They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To

BY THE NUMBERS

By The Numbers, a look at what’s in the news . . . by the numbers. These are just numbers, not suggestions that they mean more or less than what they are. We do not suggest that one number is connected to another. These are simply facts with no extraneous details, bias or slanted reporting. To borrow (and perhaps mangle a bit) a quote from legendary fictional detective Joe Friday, it’s just the numbers, ma’am!

Today we celebrate the anniversary of the birth date of Walter Benjamin Lantz. If you are of a certain age and Walt Lantz sounds a little familiar . . . but you just can’t quite place it . . . think back to sitting on the floor in front of a small black and white TV screen and watching cartoons. Got it yet? Lantz was an cartoonist and animator and created Woody Woodpecker. So today, 127 years after his birth, we’re happy to take a look back at a friendlier time when Woody Woodpecker and his friends ruled our television sets.

204

Believe it or not, there are 204 films featuring Woody. They came out between 1940 and 1972.

2

The very first Woody Woodpecker film in 1940 was called Knock, Knock. The very last one 32 years later was called Bye, Bye Blackboard.

40

What was considered the Golden Age of Cartoons came along over a 40-year period. It began in the 1920s and lasted into the 1960s.

5

It’s an arguable point, but most experts would agree that there were five big studios behind most of the bigger cartoons during the Golden Age. Disney produced a bunch, led by Mickey Mouse. Warner Bros. had Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck and others. MGM were led by Tom and Jerry. Fleischer and Paramount had Popeye the Sailor Man (and can you read that without hearing “toot-toot?”) and Lantz had Woody.

1,000

If you were a fan of Merrie Melodies and the whole Looney Tunes gang, then you probably are not surprised that there was about a thousand of the animated cartoons,

150+

Out of all those, Bugs Bunny was in more than 150.

42

Remember Space Ghost? If you watched television cartoons in the early and mid-1960s we’ll bet you do. Space Ghost starred in his own animated series and there were 42 episodes.

249

Another big player was Hannah-Barbera (the folks behind Space Ghost, the Flinstones, Scoopy Doo and others. Altogether the studio was responsible for 249 cartoon series.

26

Remember Jonny Quest from 1964-65? There were only 26 episodes made.

99

OK, it wasn’t from back in the day, but Warner Bros. came out with the Animaniacs in 1993 and Baby Boomers ate it up.

3-22-94

Lantz passed away on March 22, 1994 at the age of 94. He is buried in Hollywood at Forest Lawn Memorial Park with other stars.