Woody the Woodpecker
Who knew that those old Woody the Woodpecker cartoons we were annoyed by as kids were actually giving us our first doses of modern art?
Tom Klein knew, and now he’s now published this knowledge in Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Klein, an animation professor at Loyola Marymount University, was watching an episode of the high-energy cartoon (“The Loose Nut,” above) when he recognized that the images flashing before his eyes in an explosion scene were much more artistic than your average cartoon.
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After some careful research, Klein found that an animation director named Shamus Culhane worked on the cartoon in the 1940s and he had decidedly “avant-garde” tastes. It’s Klein’s theory that Culhane worked to insert art films into Woody’s cartoon sequences.
“Culhane essentially ‘hid’ his artful excursions in plain sight, letting them rush past too rapidly for the notice of most of his audience,” writes Klein in his article. Clearly, Culhane was artistic and sneaky. We definitely approve. (via New York Times)
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