Charlie Chicken is a Walter Lantz cartoon character, an anthropomorphic chicken that often paired with Andy Panda.
History[]
Charlie made his first appearance in a Walter Lantz Studio cartoon titled Andy Panda's Victory Garden, which Universal Studios released on September 7, 1942. The director was Alex Lovy, who wasn't one of the industry's superstars, but spent decades working for such studios as Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. Among his later creations include Warner characters Cool Cat and Merlin the Magic Mouse.
Later that year, he again played against Andy in what may be his most prominent role. In Meatless Tuesday, directed by Shamus Culhane (Rocket Robin Hood), he played potential prey as he and Andy, driven by hunger, saw each other as a possible food source. But those two cartoons constituted his entire career in animation.
It was about that time, that he started appearing as Andy's co-star in comic books. Dell's New Funnies, which (under the title The Funnies) started out with Major Hoople, Tailspin Tommy and the like, had recently started featuring a few Lantz characters. But other than Andy and the grossly offensive (by today's standards) Li'l Eight Ball, Lantz didn't have a lot of stars, so Dell found it necessary to pull Oswald the Rabbit from near-oblivion to fill up the comic. In 1946, when the title was completely given over to Lantz's characters, the availability of Woody Woodpecker wasn't enough, to the point where even a nonentity like Homer Pigeon got a shot at stardom, so Charlie's position as Andy's co-star became permanent.
In the mid-'40s, Andy started appearing in an occasional issue of Four Color Comics, the title where everybody from Donald Duck to Tiny Tim starred in an issue or two. Charlie remained his co-star, and when Andy started having quasi-serious adventures to fill up the longer stories, Charlie became his partner in adventure.
By the '50s, Andy's comic was appearing on a regular basis, and Charlie was still with him. In 1962, Western Publishing transferred the Lantz licenses from Dell Comics to its own imprint, Gold Key Comics, and the Andy Panda property became dormant.
In 1973, Gold Key revived the Andy Panda title in reprint form, even though it had been many years since either Andy or Charlie had appeared in an animated cartoon. The new Gold Key title continued until 1977, with Charlie Chicken still in his role as Andy's partner. Andy Panda and Charlie Chicken continued to appear in Mexican comics through 2010.
Gallery[]
Nephews[]
In some of the solo Charlie Chicken comic stories, Charlie has a pair of nephews named Chick and Chuck. In the Novaro comics from Mexico the pair are known as Chic Y Chuc.
Chic Y Chuc Comic Appearances[]
- Charlie Chicken - Los Exploradores (The Explorers) - 8 pages - El Pajaro Loco #297 - Novaro Sep 1967
- Charlie Chicken - Alli Esta Tio Carlitos (There is Uncle Charlie) - 6 pages - El Pajaro Loco #2-523 - Novaro Sep 1977
