FANTASIA OBSCURA: What Happens When a Bunch of Bugs Take on Big Business?
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, it’s all just a series of turf battles, both on screen and off…
Hoppity Goes to Town (aka Mr. Bug Goes to Town) (1941)
(Dist.: Paramount Pictures; Dir.: Dave Fleischer)
So, what do we need for a good animated film?
Anthropomorphic animals? Check.
Decent musical numbers? Fine, good.
Class struggle over real estate with a few bits about the rights of artists thrown in? Uh, wha’…?
More Frank Capra than Walt Disney, the second full-length animated feature by Fleischer Studios tells the story of a group of insects that live together just under our feet (shades of A Bug’s Life) on a plot of ground in the middle of the city (shades of Antz) that used to be in a walled-off lawn for the last single dwelling house left on the block. The wall collapsed years ago as the house fell into disrepair, however, and now humans walk through the yard, trampling the bugs’ homes and discarding cigars and cigarettes that threaten to burn them out.
Looking down on all of them is the villainous C. Bagley Beetle, who owns property off the beaten path that the lowland bugs could move to if they’re willing to accept him as their landlord. As one of the conditions for moving into Beetle’s land is to have the sweet Honey Bee marry him, the lowlanders are not exactly warm to the jus primae noctis clause in their new leases, and so hold out.
Back from a long trip (where, we’re never told, but this being the tail end of the Great Depression, we can guess a few things) comes Hoppity the Grasshopper, with a Jimmy Stewart-esque, “Aw shucks” inflection in his speech and a sunny attitude that there’s got to be a better way than either being burned out or badly bugged. He thinks he can get the bugs to move into the walled-off part of the lot, where the house owners Dick and Mary await a check from a performing rights society to buy Dick’s song, hoping to use the money to refurb the place. Unfortunately, Beetle decides to intercept the check in the mail, making Hoppity lose face with the other bugs and forcing them to make him their lord and master.
Which would be a great plan, if the house and lot did not get foreclosed on when the PRS money failed to show up in order to make way for a high-rise, putting all the bugs in danger before there’s a mad scramble to stay ahead of the construction project that —
Yeah, there’s a few reasons this film didn’t strike a chord with audiences, and the script was a big one. When the film first came out in late 1941, audiences couldn’t warm up to the little-guy-takes-on-the-villain-with-a-smile story like those found in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (the film Fleischer was directly referencing in the movie’s title), derisively known as “Capra-corn” then. That, and the lack of a strong villain; unlike the adversaries in Disney films, Beetle doesn’t do much to engage the viewer, coming across more as a skivvy landlord in the bad part of town than an adversary worthy of consideration.
Which is not to say the film has nothing to redeem it. The animation is gorgeous in much of the film, and the scenes of the “bug-pocalypse” as the construction crew blithely bring catastrophe to hero and villain alike are worth the price of admission alone.
That, and the music; with songs on the soundtrack written by Hoagy Carmichael, including the piece “Castle in the Sky” that becomes a major plot point in the film, which needs to earn royalties like an iTunes hit during an era when vinyl was king to make the plot move along, the movie had more things in its favor than not.
Unfortunately, there were more turf issues off screen than there were on to allow the picture to thrive. The film came from Fleischer Studios at a time when brothers Max and Dave Fleischer were feuding with each other, a situation that put the studio at risk after it had been leveraged in response to moving from New York to Miami and running over budget on their first feature, Gulliver’s Travels.
The strain between the two led to Paramount Pictures calling in their loans to the Fleischers and taking over the studio; anxious to recoup their money, they chose to release Mr. Bug Goes to Town to theaters quickly on December 5th, 1941, a few days before another turf war started up, this time with the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Having been removed quickly from the theaters, the film finally did find its audience when it made its way to television, under the title Hoppity Goes to Town. Much like Hoppity and his neighbors from the lowlands, a little “aw shucks” pluck and can-do stick-to-itiveness does lead to a happy ending, or at least one where the film gets someone to see it. At least by folks who were able to watch it in peace without the landlord bugging them.
NEXT TIME: While lost in space, some folks kept it real but didn’t quite get it down right…
