u/thatWWfan

Found this on Pinterest, I can't find the original artist or source but I'm guessing this is late 2000s.

Most of these didn’t get made and the last picture is a pamphlet from the actual line up of toys they went with. There’s also concept art for a Woody and Winnie toy along with a Smedley and Chilly Willy one too (both with proto-designs) but I unfortunately can’t find those photos for the life of me right now.

Too often I think about what this show could’ve been and then I get sad we were so close to having another Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat or Ralph Bakshi Mighty Mouse or even something like the Casper series also on Fox Kids which was pretty good.

The first ten photos are from Toy Network’s Woody Woodpecker plush line which apparently lasted from 1999-2004. Despite a lot of their Woody plushies looking pretty terrible, they’ve probably done the most variants out of any other company I know of. They’re also one of the only companies to have made merch of the other Lantz characters (and in their 1997 designs no less!). I have no idea how many other variants or characters they could’ve made, so this is just all I’ve been able to find so far.

It seems Winnie got the most merch, she has multiple plushies and a figure from USJ and even the American Universal parks got some stuff in form of this pencil topper and snow globe, which I am happy to own both ;)
She’s also in this small ornament set too.

And finally there’s this really neat Fève set, these tiny porcelain figurines from France. It gives us figures of nearly the entire Lantz gang (this also being the only merch most of these characters even have in general).

I think they were good friends anyway.

So basically any “modern” era merch sans Woody. Besides Chilly Willy who has always been treated in merch as his own separate thing and even still gets new stuff on occasion (I literally found Chilly Willy socks in a Ross Dress for Less store in 2022 once :>), it is exceedingly rare for any of the other Walter Lantz characters to get merch and I think that’s a huge shame. But it isn’t too surprising given their obscurity.

I find it really interesting that Andy Panda (whom has almost never been acknowledged by Universal after the 90s) got two new pieces of merch in the late 2000s (an Electric Tiki statue and a beanie) and I’m pretty sure that’s all they’ve ever done with him merch wise.

As title says this is a book about the greatest cartoons from the golden age of animation and one lone Woody short made its way on the #43 spot which I thought was neat. I also added the cover since Woody is there too. Great book too btw, I highly recommended to anyone who likes this stuff.

I definitely feel like they could’ve worked as a Daffy Duck and Porky Pig duo in more shorts (“Musical Moments from Chopin” is the closest we got to dynamic). It also would’ve been a nice way to keep using Andy Panda rather than just relegating him to comics after the 1940s. And it’s crazy that no other media besides the theatrical shorts has explored this dynamic, not even the web series which actually brought Andy back (only to do barely anything with him).

It fills a void by giving Woody someone else to bounce off of, since he’s mostly solo with only occasional pairings with Wally Walrus (that aren’t fully antagonistic) and some scanty appearances with Winnie. Andy is one of Woody's only genuine friends who doesn’t hold any resentment towards him and has a simple enough personality that can’t be screwed up unlike what newer media did to Winnie.

I haven’t posted this in a while though not much has really changed besides the new frames. I tend to mostly collect late 90/2000s era merch with a few exceptions, I like a lot of the Universal Studios merch especially (it’s also the only place where we even get new merch nowadays T-T). I also have bunch of t-shirts, ephemeral, and some other books too, though it’d be a hassle to get it all out now. Perhaps I’ll do a bit more for Woody’s birthday in a few months.