Pantry Panic - Production Notes

Production Notes

Like most of the early 1940s Lantz cartoons, Pantry Panic carried no director's credit. Lantz himself has claimed to have directed this cartoon, which features animation by Alex Lovy and LaVerne Harding, a story by Ben Hardaway and Lowell Elliott, and music by Darrell Calker.

Pantry Panic was the third cartoon in the Woody Woodpecker series (thus featuring an early garish Woody Woodpecker design), and the fourth short to star the character. It was the first short with Danny Webb as Woody's voice. However, the woodpecker's famous laugh (provided by Mel Blanc) would continue to be recycled until 1951, when Grace Stafford rerecorded a softer version. Woody's "Guess Who?" (also supplied by Blanc), however, would continue to be used right up until the end of the series in 1972.

Today, Pantry Panic is the only Woody Woodpecker cartoon in the public domain. As such, it is freely distributed, and can be downloaded from the Internet Archive and seen on YouTube.

Pantry Panic would be reworked in 1946 as Who's Cookin' Who? The Starvation personification used here would be used on that short as well as 1951's The Redwood Sap.