-esque in their design style, animation, and timing. Lundy's last film for Disney was the Donald Duck short Flying Jalopy. This cartoon is played much like a Woody Woodpecker short, right down to the laugh in the end. It also features a bad guy named "Ben Buzzard" who bears a strong resemblance to Buzz Buzzard, a Lantz character introduced in the 1948 short Wet Blanket Policywho would eventually succeed as Woody's primary antagonist.

In 1947, contract renewal negotiations between Lantz and Universal (now Universal-International) fell through, and Lantz began distributing his cartoons through United Artists. The UA-distributed Lantz cartoons featured higher-quality animation, the influence of Dick Lundy (the films' budgets remained the same). Former Disney animators such as Fred Moore and Ed Love began working at Lantz, and assisted Lundy in adding touches of the Disney style to Woody's cartoons.

In 1947, Woody got his own theme song when musicians George Tibbles and Ramey Idriss wrote "The Woody Woodpecker Song", making ample use of the character's famous laugh. Kay Kyser's 1948 recording of the song, with Harry Babbitt's laugh interrupting vocalist Gloria Wood, became one of the biggest hit singles of 1948. Other artists did covers, including Woody's original voice actor, Mel Blanc. Lantz first used "The Woody Woodpecker Song" in the 1948 short Wet Blanket Policy, and became the first and only song from an animated short subject to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song. Lantz soon adopted the song as Woody's theme music, and due to the song's popularity, Woody Woodpecker fan clubs sprang up, theaters held "Woody" matinées, and boys got the "Woody Woodpecker" haircut.

"The Woody Woodpecker Song" and the Woody Woodpeckercartoons made extensive use of Woody's famous laugh, upsetting the man who created it, Mel Blanc. (The laugh, in a different recording, was first used for the seminal Bugs Bunny prototype character in the 1940 Warner Bros. cartoon " Elmer's Candid Camera"). Although Blanc had only recorded four shorts as the voice of Woody, his laugh had been recorded as a stock sound effect, and used in every subsequent Woody Woodpeckershort up until this point. Blanc sued Lantz and lost, but Lantz settled out of court when Blanc filed an appeal. While Lantz would stop using Blanc's Woody Woodpecker laugh as a stock effect in the early 1950s, Blanc's voice would be heard saying "Guess who?" at the beginning of every cartoon for the duration of the Woody Woodpeckerseries.

The lower revenues Lantz received from United Artists, in contrast to Universal, caused financial problems within the studio, and by the end of 1948 Lantz had to shut his studio down. The Lantz studio did not re-open again until 1950, by which time the staff was severely downsized.

Beginning with the 1950 feature film Destination Moon, which featured a brief segment of Woody explaining rocket propulsion, Woody's voice was taken over for this and following films by Lantz's wife, Grace Stafford. According to the Lantzes, Stafford slipped a recording of herself into a stack of audition tapes, and her husband chose her without knowing her identity. Lantz also began having Stafford supply Woody's laugh, possibly due to the court case with Mel Blanc. Nevertheless, Stafford was not credited for her work at her own request until 1958 with the film Misguided Missile, as she felt audiences might reject a woman doing Woody's voice. Stafford also did her best to tone down the character through her voice work, to appease Universal's complaints about Woody's raucousness.

Lantz signed again with Universal (now Universal-International) in 1950, and began production on two Woody Woodpeckercartoons that director Dick Lundy and storymen Ben Hardaway and Heck Allen had begun before the 1948 layoff. These shorts have no director's credit, as Lantz claims to have directed them himself. Puny Express, released by Universal-International in 1951, was the first to be released, followed by Sleep Happy. These shorts marked a departure from the dialogue-driven shorts of the past. Though Stafford now voiced Woody, her job was limited, as Woody (as well as the rest of the characters) rarely spoke in the first dozen or so shorts. It was because of these shorts that Woody became very popular overseas, thanks to the lack of a language barrier ( The Pink Panthershorts of the 1960s and 1970s would also enjoy worldwide popularity due to this pantomime luxury).

Nine more Lantz-directed Woody cartoons followed, before Don Patterson became Woody's new director in 1953. The bird was redesigned once again for these new cartoons, this time by animator LaVerne Harding. Harding made Woody smaller, cuter, and moved his top-knot forward from its original backwards position. (The small Lantz Studios logo seen at the start of every cartoon - Woody as an armored knight on horseback carrying a lance- continued to display Woody with his old topknot for a while.) By 1955, Woody also received one more minor makeover, making his domestication complete: the hazel pigmentation in his eye was eliminated starting with 1955's The Tree Medic, making Woody's eye a simple black dot.

By 1955, Paul J. Smith had taken over as primary director of Woody's shorts, with periodic fill-in shorts directed by Alex Lovy and Jack Hannah, among others. With Smith on board, the shorts maintained a healthy dose of frenetic energy, while the animation itself was simplified, due to budget constraints.

In addition to Lantz's wife Grace Stafford providing Woody's voice, which returned the cartoon to being more dialogue-driven again, voice talents during this period were generally split between Dal McKennon and Daws Butler. This era would also introduce several of Woody's recurring costars, most notably Gabby Gator (voiced by Daws Butler in the voice he used to voice Huckleberry Hound) who first appeared in Everglade Raid(then known as "Al I. Gator"). Other films paired Woody with a girlfriend, Winnie Woodpecker, and a niece and nephew, Splinter and Knothead (both voiced by June Foray). Other antagonists that Woody has dealt with were Ms. Meaney (voiced by Grace Stafford) and Dapper Denver Dooley (voiced by Dallas McKennon).

As Lantz was struggling financially, Woody's longevity was secured when he made the jump to television in The Woody Woodpecker Showon ABC. The half-hour program consisted of three theatrical Woody shorts followed by a brief look at cartoon creation hosted by Lantz. It ran from 1957 to 1958 then entered syndication until 1966. It was later revived by NBC in 1970, and again in 1976. In addition, the woodpecker was no longer dishing out abuse to his foils, but was instead on the receiving end. The first notable short to feature Woody as the straight man was 1961's Franken-Stymied. Woody's popularity had been based on his manic craziness, and by 1961, this had all but been eliminated in favor of a more serious Woody, one that was trying to do good. This was due in part to Woody's large presence on television, which meant Lantz had to meet the stringent rules against violence for children's television.

Woody continued to appear in new theatrical shorts until 1972, when Lantz closed his studio's doors due to rising production costs. His cartoons returned to syndication in the late 1970s. Lantz sold his library of Woody shorts to MCA/Universal in 1985. Universal repackaged the cartoons for another syndicated Woody Woodpecker Showin 1987. A year later, Woody made a brief cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, voiced by Cherry Davis, near the end of the film. In 1995, Woody appeared in a Pepsi commercial with NBA star Shaquille O'Neal.

Woody Woodpecker reappeared in the Fox Kids series The New Woody Woodpecker Show, which ran on Saturday mornings from 1999 to 2002. The series featured the first new Woody cartoons to be produced in over 20 years, and returned the character's design to the Dick Lundy/Emery Hawkins version of the late 1940s, as well as redesigning characters with later appearances, such as Dapper Denver Dooley (who debuted in 1955's Square Shootin' Square) and Miss Meany (who debuted in 1963's Calling Dr. Woodpecker). Winnie Woodpecker was resurrected from 1954's Real Gone Woody.While there have been plenty of women in Woody's life such as a Native American woman in Scalp Treatment,Ga Ga Gazoon from Belle Boys,a Mexican woman from Hot Noon (or 12 O'Clock For Sure),Princess Salami from Socko in Moroccoand Gorgeous Gal from A Fine Feathered Frenzy,Winnie was the most obvious choice for his love interest on the show. Woody's voice is now provided by voice actor Billy West. As of 2009, The New Woody Woodpecker Showremains the most recent show featuring Woody Woodpecker.

Woody and Winnie both appear as costumed characters at Universal Orlando, Universal Studios Japan and Universal Studios Hollywood.

The Woody Woodpecker Showwas named the 88th best animated series by IGN.

Walter Lantz and movie pioneer George Pál were good friends. Woody Woodpecker makes a cameo in nearly every film that Pál either produced or directed—for example, during the 1960 sequence in The Time Machine, there is a brief shot of a little girl dropping her Woody Woodpecker doll as she goes into the air raid shelter.

Woody was number 46 on TV Guide's list of the 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All-Time in 2002 and 2003. He came in at number 25 on Animal Planet's list of The 50 Greatest Movie Animalsin 2004. The character has been referenced and spoofed on many later television programs, among them The Simpsons, American Dad!, South Park, The Fairly OddParents, Family Guyand Seinfeld.

The Beach Boys' 1967 album Smiley Smilefeatured a song entitled "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony)." Also, the first song on the 2007 Dan Deacon album Spiderman of the Ringsis entitled "Wooody Wooodpecker" and makes extensive use of the character's trademark laugh.

Woody Woodpecker is the mascot for the Universal Studios Theme Parks. In 1998, Woody appeared on the nose of the Williams Formula One Team, and in 2000, he became the official team mascot of the Honda Motorcycle Racing Team. A balloon featuring the character has long been a staple of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

A handful of non-comprehensive Woody WoodpeckerVHS tapes were issued by Universal in the 1980s and 1990s, usually including Andy Panda and Chilly Willy cartoons as bonuses. A few were widely released on VHS in the mid-1980s by Kid Pics Video, an American company of dubious legality, who packaged the Woody cartoons with bootlegged Disney cartoons. In the early 2000s, a series of mail-order Woody Woodpecker ShowVHS tapes and DVDs were made available by mail order through Columbia House. However, following complaints about censorship (the cartoons included featured varying amounts of censorship, from restored and intact prints to severely cut TV edits), the series ended after fifteen volumes rather than the planned twenty.

In 2007, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection, a three-disc DVD box set compilation of Walter Lantz "Cartunes". The first forty-five Woody Woodpecker shorts — from Knock Knockto The Great Who-Dood-It— were presented on the box set in chronological order of release, with various Chilly Willy, Andy Panda, Swing Symphonies, and other Lantz shorts also included. The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection: Volume 2, including the next forty-five Woodycartoons — Termites from Marsthrough Jittery Jester— was released in 2008. A vanilla "best-of" release, entitled Woody Woodpecker Favorites, was released in 2009, which contained no new-to-DVD material. Plans for further releases, as well as a region 1 DVD release of The New Woody Woodpecker Show, are currently on hold, although the 1999 series has received VHS and DVD releases outside of North America and is available for viewing on Hulu.

Apart from authorized releases, the Woody Woodpecker cartoon most widely available on legal home video is Pantry Panic, as that cartoon has fallen into the public domain.

Blanc originated the voice, in a characterization similar to his Daffy Duck, minus the lisp, with the recording slightly sped up to give a higher pitched tone to the voice. That practice would continue with other voice artists.

Several video games of Woody Woodpecker were released for Mega Drive/Genesis, Dreamcast, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PC, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance.

Mattel purchased the rights for a Woody Woodpecker Intellivision game, and Grace Stafford recorded new dialog for the game, but it was neither completed nor released.

Additionally, a series of pachinko games has been released in Japan by Maruhon.