Walter Lantz is dead at 93, the taunting "Heh-heh-heh-HEHHHH-heh" laugh of his most famous creation, that pesky redhead Woody Woodpecker, still ringing in our ears.
Lantz, who made more than 800 cartoons, including 200 starring Woody Woodpecker, died on Tuesday."Some men never do learn what they want to do. I knew at 12. I wanted to be an artist," he once said.
Lantz also created Chilly Willy, Andy Panda, Smedley, Sugarfoot, Charley Beary and Oswald Rabbit. And in 1930, he produced the first Technicolor cartoon - the five-minute opening sequence of "The King of Jazz."
His wife, Grace, a former actress, helped conceive Woody Woodpecker, was his voice for a quarter-century and gave him the machine-gun laugh imitated by generations of children. She died in 1992.
Lantz created Woody after an obstinate woodpecker disturbed the couple's honeymoon in 1941, or so the story goes. Woody first appeared in an Andy Panda cartoon.
"Woody Woodpecker started out as a supporting player, but he became a star in his second picture. And he's been a nest egg to me ever since," Lantz said.
Mel Blanc provided Woody's voice before signing an exclusive contract to do Bugs Bunny and other Warner Bros. characters in the late 1940s.
Lantz's wife asked for a chance to replace him, but Lantz refused. So she secretly made a recording and placed it among the audition tapes of seven other applicants. Lantz picked her.
Lantz earned an honorary lifetime achievement Academy Award in 1978 "for bringing joy and laughter to every part of the world through his unique animated motion pictures."