The Making of Mr. Bug

Critics and apologists have come up with all kinds of reasons the second and last Fleischer feature Mr. Bug Goes To Town was a failure (Variety used the terms “mediocre” and “meagre” to describe the film’s weekly take figures). Some blame the release coming around Pearl Harbor Day. Others say an unfair comparison to Disney influenced movie goers. Still others say it just wasn’t very entertaining.

Whatever the reason, Variety announced on January 23, 1942 the Fleischer Studio would no more make feature films. And, as fans of old cartoons likely know, Paramount soon swooped in and took over the studio.

The feature seems to have received an extensive PR build-up. Here’s a newspaper column from the National Enterprise Association. The film was completed on November 6, 1941. Within two weeks, Dave Fleischer was in Hollywood, allegedly scouting talent but likely looking for work (he was in charge of the cartoon department at Columbia five months later).

This was originally posted at the Golden Age Cartoon forums with better versions of the pictures. I no longer have them and could only find these weak copies.

500 Glamor Girls Required to Make Film Star at Miami
Oldest Cartoon Studio Is Bughouse These Days During $1,000,000 Production of ‘Mr. Bug Goes to Town’ To Be Released Near Christmas
By JONATHAN KILBOURN
(NEA Service Staff Correspondent)
MIAMI, Aug. 8—In Hollywood it takes one glamor girl to make a picture star. Here in Miami it takes 500.
The 500 girls are artists who draw cartoon characters — “stars” — stars for the Fleischer Studio, oldest movie cartoon makers and, next, to Disney, the biggest. And the fact that it takes 500 girls to create a character of only one of a multitude of differences between the set-up in a West Coast studio and the situation here.
For one thing, the Fleischer company is the only major movie concern to be established successfully outside the Hollywood area. It moved here in 1938, after 22 years in New York. For another, it manages to do business without any of Hollywood’s hullabaloo. Although it has one of Florida’s largest payrolls, most Miamians don’t even know of its existence.
The company, under the leadership of Dave and Max Fleischer, now has under way its second full-length production (first was “Gulliver’s Travels”), the biggest project in its history. Titled “Mr. Bug Goes to Town” and costing over $1,000,000, it may prove a minor milestone in the progress of movie cartooning. It is the first all-cartoon feature-length picture with a non-fantasy plot—production officials describe it as a “modern romantic comedy-drama”—and instead of human actors it has insects.
Most Artists Have Two Jobs
These insect actors are, in a sense, among the highest paid in the business. Hoppity, the Jimmy Stewart-type grasshopper hero, draws $5000 a week, and Honey Bee, who reminds you of a Deanna Durbin heroine, gets $3750. C. Bagley Beetle, the insect menace, makes $1750. At least, it’s fair to set down those sums as salaries, because that is what the artists who create these characters are paid for the time Hoppity, Honey and Mr. Beetle are actually “in production.”
As in Hollywood, 55 per cent of the Fleischer feature’s budget is earmarked for “talent.” But instead of going into the pockets of five or six big-name stars, the $550,000 is divided among the 700 artists, including 500 girls, who create, animate, ink and color the make-believe movie stars feature players and extras, as well as design the “sets,” which are painted backgrounds.
Most of the girl artists are “inkers,” whose precision work consists of inking in the outlines of the penciled sketches created by the top artists and animators. Their average age is only 23, and they’re the prettiest bevy of beauties that never saw the screen.
Few of them, however, have Hollywood ambitions. They like Miami and the studio, and they want to stay here.
Hardly a soul at the studio holds down less than two jobs. Artists suggest story ideas, gagmen do art work, every one gets his or her chance to become the “voice” of a cartoon character.

Veteran Fleischer employee Mike Meyer [photo to the right], for example, is the voice of a popular comic strip character as well as of Smack, the “dead-end” mosquito in “Mr. Bug Goes to Town.” But he’s also an idea man who creates stories and gags and sketches characters.
Teamwork keynotes studio activity. Conferences are constantly being held—not the fabled, interminable conferences West Coast movie magnates are forever holding, but short staff meetings for the making of decisions and interchanging of opinions.
Unlike Hollywood, a cartoon studio can’t afford retakes; each foot of cartoon film requires weeks, even months of work. So changes must be made before work begins on the “shooting script.”
Planning and producing a Fleischer cartoon is an elaborate process—“Mr. Bug Goes to Town” has been in production for over a year, although it won’t be released until Christmas time. Over a month was spent deciding on the general outline the story should follow, then three months creating characters, which means perfecting their appearances, action, voices.
A cartoon studio doesn't need to hunt for talent as Selznick did for “Gone With the Wind” and Paramount is now doing for “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” If it wants a certain type of actor for a particular role, it just draws him.
When the story outline is complete, Dave Fleischer, this studio’s producer and director, puts the pencil sketches in his “moviola”—a device of his own invention which rapidly turns the sheets of drawing paper, gives the effect of motion. Thus he can tell, how nearly the preliminary sketches come to the desired effect.
Revisions then are made, details added to the script, backgrounds designed and colors selected. All the speaking parts are filled and voices recorded, for animators use the sound to visualize action.
Then the animating side of movie cartoon-making really begins to move. Pencil drawings are made, 24 per second for each character. There are 24 “frames,” or squares of film, shown on the screen each second, so for every second a moving character is on the screen, 24 pencil drawings must be made. Girl inkers place transparent celluloids over the drawings, trace the lines in ink. Others, called “opaquers,” color these outlined characters. The present Fleischer feature is in that status now “Mr. Bug Goes to Town," when it gets there, will have used up six tons of specially-mixed paint, including 1500 colors and three times that number of shades.
Film Uses 600,000 Pictures
The various characters, inked and colored on celluloid, are then placed against the color backgrounds and photographed, frame by frame, onto film. An hour-long motion picture contains 86,400 frames, and “Mr. Bug Goes to Town” will contain slightly over 100,000—average for a feature-length picture. But into this will have gone close to 600,000 separate celluloid action pictures, 650 separate backgrounds. In all, including working sketches, more than 1,000,000 drawings will have been made.
Final process in movie cartoon-making includes transferring the pictures, dialogue, music, other noises, all of which are on different films, to one film. After this is done, cutting and editing ready the film for release.
That’s when beaming, bespectacled Dave Fleischer, who has his finger in every studio pie, breathes a sigh of relief and takes a plane to New York, where he was born 47 years ago. It’s characteristic of him that when he arrives he stays quietly at the same small Broadway hotel he lived at in less lush days.
It is largely because of Fleischer’s unassuming qualities that his studio lacks Hollywood atmosphere. But he says it is due to the studio’s location. “You get a chance to be natural here and to forget the picture business,” he says.

Shrinking Duck

The gang gets together in the second half of the cartoon to vanquish the villain? Harman and Ising did it in the early ‘30s. An animal’s handicap turns out—in the climax scene—to be a blessing? Sounds like Dumbo, right? Put them together and you get the 1952 Terrytoon Flat Food Fledgling.

But what they didn’t have (besides the Terry Splash™, heard three times in this cartoon) was the shrink take. Observe Dinky Duck as a squirrel and a chipmunk try to stop a weasel from catching him (accompanied by a nice score by Phil Scheib). Notice how he shrinks before exiting from the scene. And notice how the weasel shrinks when he goes around the rope.



Now, a stretched, angular exit.



The old denture gag. Notice in the fifth drawing how the fur on the weasel lifts up.



All the animals have sped-up voices. Including a chipmunk! Oh, Paul Terry, if you only had them release some songs on Liberty Records....

A Deck of Sandwiches

Silent films were hardly a distant memory when the Fleischer studio started making Popeye cartoons. So maybe that’s why little bits of non-speaking business work their way into the studio’s shorts. I suspect a couple of decades later, they’d be deemed unnecessary and too expensive.

In “We Aim To Please” (1934), Bluto orders a half dozen sandwiches. Popeye passes the order onto Olive Oyl. She nods her head with her eyes closed like Stan Laurel, bangs her knife on the table, takes a one-eye aim and starts slicing. Is this the first time the shuffle-the-ingredients-like-cards gag was used in a cartoon?



Then she licks her finger twice before tossing the sandwiches to Popeye the Waiter Man.



Willard Bowsky and Dave Tendlar are the credited animators. I’ve always liked the theme song of this cartoon. There’s a nice little tune, With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel, in the sequence just before, and while, Popeye makes Wimpy a burger. Whether Sammy Timberg did his own arrangements, I don’t know, but there’s a really good use of solo instruments, especially a violin, in the score of this cartoon.

Freberg Moves On

The year was 1957 and there were worlds left to conquer for young Stan Freberg. He had toiled anonymously in animated cartoons, received a bit of notoriety for his work on the puppet show A Time For Beany but then vaulted into fame in the novelty record business. The canny Freberg managed to take his satiric records to the next step—in summer 1957 he was handed a radio variety show where he poked fun at whatever the censors would permit (and they didn’t permit him to do all he wanted). Finally, he opened an advertising company that basically poked fun at advertising.

Let’s pass along a couple of newspaper columns. First, let’s see what the Herald Tribune syndicate’s John Crosby thought about Freberg’s radio show (actually Freberg’s second; he had a sitcom for CBS in 1954). Crosby wasn’t a fan of the banality of radio or TV; he was a fan of both Fred Allen and Henry Morgan, who liked to take shots at both media. Crosby hits on one thing I’ve found about the Freberg shows—some routines carry on a little too long. But they have moments of real brilliance, too. He also reviews Morgan’s latest radio effort as well. By 1957, Morgan had been sadly emasculated. He should have been doing a game show parody, not a game show. This appeared in papers on July 19, 1957.

Out Of The Air
By JOHN CROSBY
Freberg—The Man Of Many Voices
Stan Freberg, the man of many voices who can reduce me to helpless laughter with his better satiric flights, now has his own radio show on CBS (7:30 p. m. EDT, Sunday). The opening show last Sunday was, I would say, a yes-and-no affair which had moments of great charm and bright wit but contained some empty spots, too.
Freberg is not only a satirist but a man with a great gift for fantasy which is sometimes delightful and sometimes gets him into trouble. The show’s opening, for instance, found the live Stan Freberg arguing with the various personalities created by the recorded Stan Freberg. “It’s frightening! It’s frightening!” exclaimed Freberg. It was also a wonderful demonstration of the man s versatility and imaginative range.
THIS WAS followed by a bit in which Freberg played the part of a French sheepherder who had taught his sheep to play a tune on the bells around their necks. This was charming. It was a mixture of both fantasy and humor in pure sound — something that wouldn’t come off on a television screen at all — and an excellent example of what Freberg does best. He is essentially a sound man and he knows how to call into play the imagination of his listeners. He has done some of his things on television and always, to me, there’s a letdown. I’d rather do my own imagining.
The bulk of the show was devoted to something called a Freberg fable, entitled “Incident at Los Varoses,” and this was drawn out far too thinly. It detailed a ferocious rivalry between two gambling establishments known as El Sodom and Rancho Gomorrah, Los Varoses being a thinly disguised Las Vegas.

THE TROUBLE with trying to satirize that fabled sin-spot is that the excesses of Las Vegas in the entertainment field are so bad that it is almost impossible to top them. As a result, the thing got pretty strained and seemed interminable.
Just the same, it was an interesting and unusual half-hour and well worth listening to. This Sunday Freberg promises an interview with the Abominable Showman and the inside story on the midnight ride of Paul Revere, both topics you are not likely to hear just anywhere. You might just blow the dust off that radio in the corner this weekend and sample purely aural humor for a change.
JUST AHEAD of Freberg, CBS Radio has started a new panel show called “Sez Who,” presided over — with great difficulty — by Henry Morgan. The panelists are Gypsy Rose Lee, John Henry Faulk and Joey Adams, and the idea of the game is to guess the identity of voices on records, most of them old ones. The first one, for example, was that of Enrico Caruso singing, “Johnny Get Your Gun” at a World War I bond rally.
However, the game rapidly was buried under a barrage of wisecracks and acrimony that sounded a little too edged to be quite comfortable. “What started as a simple game has developed into one of the greatest indoor fights,” lamented Mr. Morgan at one point. “I hope we can all leave this studio together.”
FROM THE POINT of view of the show, perhaps it is just as well that distemper occurred. “Sez Who” is a pretty witless and simple-minded parlor game, even as radio parlor games go, and was not especially helped by a sort of studied ignorance on the part of the panelists of almost every field with which the mystery voices were connected. “It takes two to play baseball?” asked Miss Lee innocently, a remark I always shall cherish. She was talking about comedy routine between Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig which was pretty awful, even for a couple of baseball players. It was this sort of thing that the ancients claim killed vaudeville and future generations well may say it was this kind of program that killed radio.

Freberg’s radio show debuted on July 14th, was cancelled on September 25th and went off the air October 20th. Bing Crosby was supposed to replace him but Bing wasn’t ready by the 27th. There was talk in Variety that Freberg would do another show; instead Broadway 1957 aired on the 27th in the Freberg slot. Four days later, it was reported Freberg turned down an offer from CBS to find something else for him.

In April 1958, Freberg had signed—along with Rowan and Martin—to host a summer replacement show for Dinah Shore sponsored by Chevrolet. And by June, he had opened his own ad agency. By month’s end, he and Gloria Wood had transcribed a six-minute blurb for Butternut Coffee. The syndicated TV Key column caught up with Freberg. This column was published August 25, 1958.

Stan Freberg Goes Commercial
By STEVEN H. SCHEUER
On the first floor of Hollywood's record-shaped Capital [sic] Record building, satirist Stan Freberg was busy recording a platter about Butternut, a certain gypsy. With a violinist, a tambourine player, a chorus of seven, Stan intoned "Butternut spelled backwards is Tun-ret-tub." This was take number ten and Stan and group had been at it four hours.
"This it normal for Freberg," said an engineer in the sound room. "I've seen him take all night on a single record."
After take ten, Stan called it quits until the next day. He and writer-director Allen Alch had been up till 3 a.m. working on the dialogue. And in two hours he had to report to NBC for rehearsal which included a choreography number for Sunday's Chevy Show, where Stan has been appearing every other week this summer.
Orville Sounds off
"I'm split down the middle," said Stan after the session. "Half of me is with my ad agency and my records, and the other half as an entertainer on the Chevy show. I'm very happy to be on the show, but right now I'm on a treadmill in offers. My agent keeps finding more things for me to do."
As a satirist on TV, Stan has his puppet, Orville, a creature from the Moon, speak up on local happenings and say things Freberg couldn't say himself.
"The Chevy Show is a nice show," said Stan about his new employers. "Bland maybe, but nice. The fans like the music and the show sells a lot of cars. I'm not knocking their success. It pays off. But you never hear people say, 'Gee, did you hear what they said on that show Sunday.' "
So as a satirist Stan perhaps was wondering what he was doing on the program, but nevertheless he was happy to be on it.
"Tell the people out there in Readerland," said Stan, "I'm trying to get to them as best as I know how."
Stan has already gotten to the people with records like "Banana Boat Song," "St. George," "John and Marsha," his radio show and his TV appearances on Club Oasis and with Frank Sinatra. The reviewers favorite terms for Orville and Freberg were "offbeat," "inventive," and "fresh'.
"Those are the terms I like to hear," Stan admitted without blushing. "I’d much rather be any of those than funny."
Proven Critics Wrong
His offbeat humor hasn't warmed the "big" hearts of the network and agency men. They've been telling Stan for some time. "You're just not commercial, Stan." To prove them wrong, Stan went into the ad game. After doing commercials on a small scale with the Cunningham and Walsh ad agency for two years, Freberg went into business on his own last November. With a staff of five, Freberg Ltd. is going great guns.
For instance, the Butternut coffee people used Freberg radio commercials in the Middle West to introduce their new coffee and indulged in no other form of advertising. They expected to sell a quarter of a million jars there in a few months. With the Freberg spots hawking coffee, the sales curve shot up. One million jars were sold in four weeks and the company plant got behind. That's how satire sells. Evidently the Freberg kind isn't just for sophisticates.
(Released by McClure Newspapers Syndicate.)

It's a City Gal!

Time for another Tex Avery reaction.

The hick wolf (Pinto Colvig) gets a look at what a city girl looks like. It takes seven drawings for the wolf’s body to fly apart.



He recovers briefly. These are consecutive frames.



This is just a sampling. In the first take, the wolf clacks his farm boots together. In the second one, his eyes zoom right to the paper, he jumps up and down, then over and back, stomps himself on the head and lets his tongue roll out like a snake onto the floor. Avery always has action quickly mounting on action. That’s why he’s so great.

Grant Simmons, Bobe Cannon, Walt Clinton and Mike Lah are the animators.

Swallow the Leader Backgrounds

Dick Thomas’ background paintings of San Juan Capistrano highlight the opening of the Bob McKimson short “Swallow the Leader” (released in 1948).



The camera panned over this painting. Cornett Wood was responsible for the layouts.



Between this and the cycle animation of birds to start the cartoon, McKimson saved Warners a bit of money.

Silent Cartoon Alert

What a joy it is to watch a silent film masterpiece, accompanied by a well-skilled musician in the pit. Someone playing old Sam Fox sheet music cues on an upright piano is just fine. That includes silent cartoons, too. If you’re in the New York City area at the end of the month, you’ll have a chance to view some, thanks to the New Yorker who knows silent cartoons best.



Animation Nights New York is marking its one-year anniversary with a two-day festival of films culled from its showings over the past year. There’s an incredibly varied array of independent animation and panels; a lot of work has been put into this event. But as this blog deals with old theatrical cartoons, we note there’s an opportunity to see some silent animation.

Tommy José Stathes' Cartoons On Film provides a fun and historical 16mm film program of rare prints from the Stathes Collection. In recognition of ANNY's presence at the South Street Seaport, this Cartoons On Film program of animation from the 1910s through the 1930s incorporates a nautical theme and features live musical accompaniment from The Queen's Cartoonists for select silent-era shorts!

Whether the Felix the Cat cartoon to the right (Two-Lip Time, 1926) will be part of the programme, I don’t know, but it’s the first silent cartoon with a nautical theme I thought of.

It’s a shame the world isn’t populated with Tommy Statheses (duplicates made in an animated machine by Koko the clown, perhaps) who can park themselves in cities around the world and give shows like this. However, there is only one, and he is restricted to New York City, so if you’re nearby, take the time to see his animated revue. Tom’s show is September 29th, 8pm, at the Main Venue, Conference Room 1.

You can find out more about AMMY’s eclectic programme at their web site or on this web page.

A Wedding For Jack

These days, you can’t escape “stories” about celebrity offspring. They’re all over the internet, especially if clothes (or a lack thereof) or pairing up with someone is involved. I’d like to think things were different years ago, even in the era of Hollywood fan magazines and their manufactured reality.

Outside of a line in a gossip column, how often did wire services and newspapers back then report on marriages of TV stars’ kids? Not often, at least that I can tell. One exception was the first wedding of Jack Benny’s daughter. Perhaps the difference was Jack was beloved by just about everyone. Or it may have been because of the easy, ready-made angle: a huge, expensive wedding was being paid for by someone who had appeared in millions of living rooms for 20 years as the cheapest man in the world.

The marriage itself failed, but did result in a grandchild for Jack, which pleased him to no end by all reports.

Here’s the Associated Press from March 9, 1954 on the impending nuptials and Jack’s resignation over what ballooned into a huge affair.

Radio Tightwad Jack Benny Will Spend Fortune Tonight
By BOB THOMAS
AP Hollywood Writer
Hollywood—Jack Benny's reputation as a tightwad gets a jolt tonight when he foots the bill for the lavish wedding of his daughter Joan to Seth Baker of New York.
Rabbi Edgar P. Magnin will marry the young pair tonight at 7 o'clock (PST) in private ceremonies at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Present will be the parents of the couple—the Bennys and New York industrialist Harry Baker and his wife, plus a few intimate friends of the family. These include Barbara Stanwyck, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Bob Hope, Mr. and Mrs. William Goetz and Claudette Colbert.
After the ceremony, the hotel's Crystal Room will be packed with some 500 well-wishers, including more of Hollywood's top stars.
"Outside of having an elopement, there were only two ways we could have done it," sighed Benny. "We could have had a very small wedding and invited only the family and a handful of friends. Or we could have a big affair and invite everyone. Because too many people would have been slighted, we decided to have a big wedding."
MIGHT RUIN HIM

I remarked that this might ruin his reputation as a money-pincher, built up for years on radio and TV.
"Reputation nothing!" he protested. "This might ruin me!"
He estimated that the entire affair might run up a bill in excess of $25,000. This might seem high to all those except fathers who have had to finance weddings lately.
Joan's wedding gown alone is reputed to cost $2,500. It is a Don Loper creation of brocaded lily-of-the-valley white satin, full length with a train. Rex designed the cap of Juliet pearls with a three-tiered full length veil.
"Oh, well, I have only one daughter," said Benny bravely. "I don't care what it costs, just so the kids have a happy marriage."
HIS WEDDING
He added that Joan's wedding is a contrast to when he married Mary Livingstone.
"We did it in Waukegan at the home of a friend," he recalled. "There were six or seven people there, and the cost of the wedding was nil. We didn't even have time to have a reception. We were married in the afternoon, and I had to grab the train to Chicago, where I was appearing in a show that night."
Jack said he was pleased with his future son-in-law, who is a stock broker. Baker, 26, is a graduate of Andover Academy and Amherst College, where he was a Beta Theta Pi. He was married once before.
Joan, 19, is an adopted daughter and was a junior at Stanford when she decided to get married. She has appeared on the Benny radio show and was on his TV program last month. She and her husband will make their home in New York.
ONE REGRET
"I kind of regret that she never got too interested in show business," Jack reflected, "especially since I don't have a son. She was always very good on radio, and I loved the way she threw away her lines on the TV show.
"But she never had any great driving urge to act, and that's what it takes. I might have been able to give her that urge. But it was hard to work her into the show. She never could have appeared as my daughter, except in a dream sequence. When I play my character on the air, I'm not supposed to be married."
Music for the wedding and reception will be provided by Freddie Karger and his orchestra. Mr. Benny will not play the violin.
The newlyweds will leave tomorrow for San Francisco and will fly to Honolulu for a two-week honeymoon.