Jerry Beck has the happy announcement not only that a DVD of Walter Lantz Woody Woodpecker cartoons is on its way but that it will be done right — with well-chosen cartoons properly restored. (Well, almost right: I can't help but look at the cover art and note that when I did the Woody Woodpecker comic book, a drawing like that would have prompted a polite but serious phone call from Mr. Lantz himself, admonishing the editors that Woody's eyes do not cut into his beak.)
My pal Jerry is too modest to tell you about all the lobbying and consulting and suggesting he did to make this happen. So I will.
I'm happy this stuff's coming out even though I'm not the biggest fan of Woody Woodpecker. I once was. As a kid, I loved his TV show but I think what I loved most about it was that Lantz did these little "how to draw cartoons" segments. As I grew older, I'd occasionally catch a Woody cartoon and wonder what it was I ever liked about most of them. I have a VHS tape I picked up once in K-Mart for four bucks that Universal put out many moons ago. It contains all the cartoons Tex Avery directed for the Lantz studio plus five or six good Woody Woodpecker cartoons. I used to tell friends it had every good Walter Lantz cartoon on it.
"Pish and tosh," they'd tell me. Well, not really. I don't know anyone who says "Pish and tosh." But that was the kind of disagreement I heard from animation buffs. There were many wonders from that studio, they'd insist…not just the few on my tape. Well, I'm eager and quite willing to be convinced.