Pantry Panic (1941) User Reviews

A Battle Of Would-Be Cannibals!

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 6 September 2007]

Who do you think would be labeled "Weather Forecaster Extraordinary?" How about "Prof. Weatherby Groundhog!" Oh, man, cartoon writers sure loved corny puns back in the "old days." Usually, though, I think they are fun to read and hear.

With a bulletin that cold weather is approaching, all the birds zip up their houses and leave in a hurry. Who's skeptical about the weather warning? Woody, of course. He's like one of these dumb people who get hurricane warnings but stay home....and then disaster hits.

The birds warn him: you're going to freeze and have no food. Woody just laughs at them, but not for long. The temperature drops from about 80 to 130 degrees below zero! (Hey, even the cartoon makes fun of that nonsense.)

Things get worse in a hurry as our obnoxious friend gets quickly humbled and winds up fighting it out with a cat - each wanting to cannibalize the other! Yeah, the humor becomes dark.

On a lighter note, the village in this story is absolutely beautiful. This is colorful and very nice artwork.

Dark, demented, fun

[mickeythechamp · 8/10 · 17 March 2023]

Incredibly fun and well done. Walter Lantz delivers incredible comedy and a really darkly toned short with Woody Woodpecker. This is incredibly fun, and the humor landed with me.

Despite the warning, Woody doesn't fly south after hearing winter is coming. He becomes more and more hungry but an opportunity for a meal comes along. Unfortunately, that meal is a cat and it´s also looking for food.

I really loved the humor here and that is the highlight of this short. The text and fourth wall break really land and the jokes are good between the cat and Woody. The dark humor is also good. It´s a dark comedy where Woody is portrait as evil as the cat that is trying to eat him. It even had a dark twist I did not see coming.

The voice acting is so good. Woody and the cat is voiced so well and they land their lines so well making jokes work.

The animation is also good. The expressions of characters look dark and demented and it works well for the plot. The house and transformation from autumn to winter is also really good. The character design also really looks great here.

I loved this short, while not doing anything that unique it feels like a comedy short, I could watch again and again. The humor is good and lands, the concept is dark and fun, the animation is good, what´s not to like?

Kind of cruel and hard-hearted....and that's just fine with me!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 3 May 2014]

This early Woody Woodpecker cartoon is a lot more vicious than the later ones--which is exactly why I liked it! Additionally, it gives you a chance to see how different the early Woody drawings were compared to the more familiar later ones.

When the cartoon begins, the weather prognosticating groundhog tells everyone to migrate south because a bad winter is coming. All the birds take off except for cocky Woody who announces he has plenty of food and he's staying. Well, the storm arrives in cartoon fashion--quickly and taking Woody's food! Now, after a month of nothing to eat, a cat knocks on the door. The cat intends to eat Woody--and Woody intends to eat the cat. The cartoon is full of cartoony violence and is pretty funny--and edgy to see such a beloved character behaving rather viciously. Well done and about as good as any of the cartoons coming from Warner Brothers at that time.

Classic Woody Cartoon

[Michael_Elliott · 8 June 2010]

Pantry Panic (1941)

*** (out of 4)

Being his typical, reckless self, Woody Woodpecker refuses to take a warning and fly South for the winter. Sure enough a major storm hits, which puts him near starvation but thankfully a hungry cat shows up and the two are soon trying to each one another. This is yet another winning cartoon in the series and one with several big laughs. The highlight would have to be an early scene where Woody is swimming and goes to jump in the water just as the winter storm hits and turns him into an ice cube. Another great sequences comes towards the end when a moose shows up as Woody and the cat are fighting. The way it ends is something that could only happen in a cartoon of this era. Fans of Woody Woodpecker will find this to be a very entertaining little gem that's well worth watching.

Early Woody Woodpecker

[llltdesq · 7/10 · 20 September 2002]

This short, also available on a great many public domain tapes under the alternate title of Pantry Panic, is proof that the difference between predator and prey is a matter of who is the hungriest. Entertaining but unexceptional. Fairly easy to find. Worth watching. Recommended if you like Woody.

Pantry Panic

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 28 May 2021]

When the groundhog predicted an extremely bad winter, all the other birds migrated south. A cocky Woody Woodpecker chose to stay behind as he thought he is snug and safe with plenty of food.

Pantry Panic sees Woody Woodpecker starving after a spell of bad weather leaves him hungry and dispirited.

An icy tornado took his food away and he is now staring starvation in the face.

A hungry cat knocking on the door could be just the feline fricassee he badly needs.

This clever and entertaining cartoon shows Woody and the cat fighting as to who can get their prey into the banquet table first. I felt sorry for the moose.

The starving woodpecker versus the starving cat

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 7 July 2017]

Was very fond of Woody Woodpecker and his cartoons as a child. Still get much enjoyment out of them now as a young adult, even if there are more interesting in personality cartoon characters and better overall cartoons.

That is in no way knocking Woody, because many of his cartoons are a lot of fun to watch and more and also still like him a lot as a character. 'Pantry Panic', while not a Woody Woodpecker classic, is still very entertaining, yes even with some very corny (and in a bit too silly a way) puns, even for cartoons puns, and a fairly standard story. While there may be cartoon characters with slightly more interesting personalities, Woody is still at his best incredibly funny, never obnoxious and very lovable self, summing him up in one word it would be wonderfully nuts. His personality traits are still evolving, for example he is more vicious here in 'Pantry Panic' to usual, and while a few are different others are unmistakably recognisable.

For so early on, the animation is great. Woody is much more appealingly designed even though still evolving, while the colours are rich and vibrant and the backgrounds meticulous in their detail.

Another standout quality is the music. It's characterful, lushly orchestrated and is not only dynamic with the action it even enhances it. The writing is suitably witty and raises a number of chuckles, while the never less than amusing and beautifully timed sight gags are even more impressive.

Especially, agreed, the ones with the ice cube and the moose, not to mention the ending. The cat is great support for Woody, and in a way you root for both but you're shocked at the vicious, but thankfully never overly-sadistic that it'll make one uncomfortable, lengths they go to against one another.

Voice acting is good, though Woody's original voice actor Mel Blanc only does his laugh here.

In summary, even with more of a vicious tone 'Pantry Panic' is still colourful and entertaining. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Combining Pain With Sight Gag

[redryan64 · 6/10 · 26 July 2014]

THIS PRODUCTION CAME along when the Woody Woodpecker character was still in its embryonic stages. The woodpecker had not developed into what we consider his best and far before his being the victim of creator/producer Walter Lantz's preoccupation with having a "cute" Woody; instead of a truly funny and irreverent wise guy. (This latter stage happened to coincide with the Woodpecker's words being voiced by actress, Grace Stafford (Mrs. Lantz).

THE ON SCREEN presentation of starvation and the struggles between a manic starving bird and an equally hunger driven cat is a hard backdrop for comedy presentation. After prolonged struggling, the two are shown finishing up a feast on a hapless moose; who just wandered into the story during this extended period of extremely arctic-like conditions.

WE'RE OF THE opinion that the powers that be at Universal Pictures wanted Producer Lantz to come up with an answer to Leon Schlesinger's BUGS BUNNY over at Warner Brothers' LOONEY TUNES/MERRIE MELODIES. This is a status that would be achieved, if only for a short period, some several cartoons later.

WOODY WOODPERCER at the time of PANTRY PANIC may have had the proper lunacy, but gave us precious little to identify and sympathize with.

"Mmm..must be hard water in this lake!"

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 8/10 · 13 August 2017]

Have you ever been so starving that you just felt like punching someone in the head? Well this particular Woody Woodpecker short may remind you a little of that! It's about Woody being a bit of a jerk and thinking that he doesn't need to bother heading south for the winter along with all the other more rational birds because he already has plenty of food stored up, but the icy weather has a few things in store for the cocky Woodpecker, and after he goes a little crazier than usual due to a little cabin fever and hunger pains after losing all his food, an equally hungry and crazed cat shows up and the show turns into a mad battle to see who gets to eat who! Woody sure was asking for trouble in this one though, he mocks his retreating neighbours, he dares the cold weather to try and take his food, he even laughs in the cigar smoking face of Death, which is such an unbelievably hilarious and bizarre image! "Starvation" my foot, that's totally the grim reaper with a palette swap! I suppose having the word death floating there may have been a bit much in an animated short aimed at forties children, even though the elderly bird clearly says it out loud at the beginning.. As with most of the retro cartoon shorts that I've watched in one way or another over the years, I love the colourful smaller details like the adorable tiny tree houses of the birds and the very impressive animation of when the blizzard sweeps on and instantly turns the sunny landscape into a winter wonderland, and when Woody's battered around in the snowy clouds by the figures like a tennis racket and briefly turns into one! The whole short is a beautiful one, everything is richly detailed and the action is very fluid, nothing looks poorly done or clunky, it's fun to watch and very easy on the eyes. This earlier version of Woody is much more fun and interesting than what they later made of him, not to mention downright psychotic once he gets going! It's a very fun short but it does have some rather dark themes in it, like Woody and the ugly Popeye-voiced cat's fight to cook and eat each other, which is slapstick but violent, and it's so macabre how they eat the poor hapless moose and all that's left of it is a pile of bones and its head stuck on a tree! And what an odd mistake neglecting to speed up Woody's voice like that at the end.. Just a neat little old cartoon that is very fun and satisfying to watch, this is a good example of am old animation studio at the top of their game. Great stuff, interesting funny inventive and pretty crazy! X

food wars may soon be commonplace

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 17 June 2007]

I saw some Woody Woodpecker cartoons when I was really young, but never took to them like I did the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons. Now that I've seen "Pantry Panic" and am old enough to offer an analysis, I'll say that what it portrays doesn't look far off. Yes, it was probably intended as nothing more than a silly cartoon, as Woody and an unidentified cat try to devour each other. But the idea of being all cooped up during the winter? "The Shining" portrayed that (just imagine Woody doing what Jack Nicholson did). And because of the declining precipitation in the southwestern US, not only will there likely be water wars, but maybe food wars.

But that's merely my interpretation. It's a pretty funny cartoon. Not clever in the sense of the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies genre, but worth seeing.

I never knew that Mel Blanc also did Woody's voice. And is it just me, or does the name "Woody Woodpecker" sound a little pornographic?

I'm not sure why everyone else is comparing . . .

[pixrox1 · 5/10 · 16 August 2022]

. . . PANTRY PANIC to Max. V-o-n Sideshow's THE SEVENTH SEAL. True, the latter 1957 film directed by I-g-g-y Bergman features an allegorical stand-in actor playing Death, and Woody the Woodpecker sits at a table for awhile with the Phantom of Famine. However, unlike Max, Woody never plays checkers with HIS metaphorical nemesis. Furthermore, I do not think that the director of PANTRY PANIC waited seven weeks for the exact right cloud formation to film his closing Parade to the Underworld. Instead, Walt the True King of Cartoons delivers a D-e-u-s Ex M-a-c-h-i-n-a finale, in the form of a moose making a house call with extremely poor timing. As we say in Home Economics 401, B-o-n A-p-p-e-t-i-t!

As most of the other commentators have declared . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 13 February 2023]

. . . this picture makes little sense, since the opening scene's "Prof. Weather B. Groundhog"--obviously based on the infamous "Pennsylvania Phil"--predicts an early Winter, and this is what actually happens. As documented on the Internet, Phil's "Inner Circle" is composed of liars and cheats, claiming that their abused woodchuck sees his shadow when it's raining outside, and denying the critter's sharply-cast shade shape when the sun is glaring brightly overhead. If there really was any Truth in a burrowing animal's meteorological forecasting ability, his portents would have to be accurate at least 90% of the time. However, Phil has proven wrong at an astounding 65% rate, meaning that his prognostications indicate what will NOT happen! Therefore, PANTRY PANIC's starting point implies that Winter will come very late, if at all.