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Woody Woodpecker is the animated cartoon character
which first appeared in short films in movie
theaters in the 1940's. As the story goes,
Walter Lantz, who was the producer of the cartoons
with the anthropomorphic acorn woodpecker,
wanted to promote Woody on Zippo lighters.
Zippo Mfg. Co. therefore produced a couple of test
samples for Mr. Lantz' approval. While
apparently satisfied with the design, Mr. Lantz
requested that his own name be engraved on the
bottom of the lighter. Zippo Mfg. Co refused
to do so which we can presume was due to
George Blaisdell's
strong desire to maintain Zippo's brand
integrity. As a result, a company in Japan
wound up producing lighters identical to Zippo's
samples except with the name of "Walter Lantz"
engraved on the bottoms, reportedly in a run of 500.
Interestingly, Zippo's version had the copyright
notice "WL" engraved at Woody's feet which
apparently was considered redundant on the Japanese
version.
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