Friday, August 03, 2018

I didn't need the homework, but, I wanted to know, whats the deal with the Thrush woodpecker, the Clay Smith Cams woodpecker "Mr Horsepower" and Woody Woodpecker?



http://www.claysmithcams.com/registered-trademark/

Mr. Horsepower is the cartoon mascot and logo of Clay Smith Cams, an auto shop established in 1931. He is a sneering, cigar-smoking bird with red feathers and a yellow beak. The image is a caricature of legendary hot rod guru Clay Smith (1915-1954), well known for his red hair

https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/02/clay-smith-aka-mr-horsepower-woody.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Horsepower

The Thrush woodpecker (nearly) ALWAYS faces left, with a circle behind it.  I flipped this one in photoshop to get a better comparison with the other two company's logos


Thrush mufflers, a division of Tenneco corp, which was founded in 1940.N Tenneco also owns Monroe, Walker, Rancho, DynoMax, and Clevite Elastomers

The Thrush brand gained prominence in the late 1960s thanks to the deep, throaty sound of its canister-shaped glasspack mufflers, which enthusiasts by the thousands mounted beneath  performance muscle cars.

http://www.tenneco-cleanair.com/de/produkte_services
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenneco
http://www.brakeandfrontend.com/legendary-thrush-muffler-woodpecker-turning-40/
https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-bout-this-thrush-in-its-heyday.html

Both the Clay Smith and Thrush camps claim the woodpecker in the movie "Raising Arizona"
The logos are so confusing, one dumbass wrote:
The "cigar-smoking woody woodpecker tattoo" was originally the logo of Clay Smith Cams in 1950s, a company making high performance engine parts. The logo, with the trademark clenched cigar, represents Smith himself and is known as "Mr. Horsepower". Smith closed the business in the 1960s and the logo was adopted by what is now Tenneco for their Thrush muffler line.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0718552/trivia



Woody Woodpecker was created in 1940 by Lantz and storyboard artist Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, who had previously laid the groundwork for two other screwball characters, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio in the late 1930s.
Woody was originally voiced by prolific voice actor Mel Blanc
Woody's character and design evolved over the years, from an insane bird with an unusually garish design to a more refined looking and acting character.
In 1998 and 1999, Woody appeared on the nose of the Williams Formula One Team, and in 2000, he became the official team mascot of the Honda Motorcycle Racing Team.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Woodpecker

bonus round:
Isky had an angry red bird with a yellow beak logo too




Looks like Honest Charlie might have been spoofing Mr Horsepower


is Coop's Old Crow significantly similar? Or derivative?

9 comments:

  1. Big scratchy red felt tip...Nice work, Jesse! A+.

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    1. LOL... HA! It took me a second to wrap my mind around what you did there... but I got it! Thanks!
      I bet you can guess how often someone asks me something, and my immediate response is "that's not my homework" especially all the damn hood ornament people

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  2. An hour well spent sir, thanks for the research and the post Jesse. Neat stuff as always. ;)

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  3. So we have a cam grinder depicted as a woodpecker, a thrush depicted as a woodpecker, and a woodpecker who looks like 50's greaser. Why would anyone be confused? 'Polly want a Hemi?'

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  4. This is oe more reason this is my favorite blog. Raising Arizona is my favorite movie of all time. I would have sworn H. I. McDonough''s tattoo had a woodpecker smoking a cigar, but on looking it up, it doesn't. So now I think it might be the Thrush woodpecker, not the Clay Smith Cams woodpecker that I thought it was!!
    Anyway, I love your blog, and I also give you a big A+ on your homework.

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  5. What does the cigar band say?

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  6. As long as we're talking dumbasses here, one online writer stated that Walter Lantz had to get Clay Smith's permission to create and market Woody Woodpecker. I doubt that very highly. In fact I doubt they ever met each other.

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