How does not know the likeable, lively Woody Woodpecker? The animated character has long won fame and children’s hearts. His creator Walter Lantz (1899 - 1994) started to work as cartoonist for Heart International when he was only 16. He soon established his own studio.

Lantz loves to tell a beautiful but doubtful story about Woody’s origin: during their honeymoon near Sherwood Lake in California, he and his wife Grace were regularly visited by a woodpecker that tried to peck a hole into the pan tiles. Annoyed by the anarchistic bird, he instructed his team to create a woodpecker character that tyrannises his environment. (There is just one hitch: The honeymoon trip was a year after Woody’s debut.).

Woody Woodpecker had his first guest appearance 1940 at Andy Panda. Surprisingly, he went down really well and henceforth the woodpecker and his unique laughter left their mark on many cartoons by Universal. 1957 he got his own animated TV show.