How come Woody Woodpecker isn't a merchandising blitz?

[tb4000]

Honestly, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, etc. The list goes on and on. Most people recognize Woody, but he's not garnering t-shirts and lunchboxes like the others are. What happened that caused him to fall off like that?

http://www.kids-brands.com/images/woody1.jpg

[Prof Ultimate]

Universal, which owns Woody and most of the other Lantz produced cartoons, just hasn't been interested in merchandising him aggressively as Disney and Warner Bros have been with their properties.
Plus Woody hasn't had the steady airtime year after year after year, that Disney and Warner toons have been blessed with.

[Eric Brown]

Woody was one of those intensely wild and "nutty" characters that hit his peak in the 1940's. When the Woody Woodpecker series was brought to TV in the late '50's, it consisted of theatrical cartoons and some more recent productions that were "dumb downed" and just didn't have that "screwball" appeal anymore. Walter Lantz continued to take any opportunity to promote Woody up to his death in 1994 at the age of 95. I did enjoy watching the old WWP TV show, mostly because between the cartoons, Walter Lantz would show the viewers how cartoons were made. This alone, caught my facination.

Woody just went flat. Much like H-B did with the 1976 Tom and Jerry series. I think the WB characters survived because they retained their "screwball" charateristics, even in the television production years.

It appears that Woody is a household name. He just doesn't have any marketing appeal.


THANX

[Joe]

It appears that Woody is a household name. He just doesn't have any marketing appeal.

He is cute, hence marketable. It's just that Universal isn't interested in marketing the show after the mildly successful "New Woody Woodpecker Show" in the late 90s for whatever reason. The cartoons themselves are the only thing they seem to be interested in selling right now.

I do agree that much like most other studios, the theatrical cartoons became more indistinguishable with more generic television animation around 1960.

[Mark The Shark]

On a kind of related note, until very recently (the last year or two) Walgreens was using Chilly Willy on the box design of some of their ice cream/frozen dairy products. I remember occasionally buying a box of "push treats" (which are like the old "Push-Ups," pre-Flintstones and Scooby marketing, even with a similar design to how I remember Push-Ups as a kid) and Chilly Willy was on the box. I don't think he is any more, though.

What was the deal with Andy Panda some years ago? I seem to remember someone writing an article about how Universal still had current model sheets for Woody and some other characters for potential licensing use, but not Andy...he was considered retired. (This was a few years back.)

[Mad Monkey 7]

Go to Universal studios in Hollywood, Japan, or Orlando and you will see a ton of Woody merchandise. ;)

[DrTooth]

Uh... take the WABAC machine back to about 2001, 2002... there was some stuff. T-shirts, bean bags, keychains....there was even a dollar store selection of magnites and those small portible fans....

Not quite up to Disney or Warners, but there was stuff.

[Tay the Cat]

Uh... take the WABAC machine back to about 2001, 2002... there was some stuff. T-shirts, bean bags, keychains....there was even a dollar store selection of magnites and those small portible fans....

Not quite up to Disney or Warners, but there was stuff.
There are still t-shirts being made now. I have one.

[BHK]

If Universal is like most major firms, here are the numbers facing any manufacturer interested in licensing:

1) You are expected to sell a minimum of a quarter million dollars worth of product in a two-year period. If you are a manufacturer then that represents the numbers at the wholesale level (which means you'll need to sell a LOT more items than that at the retail level).

2) Royalties are at 10%, payable quarterly based on sales for the quarter.

3) The Guarantee is $25,000. That is the figure you promise to give to the licensor at the end of the two years no matter how many you sell. Sales were not what you expected or projected? Too bad - pony up the difference.

4) The Advance is half of that, or $12,500. That's the amount that the licensor wants right at the start of your license, to guarantee your sincerity, cover their legal and bookkeeping expenses to create the licensing agreement, making sure that you are legitimate, etc.

5) Those figures above are per SKU. If t-shirts are your major offering, that's $12.5K up front. But also want to offer hats - another $12.5K. Bedding is another category - $12.5K again. Keep going for every different category in your product line.

6) Since Woody is considered an obsolete brand and no longer on their radar, do not expect any publicity campaign or brand awareness program from Universal. It's up to you to somehow make the older fans aware of your products and introduce and educate the younger people to the brand.

And that is why a lot of older properties have no products available in the marketplace. It's not that there are no fans that want them. It's that most manufacturers are only interested in Target and Wal-Mart levels of volumes. And studios that own thousands of properties (from the absorption of smaller companies) only want to spend their time and effort on licensing the big, big names like the current blockbuster movie or evergreens like Superman and Batman.

Given the above (very high costs and no brand awareness campaigns from the license hold) it's very hard for smaller firms like ourselves to justify the financial commitment. And some studios refuse to discuss their older brands at all, saying it is not worth their time no matter what the royalty rate.

I got into a bit of a "discussion" with a person at WB when she told me the above (refused to license a product). I told her it was a wasting asset. She got all defensive, asking how I could say that, because that property (a 1960s TV show) was very valuable. I told her "so is $10,000, but if I put it in a Tupperware container and bury it in my back yard, it's a wasting asset. The $10K is still valuable, but it is sitting there doing nothing." And that was what they were doing by refusing to consider licensing one of their properties.

Studios also seem to forget that they have a limited window of opportunity now with the Baby Boomers, who in a few more years will be facing retirement and have no money or interest in frivolous things like t-shirts with cartoon and TV characters on them.

But what do I know? I live in fly-over country, and don't have the brains of these geniuses living and working on the left and right coasts.

[Zen Man]

Well if its any consolation, Woody does have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is still fairly recognizable by the general public. In a way I guess he's enjoying retirement.

Then again he's not the only classic cartoon star facing this problem.