It’s a cartoon. They weren’t making a nature documentary. They were trying to get across the idea of Woody as a crazy, zany character. I doubt Blanc was asked to accurately mimic an acorn woodpecker, but was asked to help create a memorable character. It’s been documented by multiple sources, including Blanc himself, that he recycled Happy Rabbit’s laugh into Woody Woodpecker’s.
Blanc even sued Lantz for $500,000 because Lantz continued to use Blanc’s laugh in the cartoons after Blanc had signed an exclusive contract with Warner Bros. Lantz prevailed because Blanc never copyrighted his voice, but when Blanc appealed, Lantz settled with him out of court.
I was just watching the movie Soul and there’s a character named Jerry who is supposed to be genderless but sounds and looks to me like a man but is voiced by a woman.
As for kids voicing kids - the young male lead characters in both “Adventure Time” and “Stephen Universe” were played by teenage boys.
The big one is that if they cast a boy to voice a cartoon, he’s going to sound more and more like a man, even before puberty hits. And afterward, he WILL sound like a man.
Cast a woman as the voice of a boy, and her voice won’t change. Think Nancy Cartwright in the Simpsons. Bart Simpson would be what… 38 today? But he sounds the same as he did the day the Simpsons was first broadcast.
Meanwhile, I’ve seen a few cartoons lately that were clearly voiced by boys that have had to be recast at some point, probably due to changing voices as the actors age.
Rocky J. Squirrel was voiced by June Foray until her death in 2017. In the remake he was voiced by Tara Strong (as mentioned upthread).
Peppermint Patty was voiced by Christopher DeFaria in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.
D.W., the younger sister from Arthur, has always been voiced by a boy - eight different boys over the years, according to Wikipedia.
Jimmy Neutron was voiced by Debi Derryberry.
Bob Peterson voiced the female slug, Roz, in Monsters, Inc. He’s an animator but occasionally does voices for side characters (he also voiced Mr. Ray in Finding Nemo).
I never really noticed it in Gravity Falls. But after finding out that Jason Ritter did the voice of Dipper Pines it now sounds like a 30 year old trying unsuccessfully to sound like a 10 year old boy.
Also on King of the Hill, young Joseph Gribble was voiced by Brittany Murphy (who also did Luanne.) When he hit puberty, though, they switched his voice actor to Breckin Meyer.