Woody Dines Out
Encyclopedia
Woody Dines Out is the 14th animated cartoon
Animated cartoon
An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...

 short subject
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

 in the Woody Woodpecker
Woody Woodpecker
Woody Woodpecker is an animated cartoon character, an anthropomorphic acorn woodpecker who appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz animation studio and distributed by Universal Pictures...

 series. Released theatrically on April 1, 1945, the film was produced by Walter Lantz Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

.

Plot

Woody walks about town and realizes that all of the restaurants are closed. He finds one store with a sign in its window that reads: "We stuff birds." He assumes that it is a restaurant when it is actually a taxidermist's shop. He approaches the counter to place his order. From his coat pocket, the taxidermist
Taxidermy
Taxidermy is the act of mounting or reproducing dead animals for display or for other sources of study. Taxidermy can be done on all vertebrate species of animals, including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians...

 (voice by Hans Conried
Hans Conried
Hans Georg Conried, Jr. was an American comedian, character actor and voice actor.-Early years:He was born on April 15, 1917 in Baltimore, Maryland to Hans Georg Conried, Sr. and Edith Beyr Gildersleeve. His mother was a descendant of Pilgrims, and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Vienna,...

) removes an ad from the Museum of Natural History announcing a $100,000 reward for a stuffed king-size woodpecker. He secretly places knock-out drops in the food he prepares for Woody. The food puts Woody to sleep, but he recovers on the cutting table. He escapes the taxidermist by climbing onto an elevator; the taxidermist falls down the elevator shaft.

Cultural references

  • Frédéric Chopin
    Frédéric Chopin
    Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

    's "Funeral March
    Funeral march
    A funeral march is a march, usually in a minor key, in a slow "simple duple" metre, imitating the solemn pace of a funeral procession. Some such marches are often considered appropriate for use during funerals and other sombre occasions, the most well-known being that of Chopin...

    " can be heard in the background score as the taxidermist places the knock-out drops into Woody's food.
  • The taxidermist refers to Woody's soup as "blackout
    Blackout (wartime)
    A blackout during war, or apprehended war, is the practice of collectively minimizing outdoor light, including upwardly directed light. This was done in the 20th century to prevent crews of enemy aircraft from being able to navigate to their targets simply by sight, for example during the London...

     borscht
    Borscht
    Borscht is a soup of Ukrainian origin that is popular in many Eastern and Central European countries. In most of these countries, it is made with beetroot as the main ingredient, giving it a deep reddish-purple color...

    ." At the time of Woody Dines Outs release, blackouts were common among coastal regions of the United States. Borscht is a Russia
    Russia
    Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

    n dish, and the Soviet Union
    Soviet Union
    The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

     was a member of the Allied Powers
    Allies of World War II
    The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

     at the time.
  • As Woody pilots the elevator to faster and faster speeds, the speedometer reads: Is this trip really necessary? This is a reference to the army
    United States Army
    The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

     rationing
    Rationing
    Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.- In economics :...

     of gasoline and rubber for the war
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

    effort.
  • The background for the title card is two plates of food, which ties in to the cartoon name.
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