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Ben Hardaway

Ben Hardaway

Writing

Biography

Joseph Benson 'Ben' (a.k.a. 'Bugs') Hardaway (May 21, 1895 – February 5, 1957) was an American storyboard artist, animator, voice actor, gagman, writer and director for several American animation studios during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. While at the Leon Schlesinger / Warner Bros. studio during the late 1930s, Hardaway, in 1938, co-directed Porky's Hare Hunt, the first film to feature a rabbit. When this unnamed, embryonic rabbit was given a new model sheet for a later short, since, according to Chuck Jones, Hardaway "didn't draw it very well", designer Charlie Thorson inadvertently offered a permanent name by titling the model sheet "Bugs' Bunny" since it was meant for Hardaway's unit. By the time the rabbit was redesigned and refined for the film A Wild Hare, the name was already being used in relation to the character in studio publicity materials. In 1940, Hardaway joined the staff of Walter Lantz Productions, where he helped Walter Lantz in creating the studio's most famous character, Woody Woodpecker. Hardaway wrote or co-wrote most of the stories for the 1940–1950 Woody Woodpecker shorts, as well as supplying Woody's voice between 1944 and 1949. [biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]

Known For

Woody Woodpecker
6.9

Woody Woodpecker spends his day singing loudly and pecking holes in trees. He infuriates the other woodland creatures - when he isn't baffling them with his bizarre behavior. Woody overhears a squirrel and a group of birds gossiping about him. Even though he just sang a song proclaiming his craziness, he denies their whispered accusations that he's nuts. But after they trick him into knocking his head on a statue, the poor bird hears voices in his head and decides the animals might be right. He decides to see a psychiatrist.

Woody Woodpecker

1941
Apple Andy
6.8

Andy Panda is very fond of apples and he eats a bushel of green apples, falls asleep and has a nightmare in which the devil is trying to entice him into Hades and stuffs him full of apple juice, applesauce and more apples. (In Andy's defense, since Andy was taught not to eat green apples, the devil had spray-painted the green apples red.)

Apple Andy

1946
Porky's Hare Hunt
6.6

Porky Pig goes after a rogue rabbit who manages to frustrate him at every turn.

Porky's Hare Hunt

1938
Springtime for Thomas
7.2

It's spring, and Tom is much more interested in the female cat next door than in Jerry.

Springtime for Thomas

1946
The Overture to 'William Tell'
8.3

In this Lantz Color Cartune (production number 2326), Wally Walrus, masquerading as famed orchestra leader, Sir Wally Walrus, mounts the podium to conduct the orchestra, and his troubles only end when the cartoon does, with the orchestra completely destroyed.

The Overture to 'William Tell'

1947
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company "B"
6.6

Hot Breath Harry is a hot trumpeter at a jazz club. He finds himself drafted into the Army, where he's assigned to be the bugler of an African-American company. But everyone hates the bugler, because he blows reveille at the ungodly hour of 5 AM sharp.

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company "B"

1941
Busy Bakers
5.8

Struggling Swenson the baker is down to just a single donut remaining in his shop. He gives it to a blind beggar who stops in. Later, while Swenson sleeps, the kindness is rewarded.

Busy Bakers

1940
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
6.3

Aladdin is a child laborer who works for a guy that exchanges "new lamps for old". This guy swaps a "new" lamp for 2-3 replacement old lamps, then brings back the old lamps for Aladdin to polish and make look like new. One day Aladdin sees a princess riding by as he looks out the window, and he falls for her. But then he must return to his lamp polishing...

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp

1934
Woody Dines Out
6.2

Woody Woodpecker goes out to dine and accidentally stumbles into a taxidermist's shop, thinking it is a restaurant. The taxidermist, wanting a woodpecker to stuff, doesn't inform Woody otherwise.

Woody Dines Out

1945
The Egg Cracker Suite
6.5

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, in his last animated short, conducts a symphony with a whole gaggle of hens (and one ostrich) to lay eggs for Easter.

The Egg Cracker Suite

1943
Chew-Chew Baby
6.6

Boarding house proprietor Wally Walrus takes out an ad in the local paper looking for a sweetheart. Woody Woodpecker reads this and decides he might be able to trick Wally out of some cooking if he dresses up like a girl and answers the ad.

Chew-Chew Baby

1945
A Bone for a Bone
5.5

Two polite gophers are in their underground home, playing gin, when a dog buries his bone right on top of them. They try to negotiate with the dog so that he will bury the bone elsewhere. But the dog refuses to be cooperative.

A Bone for a Bone

1951
The Coo Coo Bird
7.8

Woody Woodpecker reads in his newspaper that quail hunting season begins the next morning at 5a.m. Not wanting to pass up quail hunting, he determines to get a good night's sleep. There are challenges.

The Coo Coo Bird

1947
Pantry Panic
6.1

Woody's friends warn him that the groundhog has predicted a blizzard. Unconcerned, Woody decides not to go South with his pals. Soon enough, the blizzard sweeps in and destroys the loony woodpecker's stash of food. Facing starvation, a glimmer of hope arrives in the form of a cat. The cat is also starving and it turns into a match of brawn and wits to see who eats who.

Pantry Panic

1941
Woody Woodpecker and Friends
7.6

A compilation of ten classic Walter Lantz cartoons: Knock Knock (1940), The Bandmaster (1947), Ski for Two (1944), Hot Noon or 12 O'Clock for Surf (1953), The Legend of Rockabye Point (1955), Wet Blanket Policy (1948), To Catch a Woodpecker (1957), Musical Moments from Chopin (1946), Bats in the Belfry (1960), and Crazy Mixed Up Pup (1955). Also includes the interesting documentary short on Walter Lantz's career "Walter, Woody and the World of Animation". Note: This is NOT the 2007 and 2008 DVD collections titled "The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection" shown as the cover image.

Woody Woodpecker and Friends

1982
Knock Knock
7.1

A woodpecker (Woody) repeatedly pecks the roof of Andy Panda's and his father's home. Daddy sets out to stop it.

Knock Knock

1940
The Woody Woodpecker Polka
8.3

For a chance at free food at a barn dance, Woody Woodpecker dresses as a girl to fool ticket taker Wally Walrus.

The Woody Woodpecker Polka

1951
Rabbit Every Monday
7.2

Yosemite Sam traps Bugs Bunny and tries to cook him -- until he sees that Bugs is having a party and wants to join in the fun.

Rabbit Every Monday

1951
Hare-um Scare-um
6.7

Facing high meat prices, a man decides to take his dog and go hunt for his own. Unfortunately, the crazy rabbit they are after is cleverer than they are.

Hare-um Scare-um

1939
Breakdowns of 1939
7.0

Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1939.

Breakdowns of 1939

1939