Woody Woodpecker, Universal Studios' Biggest Star

Woody Woodpecker, Universal Studios' Biggest Star is the second episode of Universal Kids' late-night animation anthology program, Blastoons!. It features six cartoons, featuring Universal Studios' true major star: Woody Woodpecker.
 * Woody Woodpecker (1941)
 * Born to Peck (1952)
 * The animated sequence of Destination Moon (1950)
 * The Coo Coo Bird (1947)
 * After the Ball'' (1956)
 * Wacky-Bye Baby (1948)

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Now, it's time for Blastoons! trivia.

Woody Woodpecker was one of American animation's biggest successes in the movie-going public. But, something happened that Walter Lantz and his animation crew at Universal Studios, decided to create new cartoons shorts for TV. What happened?

We'll return in a moment, with the answer on Blastoons!, only on Universal Kids.

After Commercial Break
Welcome back to Blastoons! trivia. Unfortunately, during the 1950's, Walter Lantz's theatrical cartoon business was losing the money. He knew that the only way to subsidize the rising costs of new cartoons was to release his product to television.

The executive producer of Universal shorts, Norman Gluck decided to make a deal with the Leo Burnett Agency to release Universal cartoons on television. Burnett handled the Kellogg's cereal account, and Lantz soon met with the Kellogg's crew to sign up the contract.

In the late-50s, Universal Studios, produce the new animated TV series for the ABC network, called The Woody Woodpecker Show. But surprisingly, with the success of the TV series, Walter Lantz and his crew, happily returned to its theatrical cartoon business.

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Now, it's time for Blastoons! trivia.

Woody Woodpecker was Universal's major cartoon star. But during his career, Universal Pictures distributed almost every Walter Lantz cartoon. What is the only other movie studio around Hollywood, to distribute a Walter Lantz cartoon, and what happened two years later?

We'll return in just a moment, with the answer.

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Welcome back to Blastoons! trivia.

United Artists studio never liked the character of Woody Woodpecker. It thought Woody was a fine-feathered fiend.