Anyone else out there enjoy Fleischer's second feature "Mr. Bug Goes To Town"? I really love this film and I'm not that into animated features. It grows on me the more I watch it. The musical score is fantastic and the animation is great throughout. The backgrounds are also something to behold. If you've seen the opening sequence you know what I mean. Hopefully this movie will get a proper release on DVD someday. Here's a short clip from the film. I posted some model sheets from it awhile back too.
8 comments:
While I love this movie as much as anyone, you have to admit Hoppity is a pretty bland main character. Just my opinion.
I've never seen it. I'll see it someday, for sure.
Yeah, Hoppity's pretty boring. Honey Bee isn't interesting at all either. I think Swat and Smack make the film.
Just a small question: Which one is Smack and which one is Swat? I've only seen two small clips so I would'nt know.
Swat is the fly (Jack Mercer) and Smack's the mosquito(Carl Meyer).
Love this movie. The biggest flaw though is that the three villains carry the thing. Still, it's nice to see the Fleischers end on a high note.
"Mr. Bug Goes To Town" is an outstanding example of not only animation art in general, but a shining example of what the Fleischer's could do in particular. The songs are just Ok, but the Fleischer's had their hands tied by Paramount on the choice of songsmiths. The score however is excellent...Leigh Harline of Snow White fame provides a lush dramatic score to compliment the gorgeous background art, and the overall seemingly effortless animation of the characters. Swat and Smack are prefect. Hoppity and Honey are rather pedestrian as cartoon he and sheros go, but over all the Fleischer animators manage to give lesser characters true "personality". The rotoscoping is smooth and the camera angles and direction years ahead of its time. The picture deserves a serious re-evaluation from every standpoint. This last major effort by the Fleischer Studios is a wonderful capstone tribute to their huge and unique contributions to the art of animation
This film pops up on the TV every so often, saw it on Film Four a little while ago. A real shame this pretty much bankrupted the Fleischer studio, I would of loved to have seen what they'd follow this up with, seeing how this was a big improvement over their first feature film.
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