Let's Watch This: "Mr. Bug Goes to Town" (1941)

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

Let's talk about Fleischer Studios. Founded in the 1920s by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, this studio was responsible for cartoons starring characters like Betty Boop, Popeye, and Koko the Clown. They were one of Walt Disney Productions' biggest competitors... when it came to cartoon shorts, that is. There was one category where Disney had them beat - animated MOVIES.

But that's not to say Fleischer Studios didn't try. After Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a hit, Paramount had Fleischer Studios whip up an adaptation of Gulliver's Travels so they could cash in on its success. The film was released in 1939, and despite its obscurity nowadays was actually a box office success. This led to Fleischer Studios making another film, the film that we'll be looking at today - 1941's Mr. Bug Goes to Town... or, as it was called in the United Kingdom, Hoppity Goes to Town.

This film, unlike Gulliver's Travels, was a box office bomb. Part of this is because Paramount did a lousy job of promoting it. The other part was that it came out just two days before Pearl Harbor. And its bombing resulted in Paramount foreclosing Fleischer Studios, kicking out Max Fleischer and renaming it Famous Studios. And apparently this, combined with the box office failures of Pinocchio and Fantasia, resulted in Walter Lanz, Paul Terry, and Leon Schlesinger scrapping any ideas THEY had for animated feature films.

But Mr. Bug does have its fans, among them animation legend Hayao Miyazaki, so there's a pretty good chance it could be an underrated classic that just had the misfortune of being a box office bomb. I mean, if being a lousy movie was all it took for a movie to bomb, that 2011 Smurfs movie wouldn't have been such a hit. So today, we'll be watching Mr. Bug Goes to Town to see if it deserved better or if more people should take a flyswatter to it.

So the movie begins with the camera panning around New York City (or at least what I assume is New York City) as the opening credits roll. Eventually, we pan down to a small house, and then to a garden in front of that small house, which unbeknownst to the city's human residents is home to a teeny, tiny city with buildings constructed out of trash. The city's population? Bugs.

So, is THAT Mr. Bug? If so, he's not so much "going to town" as he is
"already IN town"...

We go inside some sort of bakery/ice cream shop where kindly Mr. Bumble (voiced by Jack "Popeye" Mercer) and his daughter Honey (Pauline Loth) reside. They are bees, but they really don't look much like bees. Mr. Bumble at least looks like SOME kind of cartoony bug, Honey just looks like a girl with wings and antennae. Though, to be fair, it's not like Jiminy Cricket looks all that much like a cricket. I guess this is just how animators drew bugs back in the 1940s.

What do you call the insect equivalent of a furry? Whatever it is, this character
is to them what Lola Bunny is to furries.

Mr. Bumble and a ladybug (Margie Hines) start talking about how them "human ones" are such a nuisance, tramplin' through the bug city and causing property damage with their giant feet. Hopefully none of the residents of the bug city got STEPPED ON BY THEM.

Then a little kid bug dressed as a boy scout named Buzz (Mae Questel) bursts in to tell the ladybug that her house is on fire (I hope her children aren't home) - the result of a cigar being thrown at it by one of them HUMANS. A crotchety snail who reminds me of Grumpy from Snow White (he's even voiced by Pinto Colvig, the voice of Grumpy!) insists that they're all doomed.

Why does the snail have arms and legs?

"It's that FENCE!" he claims. From my understanding, originally the big fence kept human beings from stomping all over the garden, but now the fence is worn-down and humans can get through no problem. Mr. Bumble hates the idea of anything happening to his bakery.

But not everybody is troubled by this - a fly and a mosquito are spying on the other bugs, and upon hearing about their troubles the fly says that they've gotta tell "da boss" about it. These two are the villain's minions, and their names are Swat (also Jack Mercer) and Smack (Carl Meyer) respectively. Those are clever names for a fly and a mosquito. And just in case you didn't get that they were bad guys, they have Brooklyn accents.

Smack looks an awfully lot like Pinocchio, doesn't he?

So they go to see their boss, the villainous Mr. C. Bagley Beetle (Ted Pierce), and fill him in as to what's going on. Then Smack gives some exposition as to how Mr. Beetle bought up all this property high up in a part of the garden that them pesky humans never come through.

Yes, that's supposed to be a beetle.

It turns out Mr. Beetle is one of those bad guys that acts all nice and kindhearted-like when he's around the good guys so no one will suspect he's up to no good. He reminds Mr. Bumble that this sort of thing never happens up where HE lives, so if Mr. Bumble were to let him marry his daughter the three of them could live up there safe and sound, hintidy-hint-hint-hint. Yes, Mr. Beetle is also one of those "has the hots for the main female character of the movie" sort of bad guys. Honey should join Elisa, Belle, and Esmerelda's support group.

You'd never be able to show a character smoking in an animated movie nowadays.

Mr. Bumble is all "Sorry, but Honey doesn't have the hots for you" before mentioning that Honey's sweetheart, Hoppity, is coming back. This makes Mr. Beetle MAD!

So, ten minutes in we finally get to see our main character, Hoppity the grasshopper (Stan Freed). He rides into town on a lantern hanging from a wagon, then maneuvers his way around the feet of gigantic human beings... and one Scottish Terrier.

Everyone knows that grasshoppers are a Scottish Terrier's natural prey.

Upon entering the garden, Hoppity is shocked to see human footprints and the smoking remains of cigar-lit buildings. He receives a warm welcome from all of his fellow bugs. Especially Honey, who as we've established is the Olive Oyl to his Popeye.

Did you know that grasshoppers have their ears on their bellies? No, really.
Look it up.

Meanwhile, Mr. Beetle and his two stooges run afoul of another smoking cigar. After it nearly rolls right towards Mr. Bumble's place, Mr. Beetle gets a nasty, awful idea. He pushes the cigar right towards the bakery/ice cream shop/bar/whatever it is. And... it actually doesn't set it aflame or even cause much damage.

Fortunately, Hoppity spots a fire hydrant across the street. But in order to get to it so he can get some water, he has to cross the street, and apparently it's rush hour and the movie goes all Frogger on us. Buzz helps by stinging a traffic cop, resulting in him blowing his whistle and all the cars screeching to a halt. One car starts spewing out gasoline. Which Hoppity mistakes for water. Uh oh...

You had ONE JOB, Hoppity.

Upon being doused with gasoline, the cigar explodes. We get... believe it or not... a blackface joke. A BLACKFACE JOKE. I know this was the 1940s, but still...

Well, anyhow, it seems that Mr. Beetle's plan is foiled... though it honestly would've been foiled even without Hoppity seeing as how the cigar didn't do any damage to Mr. Bumble's place. He has Honest John and Gideon... I mean, Smack and Swat stalk Hoppity and Honey as they go for a moonlit walk to some sort of bug nightclub in the sewers. We even get a musical number once they arrive!

Y'know, say what you will about the character designs in A Bug's Life and how
they're not very realistic, but at least PIXAR didn't just put wings and a pair of
antennae on a human girl for all the female bugs in THEIR movie.

While Honey and Hoppity are dancing, Smack tries to whack Hoppity on the head with a nail, but winds up getting it tangled in some electrical wires and he gets electrocuted. Hoppity tries to help him, but gets electrocuted as well. And then, um, this happens...

After whatever that was, Hoppity and Honey leave the club singing another song. Swat and Smack head back to Mr. Beetle's place to recap the previous scene for him.

"Magic mirror on the wall, who's the most boring animated movie villain of all?"

The next day, the bug city comes under the attack of a bunch of hockey-playing kids. Fortunately, no one is harmed, but Hoppity insists that if they can't stop the humans from barging in on them, they should just move. But where to? "There isn't anywhere," Mr. Bumble laments, except that garden up next to that big place where the human ones live. Hoppity says that he's gonna go over to that garden and look it over. But, oh no! Mr. Beetle, Smack and Swat are listening in on them. Dun-dun-duuuuuuuuuun...

Hoppity and Mr. Bumble check out the garden, which is absolutely stunning. Hoppity claims that they probably don't have to worry about the "human ones" that live nearby - "Anybody who'd keep a garden lookin' like this couldn't be so bad!" he insists. "At least I don't think so." They even climb inside a watering can... which the garden's owner promptly brings inside to fill up. But Mr. Bumble is saved from drowning by the humans, Dick and Mary Dickens (voiced by Kenny Gardner and Gwen Williams respectively).

And they just leave Hoppity in there? What the heck?

The Dickenses place Mr. Bumble back outside in the garden, so now he and Hoppity know for SURE that this would be a swell place to live.

Oh, and by the way, Mr. Beetle sent Swat and Smack after Hoppity and Mr. Bumble to... I guess murder Hoppity, but when they saw Hoppity and Mr. Bumble get brought into the house, they assume they're both goners and lie to Mr. Beetle about how they killed them both. Upon discovering that they're still alive, he's none too pleased.

So the bugs all pack up their things and move to the garden, singing another song... well, except for Grumpy Snail. So, is that it? Is the movie over? Well, no. There's one thing the bugs didn't count on - THE SPRINKLER SYSTEM.

"The conflict has been resolved, but it's only the second act. I'd better start
spraying water everywhere to make the bugs all go back to their old city and keep
the plot going!"

All the bugs freak out... because apparently it never rains in New York City so the bugs never had water falling from the sky onto them before? And then the HOSE comes loose from the sprinkler system and starts flooding the garden.

"CURSE YOU, J. LESSLER! WHO, FOR THOSE UNAWARE, WAS THE GUY
RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FIRST SPRINKLER PATENT!"

The water carries the bugs all back to their little city, and now nearly everyone is mad at Hoppity even though he had no way of knowing that the humans who own the garden were going to turn on a giant sprinkler and wash them out.

Well, I did say NEARLY everyone...

Hoppity and Honey overhear the Dickenses who own the garden talking about how Dick is a songwriter and that they're waiting for a check from a publishing company he sold one of his songs to so that they can use the money to fix up the garden and fence where the bugs are living. So, problem solved, right? Well, no. Mr. Beetle was in the middle of trying to talk Mr. Bumble into letting him marry Honey when they came in to tell them the good news, so Mr. Beetle makes it his new goal to make sure the Dickenses never get that check, bwah-ha-ha...

So he has Swat and Smack steal the check once it arrives so that the Dickenses can't find it. The result: the fence not getting fixed, more humans barging in and causing property damage for the bugs, everyone giving Hoppity a hard time, and characters speaking in rhyme for whatever reason. And all because a beetle really, really wants to get it on with a bee.

"Craaaaaaaaaaawling in my exoskeletoooooooooooooooon..."

And just to add insult to injury, then Hoppity overhears the Dickenses talking about how they got a foreclosure notice. And if they leave the house, the city's gonna demolish it and put up another skyscraper. Here's a question - why doesn't Dick just write another song and get the publishing company to buy it so they'll get ANOTHER check?

And not just any skyscraper, mind you - a MODERN skyscraper.

Mr. Beetle is initially all cheery about this until he realizes that the skyscraper will also cover HIS property. It'll be worthless! So he decides to give all of his property to the other bugs in the city. On one condition, of course - if Honey marries him. But what's this? Hoppity heard all of that!

"Uh... April Fool's?"

Hoppity declares that he's going to go tell the other bugs just what kind of insect Mr. Beetle is. Alas, Swat and Smack manage to stop him by TYING HIS ARMS AND LEGS INTO A KNOT. Ouch!

And then they reveal to Hoppity that they stole the check, then proceed to open up the envelope and shove him inside. I guess they're hoping that he'll suffocate in there.

Where's a can of Raid when you need one?

So now Honey is stuck having to marry Mr. Beetle, but at least the bugs all have a place to live. We get another song and Swat offends the entire continent of Asia.

The blackface gag was bad enough.

Little does Mr. Beetle know that the construction crew has already arrived to start building that skyscraper. Question, what was Mr. Beetle's plan after giving his property, which in addition to being worthless would've been destroyed when they started to build the skyscraper, to the other bugs? Where was HE going to live?

Also, what is that black pointy thing supposed to be?

The bugs all flee back to the city, only for construction to start up THERE too once they arrive. On the bright side, Hoppity manages to get free from the cinder block the bad guys stuck the envelope he was in under. However, Mr. Beetle and his goons have decided to kidnap Honey because... I don't know what his plan is now. Fortunately, Hoppity shows up and, despite still being stuck inside an envelope, kicks the baddies' butts. Or rather, ambdomins, since they're bugs and all.

After being freed, Hoppity tells the other bugs about Mr. Beetle's scheme. Then he overhears the Dickenses talking about how, if they had that check, they could live on the roof of the skyscraper and have a nice garden. He goes to get the check, but by the time he comes back with it, the Dickenses have left. He can't find them, but he DOES find the mail carrier. So there's THAT, at least.

Hoppity tells the other bugs that they have to go up to the top of the skyscraper. "If we stick together, why, everything's gonna be all right!" he exclaims. We get a montage of the bugs climbing the skyscraper's infrastructure and the mail carrier trying to find the Dickenses. As for Mr. Beetle, Swat, and Smack, they run afoul of Mr. Cement Mixer.

Okay, how the heck did that teeny tiny beetle survive a BRICK being placed
on top of him?

Swat and Smack manage to free Mr. Beetle, the bugs keep climbing, the mail carrier finds the Dickenses, the Dickenses gets the check, the song becomes a hit, the skyscraper is built, blah blah blah…

And not a sprinkler in sight.

Everybody's happy... except for Mr. Beetle, who's apparently in jail. The end.

What's the Verdict?

Mr. Bug Goes to Town is... okay. Not good, not bad, just okay. The animation's nice, there are a few good gags, the voice actors all do a fine job. But the film has a lot of problems. For one thing, it's needlessly long. There's a LOT of padding that could've easily been cut. The characters are really uninteresting. I'm not a huge fan of most of the character designs, either... slapping wings and antennae on a human being doesn't automatically make it look like an insect. I'm not saying I want photo-realistic bugs, just something at least slightly more bug-like.

Regardless, the film is a nice little piece of animation history, and worth watching if you're a fan of Fleischer Studios and their output. If you'd like to watch Mr. Bug Goes to Town for yourself, you can find it on YouTube. Just don't expect Snow White levels of quality.

Maybe Fleischer Studios would have gotten better at making full-length movies had this one not flopped and they would've made more. I guess we'll never know. Ah well...