Studio: Walter Lantz Productions
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Short Synopsis
Woody Woodpecker is hungry and looking for somewhere to eat. Every restaurant he tries is closed or full. Then he spots a sign in a shop window: "We specialize in stuffing birds". Thinking he has found the perfect place for a good meal, Woody walks in and sits down at the counter. The shop is not a restaurant but a taxidermist's, full of mounted heads and stuffed animals, and the owner, a lean cat in shirtsleeves, is delighted to see a live woodpecker walk in. He plays along, treating Woody as a customer at the counter while planning to make him the shop's next exhibit. Woody slowly realises what kind of stuffing the sign meant, and the rest of the film is a fight for survival among the taxidermist's tools and trophies; how it ends is not described in sources this book could check.
Why It Matters
- The misunderstood sign is a simple, perfect premise, and Shamus Culhane, one of the most stylish directors of the period, stages the taxidermist's shop with menace, its stuffed heads looming over the counter. Culhane's Woody cartoons are known for their fast cutting and bold layouts, influenced by Soviet film editing.
- It comes from Culhane's short but celebrated run at Lantz in 1944 and 1945, which included The Barber of Seville and The Dippy Diplomat and is regarded as Woody's creative high point. In those films Culhane gave the woodpecker a sharper, more dynamic visual style than he ever had again.
Notes and Trivia
- It was the fourteenth Woody Woodpecker cartoon.
- See also: The Barber of Seville (1944), Ration Bored (1943).