Pantry Panic

Pantry Panic
Pantry Panic
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Directed by	Walter Lantz
Story by	Ben Hardaway; L.E. Elliott
Produced by	Walter Lantz
Starring	Danny Webb; Mel Blanc; Marge Tarlton; Margaret McKay
Music by	Darrell Calker
Animation by	Alex Lovy; Lester Kline; Laverne Harding (unc.); Frank Tipper (unc.); Hal Mason (unc.)
Backgrounds by	Ed Kiechle (unc.)
Color process	Technicolor
Production; company	Walter Lantz Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	November 24, 1941;
Running time	6:55
Country	United States
Language	English

Pantry Panic is the third animated cartoon short in the Woody Woodpecker series. Released theatrically on November 24, 1941, the film was produced by Walter Lantz Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures.^[2]

Plot

Woody stays behind to swim while the other birds in the forest migrate south for the winter. Just after the other birds leave, the cold of winter sets in instantly, to the point that Woody's swimming hole freezes solid after he jumps in ("Must be hard water", he remarks). Woody does not worry, because he has stored up plenty of food. However, a snow storm enters his house and makes off with all of his possessions, food included.

Two weeks later, Woody is delusional and literally staring starvation, personified as something vaguely resembling the Grim Reaper, in the face. A month later, a hungry cat happens upon Woody's cabin, and conspires to eat the woodpecker. The famished Woody, however, plans just as quickly to eat the cat, and the two have at it. Eventually a moose appears at Woody's open door, and the starving cat and woodpecker chase after it to capture and eat it. Afterwards, however, the meal proves not to be enough to satisfy both Woody (whose voice is suddenly much different) and the cat, who instantly resume their game of trying to eat each other.

Voices

Danny Webb was the voice of Woody Woodpecker; Korny Kat and the Moose, and bird voices were done by Marge Tarlton and Margaret McKay^[3]

Production notes

Like most of the early 1940s Lantz cartoons, Pantry Panic carried no director's credit. Lantz himself has claimed to have directed this cartoon, which features animation by Alex Lovy and LaVerne Harding, a story by Ben Hardaway and Lowell Elliott, and music by Darrell Calker.

Pantry Panic was the third cartoon in the Woody Woodpecker series, featuring an early, garish Woody Woodpecker design. It was the only short with Danny Webb as Woody's voice (and also the last short to feature Mel Blanc since Blanc had recorded Woody's earliest dialogue before he got an exclusive contract to do voice work for cartoons solely for Leon Schlesinger Productions). However, the woodpecker's famous laugh (provided by Mel Blanc) would continue to be recycled until 1951, when Grace Stafford rerecorded a softer version. Woody's "Guess Who?" (also Blanc), however, would continue to be used in the opening titles until the end of the series in 1972.^[4]

Pantry Panic would be reworked in 1946 as Who's Cookin' Who?. The starvation personification would also reappear in the remake as well as 1951's The Redwood Sap. As of 2021, this entry is the only Woody Woodpecker cartoon in the public domain. As such, it is freely distributed, and can be downloaded from the Internet Archive and seen on YouTube.

References

^ ^a ^b "Tralfaz: Pantry Panic Backgrounds". Tralfaz. January 8, 2018. Retrieved November 5, 2020.
^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 157–158. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7.
^ ""GUESS WHO??" Voice Artists in the Woody Woodpecker Cartoons |". cartoonresearch.com. Retrieved September 20, 2021.
^ Cooke, Jon, Komorowski, Thad, Shakarian, Pietro, and Tatay, Jack. "1941 Archived 2012-05-23 at the Wayback Machine". The Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia

External links

[Tralfaz-1] "Tralfaz: Pantry Panic Backgrounds". Tralfaz. January 8, 2018. Retrieved November 5, 2020.

[2] Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 157–158. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7.

[3] ""GUESS WHO??" Voice Artists in the Woody Woodpecker Cartoons |". cartoonresearch.com. Retrieved September 20, 2021.

[4] Cooke, Jon, Komorowski, Thad, Shakarian, Pietro, and Tatay, Jack. "1941 Archived 2012-05-23 at the Wayback Machine". The Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia

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