Here are the 2 poses we see and feel in the animation. They are holds. They are drawn with perfectly clear negative spaces, contrasts and lines of action. The action happening between them is visually obvious. Buzz stretches Woody up. The action is clear in just the still poses.

Woody is about to go from pose 1 to pose 2 - but not directly.

http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/01Principles/antics/WoodySolidanticMad.mov

Here it is with every frame:

Here's a sequence from one of my favorite Lantz cartoons: Solid Ivory.
It shows a perfect combination of good direction and animation happening at the same time. You don't always find these two skills in the same film. When they are working together its cartoon magic.
The director (Dick Lundy) did the overall timing and cutting. It looks like it's mostly on a 10x beat - a "march beat". Same beat I used for the "Happy Happy Joy Joy" song. 10x beats evoke a feeling of nervous energy. Don't ask me why.
Within that beat, it has a good variety of contrasts in the timing. Some things happen fast, and other things are slower or more evenly timed. It all adds up to visual melody.
The animation is very cartoony and elastic. It's full of principles but they are all subservient to the gags. You're not thinking to yourself "My, what wonderful squash and stretch", or "How beautiful is that overlapping action?" as you might in "Lady and The Tramp" or "Cats Don't Dance" where you can admire the motion on a technical level, but it all seems just too conscious of following all the animation rules and tricks for their own sake.
These Lantz cartoons are aimed mainly at kids (or grown up cartoon freaks like me). They aren't as funny, witty or layered as WB cartoons were, but that's fine. It gives the kids and purists what they want - crazy but controlled action and gags, slapstick, violence and loads of life. LIFE! - which seems to be missing from cartoons today. Modern cartoons don't seem to be "alive" anymore no matter how much money is spent on them. They look "manufactured" instead. Like committees of zombies get together and read all the rules to each other then put the cartoon together with tape one rule at a time.
Woody doesn't have a boatload of personality, but he has a huge reservoir of motivation and energy - like most kids - before the world of serious dull adults wears it out of them.
This is pure fun for fun sake - made with love, instinct and lots of superhuman skill.



http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/lantz/47SolidIvory/woodyAxe24xsmall.mov

Even the camera moves had life in the old cartoons! They are organic (as if the viewer is actually following the action with his human head and eyeballs) - unlike today's inhuman mathematical camera moves calculated on dead uncaring computers. Look at the great camera shakes in the scenes where Woody slams into the wooden shack.

I'm going to put up shorter clips from this to illustrate some of the principles and concepts I've talked about in previous posts.

Wanna know the best way to learn animation? Study frame by frame the animation in classic 30s and 40s cartoons. Like these Woody Woodpeckers:



Or any of the cartoons I organized for you here:


CLASSIC CARTOON SHORTS FROM THE GOLDEN AGE

GET YER BASICS WITH RUBBER HOSE CARTOONS

DISNEY CLASSIC FEATURES

Here's a nice little walk cycle from "Solid Ivory". Woody is at a brisk pace of 7 frames per each step.That's the same beat as the "Popeye The Sailor Man" song.



Here you can step through the walk to see how it works:
http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/01Principles/walks/woodywalkSolidIv.mov


Here's another - also at a 7x beat

http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/01Principles/walks/woodywalk2.mov

Walks used to be animated with fun, character and entertainment in mind. Nowadays (if I'm not mistaken), most walks are just to get a character from here to there.

Lantz cartoons are not only fun; they are very interesting to study. The different period styles offer different kinds of entertainment.The first Woody had the most unique and funny design. The animation tended to be loose and unstructured. the direction was even more haphazard.


http://klangley.blogspot.com/2007/01/woody-woodpecker.html

When Lantz was imitating the Looney Tunes Avery and Clampett cartoons, they missed the point. The timing was mushy and the gags were mostly executed without much conviction. But they are still fun, lively cartoons. I had "The Screwball" on a silent 8mm film when I was a kid and I ran it a million times.
The poses in the early 40s were wacky, but not too carefully planned to balance against each other.

I bought the 2nd Woody DVD and found out that most of the cartoons were from the 50s and I groaned. Though Lantz completely changed Woody's design and made him cute instead of zany, you can still find some pretty good animation in some of the early 50s films . The design of most of the cartoons is really bland and conservative, and sometimes just plain drawn badly - but not in all of them.
I was looking for some cartoons that have crummy drawings but good animation - because that is a very intersting combination, and then was surprised when I found one where I actually kind of liked the design.


I really hate what they did to Buzz in the 50s - even more than Woody! After seeing those great 40s Buzz Buzzard cartoons animated by Ed Love, I sure wonder what they were thinking when they evened him out and took away all his nasty appeal.
But I like these...


I like the way Woody is drawn in Buccaneer Woodpecker. It's conservative, but very stylish.
He has very controlled poses and subtle stylish angles bending around his classic cartoon principles.



I like conservatism when it is stylish and very controlled. This animator has a neat way of drawing hands. It reminds me a bit of John Sibley.
You can see the great control in these poses. They are very direct and non-ambiguous.
All the separate shapes that make up the character are carefuly put together to make a whole statement. No arbitrary corners, no erratic details sticking out of his silhouette to distract you from the overall pose.
If 40s cartoons are your standard for high quality animation - as they are for me, then these don't stand up. But if you had never seen 40s cartoons, and grew up on 90s cartoons, these would seem positively brilliant.

The poses are still lively - unlke today's disjointed talking corpses.

There is still much entertainment created from what only can happen in cartoons. The animators are so used to bending the laws of nature, that even when they are going through their conservative stage, they just take cartoon magic for granted. They haven't yet got so conservative that they stop animating things that "don't make sense". That did happen in the late 50s.
That's a beautifully conservative stylish pose there.

Interesting to see just slight stylization. I like it. It must take some self control, not to go further with it.


This animator has a lot of natural appeal. I'm not sure which one it is. Maybe someone can help me out here. La Verne Harding?

When you draw small, you have to get rid of more details, and just go for the basic pose. This animator still manages to squeeze out some style.










Look how well planned these poses are in relation to each other. Everything about Woody's pose draws us down the line of his sword right into...you know.

Compare these to modern cartoons. Characters don't relate to each other visually anymore. They are merely in proximity to each other. Just close enough to say their one-liners.
Butt stabs were still essential to cartoon humor, even as the 50s started to calm everything down.


This would be considered completely wild today. How many times have you been scolded for drawing "too cartoony" at work?






I'm not opposed to conservative styles, as long as they are not so conservative that they throw out the essentials of cartoon quality- skill, style, control and butt stabs.

The Viewmaster Woodies are much more appealing than Lantz' own cartoons from the late 50s.