Here’s part two of the partial animator breakdown for Mr. Bug Goes to Town! For Part 1 click here.
Last week, Lenny Kohl commented about the Mr. Bug maquettes, sculpted by Charles Cristadoro (1881-1967). Earlier, Cristadoro utilized his craftsmanship for the models in Disney’s Pinocchio. Here are four of the Mr. Bug sculptures, courtesy of Heritage Auctions:
George Germanetti animated the romantic interval in Johnson’s sequence where Hoppity and Honey sing an old standard, “Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee.” Written and first recorded in 1912, Billy Murray and Ada Jones sang the tune as a duet for Victor Records. [Click Here to hear it] (Billy Murray sang and provided voices for Max Fleischer, including Bimbo, from 1929 to 1931.)
Al Eugster handled the entire section of Swat and Smack’s report to Mr. Beetle about Hoppity and Honey’s night out. For scene 88 of Swat and Smack’s cheek-to-cheek interpretation of the young couple’s dancing in the nightclub, Dave Fleischer ordered Al to add more in-betweens to slow the action, emphasizing its suggestive nature. In scene 93, Beetle indignantly calls Hoppity a “long-legged leaping Lochinvar,” referring to the brave knight Lochinvar in Sir Walter Scott’s 1808 Scottish ballad Marmion. In Scott’s poem, Lochinvar dances with his beloved Ellen during her bridal feast, leading the two out the door and onto his horse, where the two ride off in the distance.
The next morning, as animated by Frank Endres, Hoppity strolls down to the Honey Shop, greeting his neighbors along the way. Scenes 96, 97, 97A, and 101 are left blank on this page: Frank Endres possibly handled the long shots in scenes 96 and 97, while Harold Walker might have animated scene 97A. Scene 97 has similarities in drawing to Walker’s animation in scene 99, with Mrs. Ladybug and her two children taking refuge in a tobacco tin. (The same layout is shown in scene 123, seen in the thumbnail sketches below, of Mrs. Ladybug emerging from the tin, also credited to Walker.)
The rotoscope-assisted scenes here are split between two animators—one for the kids playing hockey and another for Hoppity and the tin can. H.C. “Doc” Ellison (1902-1972) received credit as an animation director on Mr. Bug and was noted as an animator on the thumbnail storyboard. Presumably, Ellison supervised the rotoscoping of the kids scrimmaging for the tin can in Tom Johnson’s sequence. Ellison and George Germanetti are credited with the animation of scene 117, though Hoppity is not seen on-screen, Germanetti animated the tin can and the speed lines. (Note how this page in the director’s board denotes that scenes 103-113 and scene 118 were omitted from this section.)
Here are the panels for scenes 110-113 (via Heritage Auctions), with an inscription noting that Dave Fleischer ordered these scenes cut on May 12, 1941. Dave might’ve felt the scenes slowed down the sequence and chose to highlight Hoppity’s peril with a series of quick cuts.
Here is scene 118 (also from Heritage), revealing that Beetle, Swat, and Smack are delighted to see Hoppity in peril.
Sc. 122, given no credit in the thumbnails, is certainly Al Eugster’s work, based on scenes attributed to him throughout the sequence. Scene 124A continues the previous action in scene 124, so it is safe to assume Eugster also handled this scene.
Scene 125, left blank here, might be Eugster’s animation since his work dominates much of the last portions. Graham Place (1908-1981), a regular in Johnson’s shorts unit in 1940, animates Honey in scene 127, split between Place and Tom Moore (1901-1985). Place was an animation director on Mr. Bug, so Johnson may have asked him to animate Honey in that scene—perhaps Moore lacked the skill to animate her. Regardless, Johnson assigned scene 130 all to Tom Moore.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Except for the pages from Heritage, the working storyboard presented is courtesy of Mark Kausler’s collection. Thanks to Jerry Beck, Bob Jaques, Mike Barrier, and Mark Mayerson for additional information and materials on this post.
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DEVON BAXTER is a film restoration artist, video editor, and animation researcher/writer currently residing in Pennsylvania. He also hosts a 
Your description of the story of Lochinvar from Scott’s “Marmion” is accurate as far as it goes, but it’s important to point out that Lochinvar was not invited to Ellen’s bridal feast, and that she was betrothed to another man. Thus “Lochinvar” entered the English language as a term for a lover willing to resort to drastic, even desperate, measures in order to win his beloved. (A very similar scenario plays out in the climax of the movie “The Graduate”.) The reference would not have been at all obscure; Sir Walter Scott was by far the most popular author in the United States in the 1800s and was still widely read, and quoted, well into the twentieth century. He is also one of the reasons that “Scott” has become a common given name in the U.S. (the other being General Winfield Scott, hero of the Mexican War).
Funny how Swat thinks that “most people” dance the minuet in 1941….
The fact that Al Eugster was told by Dave Fleischer to animate Swat and Smack’s dancing (in imitation of Hoppity and Honey, of course) a little slower because it would be much more sexier, will never not be funny to me.
Thanks, Devon, for these excellent animator breakdowns. I have a soft spot for this film, a very good albeit doomed animated feature. Featuring character voices by storymen Tedd Pierce, Carl Meyer and, for once not playing Popeye, Jack Mercer, MR. BUG GOES TO TOWN includes imaginative and superlative work from the last years of the Fleischer Studio, as do the Superman cartoons. If there is an extended interview with Al Eugster, I’d love to read it.
Devon, thanks for showing some of the C. Christadoro figures for MR. BUG GOES TO TOWN! As Gordon Sheehan told myself and our mutual friend Mickey Gold, he lost a few of them over the decades, but I believe he told me that he had one – I think – of “Mr. Bumble” and gave it to a favorite nephew years and years ago. I’m so glad that Mike Barrier was able to identify the sculpter of those pieces. Gordon – as he said – was positive that the Paramount “money men” might not have “okeyed” the project, had they not seen those figurines!
I hope you find more info. on just who animated what. Both Gordon Sheehan and Dave Tendlar were vague as to what scenes they animated in the film, but on the other hand, had I sat there with either of them (which I COULD have done in Gordon Sheehan’s case), while watching the film, that would no doubt “spark” their memories. Gordon knew which animators worked on the various scenes shown in the Paramount POPULAR SCIENCE short of ALADDIN AND HIS WONDRFUL LAMP!