What if Walter Lantz Productions didn't close down in 1972

Yeah. This is an AU idea where Walter Lantz Productions (who created Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy) didn't close its doors and continued releasing cartoons before 1972.

History
Once Lantz reopened his cartoon studio, and re-signed his contract with Universal, the studio continued making cartoons with its biggest Woodpecker star and other important characters. This manages the studio to live long during the Golden age of animation until the Dark Era, thanks to the sucess of The Woody Woodpecker Show.

1972 comes with a true feeling the studio would be cancelled, as many others like the Warners, MGM and Paramount studios ceased with the theatrical shorts in the late 60's and only his and the De-Patie Freleng studio was still making cartoons to theaters. Lantz, unlike many others, have theatrical shorts first in mind, and TV after that, so carring on with shorts production shall be no problem.

1973 started weakly for the studio, as there was no Chilly Willy cartoons that year, so only 6 shorts were produced between January and May of that year.

The studio only resumed cartoons 3 months later, after the success of the 1973 film American Graffiti, which they milked the payroll of the money the film gathered. This helped the studio to carry on with the cartoons production for surprising 17 years.

Intros
Some major differences from cartoons of this era, are the Universal logo at the start, which now have the MCA byline, like the movie version. The openings of the shorts were once again modified, starting with Cold N' Warm.

The usual The End logo used since 1959, and with that blue background since 1963 or so, was retired by 1974. From 1975, a new ending logo was used for the cartoons, featuring customed backgrounds that varies with the cartoon.

The The End font was now variable from short to short, with the Walter Lantz credit logo, knows for some as the spiraling Walter Lantz signature, as features a small line on the bottom right of the screen drawing the signature of Walter Lantz. It lasted until 1977, when it was replaced by the newest Walter Lantz logo, the WLP letters, who appear with a big, fat blocky font.

Cast and Crew
The studio crew was pratically the same until the cartoon Race Ace. Starting with Car Washers, only music composer Walter Greene, voice actors Grace Stafford, Dallas Mckennon, Paul Frees and Daws Butler stayed. Animators veterans of the studio Les Kline, LaVerne Harding and new Ted Bonnicksen joined the studio until the Larry Lizard the Wizard cartoon Never Question a Wizard, when they leave the studio from their former works. Starting with the Woody Woodpecker cartoon Weaker Week, former animator of the studio Volus Jones returns to animate the last three cartoons of 1978 and the batch of 1979, alongside with Al Coe.

Paul J. Smith directed himself all the shorts until 1979, when he retired due to his poor health. Because of this, no shorts were made during the 1980's, when production resumed on 1990's, on the 60th birthday of the Woody Woodpecker appearance. New daily shorts featuring him with Chilly were made until his 70th anniversary in 2000. (At that time, The New Woody Woodpecker Show was broadcasted its second season on Fox Kids)

In the 1990's shorts, Woody's voice was now the same one of his appearance on the 1991 Oscar Awards. His design was now closer to his 40's one. Shorts from 1997 and 2000 has him now voiced by Billy West, who also went to voice him in the new TV series.

The studio went on 3 hiatus though this new era. The first one went on the 1980's, because of the death of Paul J. Smith. The second went from 1994 to 1995, as a decision of Lantz's son, when his father died. The third and final one went from 1998 to 1999, as The New Woody Woodpecker Show was in post-production.

Shorts
What if Walter Lantz Productions didn't close down in 1972/Shorts

Notes/Trivia
(Reserved for GrishamAnimationStudios102)

Title Cards Gallery
(Reserved for KKDisney)