A picture's worth...

Mr. Bug Goes to Town (Hoppity Goes to Town)

17 in x of animated feature film history
Release: Dec. 5th, 1941
Country: USA
Director: Dave Fleischer 

“Mr. Bug Goes to Town was originally meant to be an adaptation of Maurice Maeterlinck’s The Life of the Bee, but the Fleischers were unable to get the rights to the book, and the studio came up with its own story inspired by The Life of the Bee instead.

Hoppity the grasshopper finds that all is not well when he returns home to the lowlands, a vacant lot just 45 inches from Broadway. A skyscraper is scheduled to be built on the site, throwing all his friends and relatives from their homes. Not only that, his girlfriend Honey Bee is being forced to marry the villainous C. Bagley Beetle. All will be saved if only Dick and Mary, the songwriting humans who own the land, can find the money to build the home of their dreams, thereby also providing a new home for the lowlands residents. But Beetle has other ideas and, with the help of his bumbling henchmen Swat and Smack, intercepts Dick’s hefty royalty check.

Mr. Bug Goes to Town was beset by problems early on. To produce their first animated feature, Gulliver’s Travels, the Fleischers had moved their studio from New York City to Miami, Florida, and expanded their staff. The studio was already deeply in debt from the expense of ‘Mr. Bug’ and the expensive costs of other shorts which were in production around the same time. The Fleischers were forced to sell their studio to Paramount mid-way through production on Mr. Bug. 

Paramount kept the Fleischers in production, but they were required to deliver signed letters of resignation to Paramount, to be used at the studio’s discretion, as the brothers were growing apart. One reason for this rift was that Dave wanted to write the musical score for Mr. Bug, which Max refused.

Mr. Bug was originally going to be released in November 1941, but since the Fleischers’ rival, Walt Disney Productions, had its film Dumbo released weeks earlier in October and was already a success, Paramount changed the date to December. Having the misfortune of opening two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Mr. Bug was a financial disaster, despite earning generally positive reviews, and led to the ousting of Max and Dave Fleischer from the studio they had established in 1919.

Paramount later re-released Mr. Bug as Hoppity Goes to Town; the original title is a parody of the title of the 1936 film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.”

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Mr. Bug Goes to Town is available on YouTube.

UPDATED: 12/6/18