Mr. Bug Goes to Town was one of those films that I grew up hearing about, however a copy could never be obtained until now. I just watched this film on DVD and thought it was a delightful and charming film, with wonderful animation, a good plot and great songs. If this film was made by Disney then the film would be considered a classic, however because it was made by a little known film studio that is long gone, the film has slipped through the cracks.
The film was made by the Max Fleischer studios at their Miami, FL studios and was released through Paramount Pictures. The film was to have had its premiere on Dec. 7th, 1941, the date of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Though this probably did hurt the release of the film, the film did play at some movie theaters for up to a year as evidenced by doing some research. The film was called a family favorite by most of the major American newspapers. The film continued to be re-released about every year or so, usually around holidays like Easter, at least in major cities.
In the mid 1950s, this film was re-released under a new name "Hoppity Goes to Town," named after the lead character in the film.
The film is a true period piece, capturing a slice of Americana as it was back in the late 30s and 1940's. The animation is great, and many of the characters are very cute. The animation of the humans in the film is via the rotoscope process, meaning that actors were filmed and then that footage was traced over by animators, giving the movement a very real look.
The Fleishcher studios were one of several animation studios making animated cartoons back in the 30s and 40s. While some of the Fleischer characters like Betty Boop, Popeye and the Superman cartoons are better known, the work of the studio is more or less forgotten.
Almost as a whole the body of work of the Fleischer studios are in the public domain. All of the Superman cartoons are public domain, all but one of the "Color Classics" series are public domain, and the film "Gulliver's Travels" is also in the public domain. This film never appears to have been released in the US on VHS or DVD but was released in Europe. However some looking around on the internet can very quickly produce you with a copy. I recommend the search.
