This is a 2D animated biography dedicated to Walter Lantz, created by taking inspiration from certain aspects his life story and work in the animation industry.
Brief Life Story:
Walter Benjamin Lantz, an American animation director and producer was born on 27th April 1899 to a family of grocers. From a young age he had to run their grocery store after his mother’s death while giving birth to his brother, along with his Italian father becoming physically incapacitated.
Lantz got his first break while working as an auto mechanic, where a wealthy customer (Fred Kafka) liked his drawings and financially supported him to study at the “Art Students League of New York” and land a job as a copy boy at the “New York American” . He then worked at International Film Service, John Bray’s cartoon studio, Universal Pictures and finally in 1935, he established his own animation studio called ‘Walter Lantz Productions’. He created iconic characters such as Dinky Doodle, Andy Panda, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Chilly Willy and many more. In 1940 he created his most famous character Woody Woodpecker.
His studio survived the 1960s by rerunning their old cartoons on television and Lantz was also honored with an Academy Award in 1978 for the theme song of Woody Woodpecker. Lantz spent his final years managing the distribution of his old cartoons on TV, while painting in his spare time and passed away on 27th March 1994.