Mr. Bug Goes to Town

Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941)

Boy, Oh Boy! Here's Music, Laughter, Love and Joy!

The happy tranquility of Bugville is shattered when the populace learns that a colossal skyscraper is to be built over their tiny town.

Date of release
1941-12-09
TMDB
6.3 / 10 (38)
Runtime
1h 18m
Genres
Animation, Comedy, Family
Director
Dave Fleischer

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $1M

Mr. Bug Goes to Town is a 1941 American animated musical comedy film produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. It was the second and final feature-length film from Fleischer Studios, the sixth animated film produced by an American studio, and the first based largely on an original story. Mr. Bug was envisioned originally as an adaptation of Maurice Maeterlinck's 1901 novel The Life of the Bee, but Paramount was unwilling to purchase the rights from Samuel Goldwyn.

Production

Fleischer Studios' first feature, Gulliver's Travels, did such impressive business in its first week that Paramount president Barney Balaban ordered another feature for a Christmas 1941 release.

Mr. Bug Goes to Town is similar in concept to Gulliver's Travels with its large cast of characters, complicated crowd scenes, and the contrasting scale of tiny characters against the gigantic human world. In Mr. Bug, the environment is central to the picture.

The film was beset by problems due to the rift between Max and Dave Fleischer that formed during the production of Gulliver's Travels. From that point on, they communicated with each other via internal memos while working in the same building; Max's son Richard Fleischer remarked in 2005 that running a major animated cartoon studio solely by written communique turned out to be "a sort of tragicomedy".

Mr. Bug Goes to Town was the first animated feature to give screen credit to the voice actors. In the starring roles of Hoppity and Honey were Stan Freed and Pauline Loth, respectively, while supporting characters were voiced by studio staff members such as Jack Mercer (Mr. Bumble, Swat the Fly, Insects), Tedd Pierce (C. Bagley Beetle, Insects), Carl Meyer (Smack the Mosquito), Pinto Colvig (Mr.

Songs featured in Mr. Bug included "We're the Couple in the Castle", "Katy Did, Katy Didn't", "I'll Dance at Your Wedding (Honey Dear)" by Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser, and "Boy Oh Boy" by Sammy Timberg and Loesser.

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