Mr. Bug Goes to Town
Mr. Bug Goes to Town
G | 09 December 1941 (USA)
Mr. Bug Goes to Town Trailers

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

Reviews
Cathardincu

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

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Nonureva

Really Surprised!

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SnoReptilePlenty

Memorable, crazy movie

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Inadvands

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

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ccthemovieman-1

What I liked best about this feature-length animated film from 1941 is the great feel it gives for the early 1940s. It's the songs, the clothing, automobiles, buildings lingo of the day, etc. You feel like you've stepped back into time.From reading some of the reviews here, I see this was a hard-luck film, being released a couple of days before the Pearl Harbor attack. Wow, no one would be interested in going to the movies for a feature-length cartoon during those eventful and shocking days, I'm sure. Too bad, because the folks missed some nice animation would have really impressed back then, almost 70 years ago. The colors are nice, drawings are good and story involving as we root for the bugs led by "Hoppity" and and his beautiful girl "Honey" to make it happily-ever-after and out of harm's way. It's also about all of them finding a grassy spot they can live and not worry about humans trampling them.There is a nasty villain, though - "C. Bagley Beetle" - and two of his henchmen. Those helpers ("Swat, The Fly" and "Smack, the Mosquito") are comedians, complete with their Brooklyn-ese accents! The story is a familiar one where a nasty old man wants to marry the sweet young thing and uses unscrupulous means to force her hand. The good guy, meanwhile, has the decked stacked against him but in the very end, of course, prevails.My favorite part - this will sound worse than what it was - was when good-guy "Hoppity" got temporarily electrocuted and he danced in black-and-white. That was fantastic animation! You know, it's a good thing I didn't see this as a very little kid; I would have been afraid to play outside and squash all those nice bug-people! You never know what (or who) is in that grass beneath your feet!

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Julia Arsenault (ja_kitty_71)

Normally I am a typical "creepy-crawly-hatin'" girl, but after watching this film (on YouTube of course), I'm having different perspectives. And also I did not know that my favorite animation studio Fleischer's had made another feature film. The film's story is about community of insects whose city garden home is threatened by humans (lighted cigars and cigarette butts, footsteps, etc..), and how a plucky young grasshopper named Hoppity saves the day and wins the heart of Honey the bee; I love the lovely Ms. Honey. You know, after watching the film, the bugs reminded me of the some of the "jitterbugs" from Don Bulth's Thumbelina. And out of the songs in the film, I love "We're a Couple in The Castle;" when I sing that song, it almost made me cry.This wonderful film was the second (and last) feature film to come out of the Fleischer studio. The film was originally going to be released in November of 1941, but since the Fleischer's rival, Disney, released Dumbo weeks earlier, Paramount has changed the date to December of the same year, but Mr. Bug unfortunately went into an unrealized trap of terrible timing which was opened two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.After that, Mr. Bug was a financial disaster and led to the ousting of Max and Dave Fleischer, from the studio they had established in 1919, and reorganized the company as Famous Studios. Another huge factor in their departure was the fact that Max and Dave Fleischer were no longer speaking to one another due to disputes...how sad it was. Overall I love both films from the Fleischer's - Gulliver and Mr. Bug.

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pinkylacy1929

"Mr. Bug Goes To Town" was the last major achievement the Fleischer studios produced. The quality of the Superman series produced at the same time is evident in this extraordinary film.The music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and Hoagy Carmichael (with assistance by Flieshcer veteran Sammy Timberg are quite good, but not as much as the scoring of the picture by Leigh Harline who also scored Snow White for Disney. Harline's "atmospheric music" is superb, and a treat for the ears.The layout and staging of the picture was years ahead of it's time, and once again the Fleischer's background artists outdid themselves. The techincolored beauty of the film cannot be denied, and while Hoppity the grasshopper is the star, the characters of Swat the Fly and Smack the Mosquito steal the picture. Swat's voicing by Jack Mercer (of Popeye fame) is priceless. Kenny Gardner (brother-in-law) of Guy Lombardo...and a featured vocalist in his band...does his usual pleasant job in the role of Dick Dickinsen.The movie has been criticized for all the wrong reasons. The Fleischer Studios were animation experts par excellence and this shows very clearly in the finished product. The movie is tuneful, the story great for all ages, and the final scenes of the bugs scrambling for their lives upon a rising skyscraper is some of the best staging and animation of any animated film past and present.Do not miss this wonderfully hand drawn film. Also don't fail to appreciate the title sequence with the most elaborate example of Max Fleischer's remarkable 3-D sterioptical process which took four months to construct and employed 16,000 tiny panes of glass in the "electrified" buildings of Manhattan.Do not miss Mr. Bug Goes To Town...aka Hoppity Goes To Town. I'll wager you'll be bug eyed at the results!

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florriebbc

Hello again, I have been thinking about this movie all my life. I saw it when I was 5 years old in Los Angeles, California in 1942. What a wonderful story of being good to one another, kindness, and charity. You forget it is the bugs relating to one another. It was just as if they were people. I love this movie and so do my adult children. Such beautiful color in this movie.I need to see this movie again. There is a story about an envelope in the movie, that I just can't remember the "why" of it.Thanks for listening.

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