Doing It for the Art: Sort of. Unlike his competitors like Leon Schlesinger of Warner Bros., Fred Quimby of MGM and Paul Terry of Terry Toons, Lantz actually liked making cartoons and wanted to give his audience the best cartoons he could--without spending too much money in the process, since he did suffer from low budgets.
Ear Worm: Lantz was also adept at making these, such as "The Woody Woodpecker Song", "The Woody Woodpecker Polka", and the Chilly Willy theme.
Growing the Beard: The studio had its ups and downs over the years, but its peak years are easily from 1944 to 1949, when Disney veterans Shamus Culhane and Dick Lundy took over directing duties at Lantz, making some of the best cartoons in the studio's history.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: The bulk of the studios nearly 600 short output is unavailable, save what has been released on the two Woody Woodpecker DVD sets, and what is available on Jerry Beck's Cartoon Research "Garage Sale" website.
Needs More Love: The Lantz studio never quite had all of the ingredients of a great cartoon working all at once, but they still made a ton of wonderful cartoons. If you have the money, buy the Woody Woodpecker collections, or buy the Lantz DVDs from Jerry Beck's Cartoon Research Garage Sale Web site, and get a taste of one of the most underrated studios of The Golden Age of Animation.
Values Dissonance: Some of his shorts suffered from this, but they're much rarer cases than you would find from the other studios. "Scrub Me Mama With a Boogie Beat" in particular is full of this.
What Could Have Been: Lantz originally planned to make a feature-length animated film, riding off the success of Disney's Snow White, which would have been based on Aladdin. Unfortunately, the project never got off the ground due to the lackluster performance of the Fleischer Studios film Mr. Bug Goes to Town. Which ironically canceled plans for feature length films from the rivals such as Paul Terry and Warner Bros.