The dynamic CG version of beloved cartoon character Woody Woodpecker returns in the new live-action / animated family comedy Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp. It premieres Friday April 12th on Netflix. Here’s my Animation Scoop Q&A with… Guess Who?… the film’s Emmy nominated director, Jon Rosenbaum. (This interview was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: I love the Woody Woodpecker shirt you have on.

Jon Rosenbaum: When I got hired, this was the first thing that I bought and I said, “I’m going to put it on as we get closer to the final release.” So it’s been a long time coming. It was a long journey. So I’m glad I get to wear it.

JM: Yeah, absolutely, man. I want to show you this as well. A friend of mine sometimes sent stationery with animated characters on them. So I’ve got Woody and Winnie here with me as well.

JR: Nice. Hey, look, if this does well and there’s another installment in the franchise, I would love to bring Winnie into the picture.

JM: Whoo! You [read] it here first for the third Woody Woodpecker movie, but let’s talk about this second one, and the decision to make the second one, you coming on board. The first one which came out in 2017 — 2018 in a lot of markets, I saw it, and it was a big hit, and they bring you on board for this [follow-up]. It’s all about summer camp.

JR: The first movie in 2017 was beloved. It obviously did really well for Netflix, thankfully. So Netflix and the folks at Universal who own the IP decided, “You know what? Let’s do another one”. Keeping Woody but a brand new adventure. And this time, which will be a treat for everybody, the powers that be said, “Let’s bring in two more of the animated characters from the cartoon”. So we have Buzz Buzzard — our cartoon villain. And we have Wally Walrus, who is a fan favorite, and he’ll be joining the party as well for this one. So I was thrilled, man. Look, I grew up with Woody Woodpecker. I’m a huge fan. He is the craziest cartoon character out there. He’s an agent of chaos. The mission was, “How do we stay faithful to the cartoon and capture his energy?”… but also make a heartfelt, funny family comedy that’s not just about slapstick hijinks — that actually has a message and a cool story and some good characters. So that’s what we set out to do.

JM: One of the aspects that impressed me is the fact that you bring in these two [other] cartoon characters — bring them to life in CG to join Woody. You have Buzz and Wally, who are so energetic and fun. And I’m sure in working with the animators… you’re amping things up. If you saw the first movie… it was Woody as the sole CG character. Now you add two more. That’s a lot more for the animators, a lot more of a challenge, and you pull it off.

JR: Well, thanks to the animators. These guys were unbelievable. A very talented team all across the world. We had the U.S., Bulgaria, Australia and South Africa. Anytime you translate something from the two-dimensional cartoon world to the 3D and hybrid live-action world, it’s challenging because it inherently looks different. Something that you can do in 2D as a drawing isn’t necessarily what you can pull up with an actual person. But we employed a lot of really cool strategies, including for Buzz and Wally, who are human size. We had these two performance actors, who studied the cartoons. And I would give them references of specific mannerisms and whatnot. And they did sort of our motion capture for us. We would do takes with them in the scene, really becoming human cartoons. It was unbelievable what these guys did. So the animators, when we got to that stage, had a really good reference as to what we wanted Buzz to do when he’s interacting with some of the adults. Or what Wally would do. They would walk like them. They would, as much as humanly possible, try to do the elastic, crazy, physical comedy stuff. And then took it from there and went crazy with it. But it was fun. It was really cool, and I’m excited for them to see the final product as well, because they get to see how they turned into a cartoon.

JM: That’s amazing. And then you bring the voice actors in: Eric Bauza, Tom Kenny and Kevin Michael Richardson. Their skill sets for these characters must have blown you away.

JR: Well, they’re legends. As someone who loves cartoons, as I know you do, even the fact that they were willing to do it was phenomenal. Eric voiced Woody in the first movie, so he was very familiar with what we were doing. But first they laid a scratch track, where we gave them the script and they kind of recorded the lines blindly so that our people on set could kind of get it. Memorize their mannerisms and try to get the timing to match what these guys would eventually do. So that allowed the other actors to play off them and it allowed the animators to actually animate to them. And then we went back and did full recording sessions, and oh my God. Whatever we put forward is one level and then you hand it to the superstar talents like these guys and they just find stuff you couldn’t even have imagined comedy wise. SpongeBob, you know, we were all fanboying and fangirling about [Tom]. Eric is a legend. And Kevin Michael Richardson. Unbelievable. You saw what he was doing with Buzz. He really captured the cartoon villainess of him. I just love working with these guys. I hope we get to do more.

JM: Woody is so zany and there are so many moments where it’s the quick, five second bits that he does reacting to something. How do you come up with those?

JR: One thing that we set out to do differently than the movie in 2017 was we realized that in this story, Woody was very central. Obviously he was a big part of the first movie, but he would come and go sometimes. And here it was really his story — a redemption story of learning about teamwork and getting to go back to his home after causing all this chaos. So we realized “Well, he’s going to be present in not only every scene but almost every shot.” So how do we keep the funniness going? How do we make him zany and crazy and funny without being completely annoying? He’s got to have some redeeming qualities. So our idea, which is I think what the cartoons were setting out to do, is that he’s not a jerk. He means well. He’s not the smartest bird on the planet and he’s just a whirlwind. He causes a tornado of chaos. So anytime we could try to find a gag for him or a reaction shot, I was pushing for that and the cast was pushing for that, and we would try to shoehorn as much as possible. There’s a lot of psych gags and a lot of funny moments that hopefully kids and families will enjoy.

JM: Is it true you filmed this in Australia? That’s amazing.

JR: We did. One of the challenges for making this movie, as many films endured… this was during COVID. When we were ready to film, initially it was supposed to shoot in the [United] States. And then a lot of the complications with the rules for various states and whatnot. Our producer [Jon Kuyper] has done a ton of work in Australia. He’s kind of a mainstay there now. And he said, “Why don’t we try Australia? They’ve got a great crew system down there. There’s good talent down there that can not necessarily seem like they’re in Australia. There’s good tax credits. The locations are fun.” They had a really good system set up for COVID protection, which was important to us on a family movie. And also by the time the script was ready to go, we were already getting into our winter. So we needed their summer. So we’re like, “Hey, this is perfect.” Because of COVID, there wasn’t a lot of shooting there. A lot of the productions hadn’t been greenlit yet. So we got really fortunate to have an incredible crew. Our cinematographer [Ross Emery] worked on “The Matrix” and did one of the Wolverine movies. A lot of our stunt crew was on “Mad Max:” Fury Road. It was just ridiculous, the talent.

JM: I’m just trying to picture Woody in a Mad Max setting now, which is hilarious.

JR: Well, I probably shouldn’t say this, but when we did the sound mix with an amazing sound team who, by the way, have won an Oscar, they also did the new “Mad Max” movie that’s coming out [“Furiosa”]. And apparently because they had so much fun on “Woody”, they told me they were going to try and sneak one of our signature Woody Woodpecker sound effects into the Mad Max movie. So I’m going to be listening with a very astute ear to see if I can pick out the one Woody sound that makes it to “Mad Max”.

JM: Yes! “Furiosa” opens May 24th in theaters and Woody fans are going to be first in line to try to hear as Anya Taylor Joy and Chris Hemsworth are battling it out!

JR: (laughs) That’s right. It’s a marriage made in Heaven.

JM: We’ve got these rival camps. Woo-Hoo and Hoo-Rah. And you’ve got Mary Louise Parker leading the live action cast [as Angie]. And she is all game for this. Food fight and all.

JR: She’s a star. And it was interesting for me because someone with that kind of pedigree and resume to come to a movie like this, but also where… it’s not about the humans per se. Obviously it’s a story about the kids, but the central figure is a fantasy character. It’s a cartoon character. And it was really interesting to see her adjust to that where she finally clicked in, “Oh yes, this is just this little cartoon bird that’s not really there when we’re shooting this.” And man, she just took it from there. Also, I will say, she was lovely with the kid cast. In real life, which I didn’t know when we cast her, she runs a summer camp, on the side sometimes for kids, especially for theater kids. She’s got that maternal, warm, loving instinct and the kids took to her and they all bonded, which created a really nice atmosphere that was appropriate for what we were trying to say about camp and teamwork.

JM: I also think one of the themes you get out of this film is humans and animals just getting along. That coexistence. How important was that theme for you?

JR: Pretty important. We had a lot of discussions going in about, “How do we treat the fact that there’s a talking bird? There’s also a life sized buzzard and a life sized walrus.” And that’s actually one of the main differences between this movie and the last one. In the last one, we can understand Woody but the humans can’t. When he talks, it’s just bird gibberish. And we felt that since Woody and the other characters were such big parts of the story that we had to just own the conceit that everybody understands everybody. We don’t even shine a light on it. And we said, “Look, let’s just treat this as normal.” So when Wally shows up as the camp inspector, there’s never a moment [of], “Oh wait a minute, that’s a talking, walking walrus.” That’s just what he looks like. And Buzz Buzzard. Yeah, he’s a little weird — he looks a little different than the rest of us, but all the other characters treated him as almost like a pseudo human. I think in effect we did create what you just said — that everyone is part of the same universe. And even though the cartoons, when they fight each other, can get a little out of our realistic world rules, we felt that created a reality, at least for this movie.

JM: You just go with it. And it works. Through the dialogue, through the interactions, through what happens in the story, you go with it and you have a fun time. This is going to be something families are going to embrace this summer. I went to Universal Studios Orlando when I was very young and rode the Nuthouse Coaster ride. And it’s still one of my favorite roller coasters of all time. Did you ever go on that ride and see it?

JR: I’ve been to Universal… but I don’t recall that ride. But recently it was a special moment. I was down there shooting a sitcom on the Universal lot. And on the weekend I went to… where you can walk around all the stores… and they had a big Woody display. And I was super excited because a lot of the kids were playing with the doll. This character is from 1940. And the idea that in 2024, hopefully there’s some nostalgia from people our age and older, but [for] the younger audience, we can expose them to this new character and get some new love from the new generation. So that made me feel nice that maybe we had done something to serve that.